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How accountable is Bohn for poor record in 3 major sports?

buffsyko

Club Member
Club Member
I like bohn, I think he's worked his butt off trying to get the community and fans involved and has done a nice job but, all his hires aren't doing so great. When he brings in the next CU coach, I hope it works out and he brings cu back to respectability but are we confident he can find the right guy?
 
he inherited a mess with Barnett and "the scandal", Patton's self-lame-ducking his final year (and RP's mastermind 9 seniors class the year before) and the retirement of Ceal.....but, he's made all 3 successive hires so i say he's pretty much on the hook if not now, then pretty quick.
 
I think he has worked wonders from a revenue and visibility standpoint for the University so I'm willing to let him stay a bit longer. If he gets a solid FB coach I think the program will see record revenues and crowds.

Edit: IF he fires Hawk this year, I'm willing to give him longer. If not, I will call for his head too.
 
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both Bizdelik & Hawkins looked like great hires at the time-
I don't follow woman's basketball so I can comment on that hire.
 
I think he has worked wonders from a revenue and visibility standpoint for the University.

agree with that 100%. when i say on the hook, i only mean there's going to be some expectation of improvement/accountability time coming pretty soon without demonstrable improvement. not that i think he should "get the hook", as in fired.
 
agree with that 100%. when i say on the hook, i only mean there's going to be some expectation of improvement/accountability time coming pretty soon without demonstrable improvement. not that i think he should "get the hook", as in fired.

Second that. However, I think he needs to be judged more on the money he is bringing into the AD. Winning certainly helps with that, but he is a relentless fund raiser. This is something that had been missing for a long time, well before the scandal.

Unfortunately he has had to be a slave to money, or lack there of, and had to take some unpopular deals. Further, our last "major" facility upgrade was the Dal Ward center. The fund raising portion of the the AD was almost non-existent. Couple that with the image change and I think Bohn has done a good job. I, for one, cannot fault him for the hire of Hawk or Buzz. At the time, they were both viewed as great hires. Any stories contrary to this is revisionist history.
 
I can't blame him too much, Hawk was a good hire when it happened, the extension and buyout money sucks, but Bohn will make mistakes. Not familiar with bball at all, but it seems Bizdelik was a good hire too.
 
He's 100% accountable, he's the AD.

Especially since he picked all the coaches and none of them have shown signs of improving their team's standings.
 
I like bohn, I think he's worked his butt off trying to get the community and fans involved and has done a nice job but, all his hires aren't doing so great. When he brings in the next CU coach, I hope it works out and he brings cu back to respectability but are we confident he can find the right guy?

i think that the bolded part of your statement is the one that needs most of the weight. i think you are placing almost all of your emphasis on the secondary issue ("back to respectability").

at this point, i do not think jesus would be able to fix our football program and turn it to what i knew in college. anyone who places all emphasis on a winning record for AD is bound to disappointment, imo.
 
McConnell-Miller wasn't exactly a homerun hire. She was 91-88 at Tulsa over 6 years in her only other head coaching experience. That's better than it looks because the program had won a total of 81 games over the 14 seasons before she took over, but I still think we could have gotten a bigger name to take over for Ceal Barry.

Supposedly she needs to win this year or she's gone.
 
I like bohn, I think he's worked his butt off trying to get the community and fans involved and has done a nice job but, all his hires aren't doing so great. When he brings in the next CU coach, I hope it works out and he brings cu back to respectability but are we confident he can find the right guy?

i say he gets to bring in one. if that goes bad. he gets one more. if that goes bad.....

gone.

simple.

great job with the ad but....that stuff will only last so long with a crappy product on the field.
 
Bohn has his hands tied, a bit. Everyone was on the Hawk bandwagon, at the time. Bzdelic, I don't know. The culture in BBall is a hard one to fix. Ceal was losing it and got out in the nick of time.

If we want to win in athletics, it starts at the top. And I mean above Bohn.
 
If we want to win in athletics, it starts at the top. And I mean above Bohn.

The administration needs to open the clearinghouse window. Gordon Gee did it. We will not be competitive in the Big 12 consistently if that doesn't happen.
 
The administration needs to open the clearinghouse window. Gordon Gee did it. We will not be competitive in the Big 12 consistently if that doesn't happen.

i will say something on this subject.

someone i know personaly and talk to often had a meeting with CU AD members. two of them. had one meeting with both of them. then a meeting with them each, on a one on one individual basis. they are not high up mucky mucks. one had been with the CU AD for 6 months. the other for 2 years. the purpose of thier jobs was to reach out to some doners/buff club members and hear thier thoughts about..... well, whatever was on thier mind.

the situation of the admin/faculity support was brought up and some of thier lack of support. this person that i know brought up this point....

my words but more or less....

"you have no better advocates for the athletic program than the athletes themselves. what you are not doing.... as far as i can tell, is getting these kids in touch with, on a personal basis with the professors/faculity that have a problem with the athletic program. and on top of that, you have no better advocate than eric mccarty (i believe is his name) who is the head doctor for the AD and a former CU football player. if that does not suggest that those kids can become something other than 'jocks'.... i dont know what will. no matter what, they need to be involved to get the faculity turned around."

again, my words to best describe the situation as i remember what was told to me.

the reaction? especially to the EM idea was taken as positive. does not mean anything will be done about it....

as best to my knowledge given what was said to me. just a positive reaction.

fwiw....
 
i will say something on this subject.

someone i know personaly and talk to often had a meeting with CU AD members. two of them. had one meeting with both of them. then a meeting with them each, on a one on one individual basis. they are not high up mucky mucks. one had been with the CU AD for 6 months. the other for 2 years. the purpose of thier jobs was to reach out to some doners/buff club members and hear thier thoughts about..... well, whatever was on thier mind.

the situation of the admin/faculity support was brought up and some of thier lack of support. this person that i know brought up this point....

my words but more or less....

"you have no better advocates for the athletic program than the athletes themselves. what you are not doing.... as far as i can tell, is getting these kids in touch with, on a personal basis with the professors/faculity that have a problem with the athletic program. and on top of that, you have no better advocate than eric mccarty (i believe is his name) who is the head doctor for the AD and a former CU football player. if that does not suggest that those kids can become something other than 'jocks'.... i dont know what will. no matter what, they need to be involved to get the faculity turned around."

again, my words to best describe the situation as i remember what was told to me.

the reaction? especially to the EM idea was taken as positive. does not mean anything will be done about it....

as best to my knowledge given what was said to me. just a positive reaction.

fwiw....
Sorry, I don't get it. Are you saying that athetics is trying to reach out to academics? How will that help anything?
 
I am not sure what your driving at with guys you spoke to? Our football players need to reach out to the faculty? We need to bring in more guys like Eric McCarty who can become doctors? I am not trying to disrespect you, just missing your point.
 
Bohn didn't run Mac or Barry off the job. Hiring coaches is a crapshoot. That's the main reason I wasn't calling for GB's head along with everyone else. It can always get worse...

As long as Hawk is replaced at year-end, and it looks like he's learning from his hiring mistakes, why shouldn't he stay?
 
He took over a department that was running in the red. First priority had to be getting costs under control, and he did that. Biggest keys to building a strong program in any sport are money and stability, and we haven't had much of either lately, in the revenue sports.

I'm not a big fan of his rah-rah schtick, and the W/L records of his coaches have been horrible so far, but I'm willing to cut him some slack here......
 
He took over a department that was running in the red. First priority had to be getting costs under control, and he did that. Biggest keys to building a strong program in any sport are money and stability, and we haven't had much of either lately, in the revenue sports.

I'm not a big fan of his rah-rah schtick, and the W/L records of his coaches have been horrible so far, but I'm willing to cut him some slack here......

Bingo. And this is understated.

While many people have fluffed Hawkins with excuses of the mess he walked into, if that was a mess, Bohn walked into an obliteration. With the restrictions Bohn walked in with, he has done a fabulous job, in particular, the financial situation the AD was in before he got here was scary. He has done so much for the University.

Does he deserve criticism? Absolutely, but he should get a little bit of a break considering there were very few questioning the hires of Squawk/Bzzz 2-3 years ago. We were all fooled, and I'm still optimistic about the bball program, as well as the football program, because I feel we have the talent here to compete for the North (Even a top 25 ranking).
 
I can't blame him too much, Hawk was a good hire when it happened, the extension and buyout money sucks, but Bohn will make mistakes. Not familiar with bball at all, but it seems Bizdelik was a good hire too.

Jeff Bzdelik was not a smart basketball hire. Great coach, zero track record with recruiting. The "coaching search" was a joke - they locked onto Jeff from day 1, and Bohn lied about how things were going.

I've been attending CU games for about 32 years now. If there is nothing else we've learned, it's that bringing in talent is job 1. The other jobs don't matter that much. Yet rather than bring in a great recruiter, we hired a former NBA / Air Force guy, where recruiting is a small matter.

Mike Bohn ignored us fans that know something about this deal. I for one tried to reach him and I got the usual "thanks for being a great fan! Go Buffs!." We're paying for it.

This guy does not know how to hire a winning coach. Bear that in mind as we call for Hawk's head.
 
This guy does not know how to hire a winning coach. Bear that in mind as we call for Hawk's head.


Bear in mind that Dan Hawkins had a head coaching W/L record of 94-22 when CU hired him.

Bear in mind that Jeff Bzdelik had a 50-16 W/L record in his time at Air Force, both seasons of which included post season tournament trips. Also bear in mind that Bzdelik came to CU with a wealth of NBA experience.

Bear in mind that both Hawkins and Bzdelik were "winning coaches" when CU hired them, and only someone with true clairvoyance would have been able to predict that Hawkins would still be struggling, four (4) years after being hired. Bzdelik is only beginning his third season at CU, so the jury is still out on just what he can do.

Bear in mind that Bohn is not clairvoyant.
 
While I will whole heartedly agree with what everyone is saying about how well Bohn has done getting the financials of the AD back on its feet, I think that's where his praise ends. He has a miserable track record of hiring coaches - just look back at his previous two stops, SDSU and Idaho.

SDSU - made the hot OC hire with Chuck Long, result - failed miserably, Long canned
Idaho - hired Tom Cable away from CU as a hot assistant hire, result - failed miserably (and doing so at the Raiders too, but that's Davis' fault:thumbsup:)

I have extended family in Idaho and talking to them, Bohn's track record here is par for the course - great numbers guy (i.e. get money in the coffers) but horrible at hiring the right people to run a program. He has run with the same formula here at CU and look at where we are - money in the coffers, top revenue sports in the toilets due to bad coaching hires (who were thought to be the "hot" hires at the time.)

However, one place where we can hopefully deviate from history is this - Bohn left all those previous programs before he had to make the call on canning his hot hire. With any luck, he stands up, admits his mistake with Hawk, and makes the right hire to bring us back. The infrastructure is at least in a better condition than it was before when Hawk was hired.

As for Bball, while I don't think we make the tourney this year, I definitely think we won't see another 20-loss season. It only takes one or two good recruits to turn around a basketball team, and I think Bzzz has a couple of those guys along with doing a good job in developing Higgins.

Bottom line - Bzzz needs to do well this year and Hawk needs to be gone, then maybe Bohn can get somewhere with continuing to build the AD.

Just my two cents...

Going Sinker and manning Battle Stations....
 
Bear in mind that Dan Hawkins had a head coaching W/L record of 94-22 when CU hired him.

Bear in mind that Jeff Bzdelik had a 50-16 W/L record in his time at Air Force, both seasons of which included post season tournament trips. Also bear in mind that Bzdelik came to CU with a wealth of NBA experience.

Bear in mind that both Hawkins and Bzdelik were "winning coaches" when CU hired them, and only someone with true clairvoyance would have been able to predict that Hawkins would still be struggling, four (4) years after being hired. Bzdelik is only beginning his third season at CU, so the jury is still out on just what he can do.

Bear in mind that Bohn is not clairvoyant.

Quite possibly your best post - ever.

I think Bohn has to bear a certain amount of responsibility for the fact that the two revenue sports are both at the bottom of the conference. The coaches he's hired in those positions have turned out to be failures, especiall Hawkins. Bzdelik is given a longer leash because nobody really cares about basketball. However, football is the cash cow, and it's about to stop providing milk. Bohn is, at his essence, a businessman. He gets the financial side of things. He'd be perfectly happy with a .500 record if it meant the department was still making money. He also understands that expectations for the football team are much higher than that.

So how accountable is Bohn? He's ac****able up to the point of recognizing that the guy he hired for the job isn't getting the job done, and he needs to go find somebody who can. Hiring is always a crap shoot, and you never know for sure if your guy is going to be a winner. All you can do is make the most educated decision possible and cut your losses when you need to.
 
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Quite possibly your best post - ever.

I think Bohn has to bear a certain amount of responsibility for the fact that the two revenue sports are both at the bottom of the conference. The coaches he's hired in those positions have turned out to be failures, especiall Hawkins. Bzdelik is given a longer leash because nobody really cares about basketball. However, football is the cash cow, and it's about to stop providing milk. Bohn is, at his essence, a businessman. He gets the financial side of things. He'd be perfectly happy with a .500 record if it meant the department was still making money. He also understands that expectations for the football team are much higher than that.

So how accountable is Bohn? He's ac****able up to the point of recognizing that the guy he hired for the job isn't getting the job done, and he needs to go find somebody who can. Hiring is always a crap shoot, and you never know for sure if your guy is going to be a winner. All you can do is make the most educated decision possible and cut your losses when you need to.

spot on - he does need to find someone who can. are we going to rip bohn a new one precipitously? MOST people here were willing to give the HC one more year at the beginning of the season.

so now bohn is on the hot seat before that season is over because of???
 
I don't know about the womens BB hire, but both Buzz and Hawk looked like great hires (although I can see the no-recruiting experience issue with Buzz) at the time. He is great with fund raising. Now we get to see if he can raise enough to let Hawk move on and get CU back on track. I think we have enoguh talent that the right FB HC hire would mean immediate progress next season. If he gives ANY HC an extension after a 6 win season then I go on the 'Bohn needs to go' bandwagon. Without that mistake we would not even be having a 'will he let Hawk go' conversation. It would be a done deal. If he would have waited until year three for Hawk to make a 7-8 win season with a bowl game before giving an extention, then we would have been golden. I hope he learned from that.

LB, I need your email again so I can send pics of the girls.
 
Hiring is one part of Bohn's job. He outsourced this to Neinas.

I'd argue that hiring is only a part of the equation. Bohn should be held accountable for attracting, retaining and developing the talent of his direct reports.

What, exactly, has Bohn done to develop Hawkin's talent during his tenure in Boulder?

Seems like Bohn has given DH carte blanche to do the coaching stuff while Bohn focuses on the marketing and finances.

So my question for the board is: Should Bohn have spent energy developing the talent of Hawkins?

Conversely, should TO not spend energy developing the talent of Pelini?
 
Jeff Bzdelik was not a smart basketball hire. Great coach, zero track record with recruiting. The "coaching search" was a joke - they locked onto Jeff from day 1, and Bohn lied about how things were going.

I've been attending CU games for about 32 years now. If there is nothing else we've learned, it's that bringing in talent is job 1. The other jobs don't matter that much. Yet rather than bring in a great recruiter, we hired a former NBA / Air Force guy, where recruiting is a small matter.

Mike Bohn ignored us fans that know something about this deal. I for one tried to reach him and I got the usual "thanks for being a great fan! Go Buffs!." We're paying for it.

This guy does not know how to hire a winning coach. Bear that in mind as we call for Hawk's head.

Well, time may be proving you right, but I loved this hire at the time. First, you have to consider the desireablity of this job. Announcing we are hiring a coach is simply not going to turn top bball coaching candidates heads.

Bzdelic was the anti-Patton hire, an expert x's and o's guy by all accounts with an NBA background. A lot of us thought he could take the talent Patton had at the time and make it competitive right away. He beat Wake, Tech, et al with less talent at AFA, why could he not do it with the players Patton had recruited?

I don't fault Bohn for the Bzdelic hire. I don't fault him for the Hawkins hire, either. The biggest thing I can find fault with was an extension that was premature in Hawkins case. Hawkins would have been unlikely to jump ship with his son on the roster, that could have waited a year.
 
Eddie Crowder hired Fairbanks. One of the last hires he made was Mac.

Enough said. No way you can predict who will pan out and who will flame out.
 
Bzdelik will get a lot longer to build the basketball program simply because this school doesn't bleed basketball and it generally goes unnoticed by the CU and Boulder community. I don't think he's really done such a bad job either. I'm not a huge fan of the slower paced style we emphasize, but he's at least showing his coaching abilities in his players. Higgins obviously was a hidden gem of a recruit. He could be an all Big-12 first team player, and a candidate for the player of the year. We actually look like a team on the rise now too (granted its been one game, but at least we have multiple scorers this season).

Hawkins on the other hand has been a complete failure. Bohn can redeem himself with a good hire. Thats if he is willing to fire Hawkins which must happen to save his job and this program from complete disaster.
 
Could be that the problems run deeper than at the coaching level. Could be that CU needs to rethink itself in regards to athletics. Could be that the ones in control just don't give a **** about sports.
 
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