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Mac was 100% correct

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
Not about the need to get "real Buffs" in to fix CU football. That was wrong-headed.

But going from the "real Buffs" assumption, he had an absolutely correct read on the coaching prospects.

Short of somehow pulling an inside straight and landing Les Miles, no one was capable of turning this around quickly and no one was qualified to run the show just yet.

Mac said that he needed to be the HC. He could weather the storm of losing for a couple years while putting the right organizational structure in place. He could use that time to mentor Embree and get him better prepared to become a head football coach.

Mac saw that this was probably 2 years of losing football and then an opportunity to progress a bit to mediocrity and a bowl game by year 3 or year 4. If done right, he thought he could get it to that point and stock the cupboard with decent talent and an "identity" of schemes. By that point, someone like Embree would be ready to step in and run with it.

That was the wrong plan. Mac may not have been able to do any better on the recruiting front than we've seen and Embree simply doesn't seem to have it. But Mac did read the situation correctly and see the only path where the "real Buffs" plan had a chance of succeeding.

Mac may have been away from this too long, may not get all that has changed in the past 18 years, may not be as much at 72 as he was at 54... but he is capable of looking at a football organization and knowing what kind of rebuild it is looking at. He really wanted Embree to be successful and I think in his heart he knows that Embree was put in a position he wasn't ready for and is just hoping that if he pulls out all stops that he can give Embree cover to learn on the job and not go down as a complete failure.

Sadly, it has become clear. This job is beyond Embree. There will be no turn around until changes are made. CU needs to stop thinking nostalgia is a path to the future.
 
It would of been even worse if Mac came back and lost like this.

Im not going to sit here and say it would've been any better, but i don't think Mac would have lost to CSU or Sac St.
Embree got flat out outcoached in those two instances. It was embarrassing.

Again though, with or without him we would still be a losing football team.
 
Im not going to sit here and say it would've been any better, but i don't think Mac would have lost to CSU or Sac St. Embree got flat out outcoached in those two instances. It was embarrassing.

Again though, with or without him we would still be a losing football team.
The perception of the program would be even worse. Hiring a coach who hadn't coached in well over 12 years and losing that'd look good..
 
Im not going to sit here and say it would've been any better, but i don't think Mac would have lost to CSU or Sac St.
Embree got flat out outcoached in those two instances. It was embarrassing.

Again though, with or without him we would still be a losing football team.

+1

He'd have put in one offense, not three. He'd have established a QB for the entire year. He'd have prevented EB from making some of those bad play calls. He'd have managed the game day (and likely the practices) a lot better. He'd have coached to the talent we have. This staff made some rookie mistakes that he'd have probably diverted them from.

I suspect we'd have won a few more than we did. And had closer games than we did when we lost. There is no fixing the OL and DL problems and other talent deficits we have. But we could have played around them a little better.
 
CU is not some special case. All it takes is the right guy. Just look around and see what other guys have done at other schools. Turn arounds happen all the time and they happen pretty quickly at a lot of schools.
 
CU is not some special case. All it takes is the right guy. Just look around and see what other guys have done at other schools. Turn arounds happen all the time and they happen pretty quickly at a lot of schools.

Yup. It can be done. We, unfortunately, have just had a bad run since Barnett.
 
I never really understood the Boulder is special idea. Yes Boulder is a very unique place, but being so close to denver and the urban sprawl CU has a large local footprint of support.
 
Yup. It can be done. We, unfortunately, have just had a bad run since Barnett.

The run under Barnett wasn't exactly spectacular. He had those 2 really good years when Neuheisel's last couple recruiting classes were upperclassmen. Otherwise it was pretty "meh".
 
The run under Barnett wasn't exactly spectacular. He had those 2 really good years when Neuheisel's last couple recruiting classes were upperclassmen. Otherwise it was pretty "meh".

Yeah, he kinda checked out on recruiting top talent after that bad experience with that one RB.
 
We've had a bad run since Mac. Neuheimlich started the down turn with his recruiting midgets and lack of discipline, Barnett tried to turn it around but stepped on his own dick, Hawkins' juice box mentality fit in well with Boulder but not with division 1 football and Embree had us swan dive off of the flatirons.
 
The run under Barnett wasn't exactly spectacular. He had those 2 really good years when Neuheisel's last couple recruiting classes were upperclassmen. Otherwise it was pretty "meh".

I think this kind of thinking is what gets programs into trouble. I think Barnett's record is on par with reasonable expectations for CU.

-You have a few really good runs at conference championships where you're in the discussion for a national title.

-You have a larger number of middle of the pack years.

- You have to endure a couple of craptastic years as you ride through the cycles

You can set expectations as high as you want, but the reality in the ultra competitive and zero sum world of college football, big money, big resources and big admin committment is the only way any program can consistently outperform the competition at the highest levels.
 
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