What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Hawk Trauma - can you get over it?

Gold

Well-Known Member
What is Hawk Trauma? It's when you make statements like:

1. I'm nervous about Mac's SJSU coming to CU, they're amateurs
2. I've heard good pressers before, prove it on the field, don't talk a good game
3. Bohn screwed up again, didn't get a BCS coach like he said

Oddly, the Embree era isn't a parallel because no BCS school would ever hire a TE coach to run their program. But we're still traumatized by Hawk. To counter the above:

1a. Hawk lost because the mastermind was Chris Petersen. Had Petersen come to CU, the Hawk era could have morphed into the Petersen CU era. Mac should not start fresh with new coordinators at a new gig. That's setting him up for failure just like Hawk.

2a. CU needs enthusiasm. Media sarcasm and negative bias aside, the fans and players need a coach that can talk a good game. Hawk quickly turned sour, and Embree coached like a petulant child on the sidelines.

3. Bohn didn't ruin your life. Yes, he should have gotten Petersen from Boise St to come with as a non-starter, but a lot of people were fooled by Hawks incredible record. While that's a big f up, I understand how that error happened. And for the BCS level hire, did everyone miss how UT overpaid for Jones? He took more money. All other big name coaches weren't interested, primarily because of Hawk and Embrees legacy of losing.
 
Rep given. Specifically love point 1a. I'll take his coordinators if that is what he believes in over dictating to him that he hire someone else with a bigger name.

With that said, Hawkins was scrambling for an OC when he hired Helfrich. Really, none of the assistants we've had here in 7 years have proven much to me. None. Tui and Kennedy seemed to do good work with limited talent.
 
Is it "Post Traumatic Hawk Disorder" or "Post Hawk Stress Disorder?" Whatever it is, I suffer from it. Didn't Hawk, too, say his wife was his best recruiting job during his introduction? When MacIntyre cracked that joke, I went into a fetal position and began sucking my thumb. :lol:
 
Hawkins failed because he thought he was smarter than everyone else and was inflexible regarding his life and football philosophies. The only thing he ever changed was the offense, which he did every year. He didn't make enough changes to his staff, he brought in "good guys" instead of qualified guys, he recruited and started his undersized son at QB, he had risky recruiting classes followed by lazy classes, and never figured it out. Still hasn't.

If MikeMac does all of these things, we will see a Hawk refrain. Otherwise, different coach.
 
He definitely did. When Mac said "it was a good deal" referring to keeping 3 previous staffers from the former SJSU staff, I had a Hawk flashback to his infamous "we know how to do this deal" line. Different contexts, but the word "deal" is ruined for me.


Agree we haven't had a solid coordinator in years. We have to give Mac the benefit of the doubt on his coordinators. He's big on recruiting strategies, so I anticipate adding a few coaches with Colorado HS ties, in addition to select members of the Cali staff to keep established HS relations running.
 
Hawk was the last HC I was excited about. I remain cautiously optimistic about MacIntyre. I am pulling for him, but yeah, the Hawkins debacle followed by the Embree debacle has me a little wary of any HC hired by Bohn.
 
Hawkins failed because he thought he was smarter than everyone else and was inflexible regarding his life and football philosophies. The only thing he ever changed was the offense, which he did every year. He didn't make enough changes to his staff, he brought in "good guys" instead of qualified guys, he recruited and started his undersized son at QB, he had risky recruiting classes followed by lazy classes, and never figured it out. Still hasn't.

If MikeMac does all of these things, we will see a Hawk refrain. Otherwise, different coach.

Hawks enthusiasm was a farce from the beginning. He was an ego maniac, and enthusiastic about himself. Having Petersen would have obviously been a game changer for us on the X's and O's. The offense would have never put up only 10pts on Montana St. under Petersen. Hawk's era was doomed from the start by not bringing him. Sure, the other Boise guys sucked, but having a solid offense would have made things easier for everyone.

Hawk also failed because of his recruiting strategy. He was pulling guys from all over the map. Bad idea because retention rates were awful. Mac addressed that issue right off the bat about how Cali and Colorado are the two primary states. It's so simple it's genius.
 
so over hawk and way over water bottle already... ready for a fresh new start.

GO BUFFS!!
 
I don't think you can compare JuiceBox to Coach Mac.

1. JuiceBox played football at a FCS school while Coach Mac played football in the SEC and ACC. Edge: Coach Mac.

2. JuiceBox was never a coordinator at the FBS level while Coach Mac was a coordinator at Duke and doing well at Duke means you are a special coach. Steve Suprrier coached there before going to Florida. Edge: Coach Mac.

3. JuiceBox was simply asked to maintain BSU's upward trajectory from the previous coaching staff. Coach Mac had to build up SJSU from something worse than where CU is at. Edge: Coach Mac.

4. JuiceBox coached at a school that offered degrees in trucking while Coach Mac played/coached at schools such as Vandy, Duke, Georgia Tech, and Ole Miss which are more like CU. JuiceBox will hit it big again if he is offered an opportunity at the right school. Arizona State would have been the best fit for Hawkins and we know how the last BSU guy did there.

Compare JuiceBox & Coach Mac to Bill McCartney & Gary Barnett and see how much more Coach Mac's background is similar to both former CU coaches before they came up to Boulder.
 
I have Hawk trauma. I read the article in the Camera and saw something about how MikeMac likes personnel groupings and I almost puked. Then I remembered plenty of coaches can handle personnel groupings successfully and I shouldn't let my experience with Hawk make me heave.
 
I have to admit that when I hear stuff like references to working on the little things, my bull**** meter goes into hyperdrive.
 
[Quote\1. JuiceBox played football at a FCS school while Coach Mac played football in the SEC and ACC. Edge: Coach Mac.\Quote]

Davis wasn't even FCS at the time. The were DII. Pretty good DII, but none-the-less.
 
Last edited:
What scared me was when he started rambling off his qualifications - "we had the top 3 sackers...we had the top 4 tackles for loss...we had the blah blah blah tight end". When people try to justify their position, especially after they already have the job, it weirdos me out. Hawk used to compare BSU's offense to CU's all the time.
 
Hawk taught me to be passive towards and dismissive of comments made in banquet speeches, LOI events, spring and fall camp interviews, and basically everything that happens between 4Q 0:00 of the last game and 1Q 15:00 of the following match up.
 
Hawk's schtick was cute when he was winning, or appeared to be building a winner. When it became obvious that he had no idea what he was doing, and was just a worthless platitude machine, it then became unbearable.
 
What scared me was when he started rambling off his qualifications - "we had the top 3 sackers...we had the top 4 tackles for loss...we had the blah blah blah tight end". When people try to justify their position, especially after they already have the job, it weirdos me out. Hawk used to compare BSU's offense to CU's all the time.

After watching a few of his press conferences, he's pretty big on numbers. Good numbers = wins. I don't see how you could have a problem with this. His numbers are real, Hawk's numbers were made up in his mind.
 
After watching a few of his press conferences, he's pretty big on numbers. Good numbers = wins. I don't see how you could have a problem with this. His numbers are real, Hawk's numbers were made up in his mind.

I have to admit, I would have been worried if Mac had said they were 3 plays away from being 12-0. :smile2:
 
Back
Top