HornBuff
Horns Down
In your opinion, what is Colorado’s business plan? What is your model for success in football and are there any other schools out there producing consistent positive results that CU could realistically emulate?
In my mind, there are four elements of success for a football PROGRAM, not in any particular order:
1. Proximity to deep reservoirs of high school football talent.
2. Total financial resources available to the athletic department, from any source.
3. Football culture and priority/importance of football with the school, community, state, region.
4. Coaching
This is stating the obvious, but usually, success is a result of some combination of the above. However, only one or maybe two of these are really under your control. Either you have it or you don’t, typically. Some schools are able to overcome big holes in one or two of these elements by making up for it in the others. I think, historically, Nebraska is a good example of that. Obviously, at least three of these elements are kind of interrelated and interdependent, but I think you can make some general observations that hold true for the most part. For example, football is kind of life and death for the good folks of Tuscaloosa, but not so much with the folks in Berkeley. It’s not good or bad; it just is what it is. The school and the community in Tuscaloosa will go to any lengths and spend any amount of money to produce winning football and they’ll keep trying until it happens. It’s just not the same in Berkeley.
Football is a zero sum game. For every win there is a corresponding loss. There will always be the same number of losses as wins in a college football season from year to year. The only question is the allocation. It’s not like it’s an expanding market where everyone can win. Microsoft may sell more X-boxes in a given year than Sony sells Playstations, but both companies can achieve “success” in an expanding market by selling more and more units. It’s not as important that one is selling more than the other. With football, it’s a market share game. It’s not enough to just get better, you need to be better than the other guy/team.
CU is in a tough position in my opinion.
1. Proximity to football talent is “ok” at best. Denver metro is a top-20 MSA in terms of population, but it’s kind of an island. Once you leave the MSA it’s a very long way in any direction to another large population base.
2. Total financial resources are probably average and probably far below the “top-tier” schools.
3. Support from school, community and region for CU is very low relative to other successful programs. I think that’s CU’s biggest problem. Boulder is sort of a double edged sword. Awesome place to live. It’s a culture of health and sports, which, ironically is counterproductive for spectator sports. The masses would rather get out and participate in sports than sit on their ***** and watch sports. Again, I’m speaking in broad and general terms.
4. Coaching at CU is at the bottom of the barrel right now. I think you guys really screwed up firing GB. Major overreaction to the circumstances and a few bad losses. I think that guy was perfect for CU. That’s kind of the oddity of CU; the support is quite low, but the expectations are sky high. Barnett was doing pretty darn well at CU, considering the relative lack of support, but that’s another discussion.
So that’s what CU has to work with. How do you beat the other guys? How do you move to the front of the pack? What can you do better than the other guy is doing? What is your niche? What is your competitive advantage? It seems to me, CU, more than other schools, has to rely heavily on #4. Coach Mac is exhibit A. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of those guys just hanging around and typically, once those guys start winning they tend to want to get paid a lot of money.
In my mind, there are four elements of success for a football PROGRAM, not in any particular order:
1. Proximity to deep reservoirs of high school football talent.
2. Total financial resources available to the athletic department, from any source.
3. Football culture and priority/importance of football with the school, community, state, region.
4. Coaching
This is stating the obvious, but usually, success is a result of some combination of the above. However, only one or maybe two of these are really under your control. Either you have it or you don’t, typically. Some schools are able to overcome big holes in one or two of these elements by making up for it in the others. I think, historically, Nebraska is a good example of that. Obviously, at least three of these elements are kind of interrelated and interdependent, but I think you can make some general observations that hold true for the most part. For example, football is kind of life and death for the good folks of Tuscaloosa, but not so much with the folks in Berkeley. It’s not good or bad; it just is what it is. The school and the community in Tuscaloosa will go to any lengths and spend any amount of money to produce winning football and they’ll keep trying until it happens. It’s just not the same in Berkeley.
Football is a zero sum game. For every win there is a corresponding loss. There will always be the same number of losses as wins in a college football season from year to year. The only question is the allocation. It’s not like it’s an expanding market where everyone can win. Microsoft may sell more X-boxes in a given year than Sony sells Playstations, but both companies can achieve “success” in an expanding market by selling more and more units. It’s not as important that one is selling more than the other. With football, it’s a market share game. It’s not enough to just get better, you need to be better than the other guy/team.
CU is in a tough position in my opinion.
1. Proximity to football talent is “ok” at best. Denver metro is a top-20 MSA in terms of population, but it’s kind of an island. Once you leave the MSA it’s a very long way in any direction to another large population base.
2. Total financial resources are probably average and probably far below the “top-tier” schools.
3. Support from school, community and region for CU is very low relative to other successful programs. I think that’s CU’s biggest problem. Boulder is sort of a double edged sword. Awesome place to live. It’s a culture of health and sports, which, ironically is counterproductive for spectator sports. The masses would rather get out and participate in sports than sit on their ***** and watch sports. Again, I’m speaking in broad and general terms.
4. Coaching at CU is at the bottom of the barrel right now. I think you guys really screwed up firing GB. Major overreaction to the circumstances and a few bad losses. I think that guy was perfect for CU. That’s kind of the oddity of CU; the support is quite low, but the expectations are sky high. Barnett was doing pretty darn well at CU, considering the relative lack of support, but that’s another discussion.
So that’s what CU has to work with. How do you beat the other guys? How do you move to the front of the pack? What can you do better than the other guy is doing? What is your niche? What is your competitive advantage? It seems to me, CU, more than other schools, has to rely heavily on #4. Coach Mac is exhibit A. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of those guys just hanging around and typically, once those guys start winning they tend to want to get paid a lot of money.