Yes, I do find it somewhat interesting that four years later, interviews are still addressing primarily "changing the culture" and "being winners" rather than X's and O's or W's and L's.
Frankly, I think CU may have intentionally prioritized PR and touchy-feely over W/L. Do the people in charge really care whether or not football or hoops are successful as long as the coaches and AD are good media people? Sometimes I wonder. And by sometimes, I mean all the time. If the guys running the athletic department (Bohn, Hawkins) don't really care about winning, I have to wonder what they are doing being involved in major college athletics, besides making a lot of money and not, up to current point in time, really producing in any significant capacity.
There are plenty of other venues in the world - with much less at stake - to teach kids life lessons. High school sports. Little league. In the community.
Fact is, we can talk about character guys all we want. In reality - and this is just from observation, I haven't actually tallied anything - guys are still getting arrested fairly regularly. Guys are occasionally leaving the program (or, in Bz's case, frequently leaving the program). The teams are losing. A lot.
I honestly think at some point the $$ are going to start putting pressure on the AD to win, however, even if it is not a priority now because at some point the casual fans are going to stop going to the football games, like they have done with basketball games, because they don't care to invest signiifcant amounts of time and money to see mediocre teams-at-best teams, which is, IMO, an accurate way to classify CU FB and BB over the past several years.
I have already started to notice significant attendance problems at FB games midway through the season. Students, in particular, aren't showing up because they don't ever remember CU being good and they just don't give a ****. A lot of the guys on this board, I think, don't necessarily realize this because you guys have memories of CU being a really, really good football program. Younger CU fans don't. And reality is, at a school like CU, if the team is bad for years at a time, people stop caring. That is the way at most schools, I would think, actually. Places like Nebraska are an exception. One, they rarely have long down stretches, two, there isn't anything else going on at their university to occupy people's time. Point being, football must start winning games soon, or the AD is going to be really strapped for cash.
Is CU not in the position that losing any more sports programs at all is going to jeaporadize our D1 status? We have a lot riding on the successes of the fb team right now, I think, particularly when you consider the immediate future of the mbb team, which even the most determined optimistic among you I think will admit is pretty bleak atm.
I agree that it's time to focus on Ws and Ls. And I too have noted some of the adverse character issues in spite of "good guy" rhetoric. It's been better since last fall, and I hope our guys continue to keep their noses clean.
Here's where I disagree with your post.
Bohn must necessarily realize the correlation between winning and revenue generation. I get the impression that you believe that it will slap him in the forehead someday, but I assure you he already knows. And of course, the primary focus on Ws must must be with our revenue generating sport, football. It all starts there.
You further seem to believe that our Athletic Director is very concerned with Public Relations and not so concerned with a winning football program. I'd argue in the short term, the public relations will generate the private donations required to support a long-term winning program in the long run. It seems like a reasonable blueprint. Especially when you considered the enormous public relations disasters associated with the Tharp era. Public relations and winning are not mutually exclusive.
Where I primarily disagree with your post is your suspicion that Bohn and Hawk don't really care that much about winning.
Bohn brought in the head coach from Boise State. A guy that was most ready to make the jump to a BCS affiliated program and who boasted one of the best winning percentages in D-1 football. It was a smart hire, and really it brought in the best guy that we good afford with our meager resources.
Bohn has also supported significant upgrades to the lockeroom and practice facilities. Upgrades designed to attract star recruits.
To me he has shown a committment to winning. He can't fire Coach Hawkins for two reasons. It would set the program back, and undermine the foundational progress Coach Hawkins has made in bringing in a solid talent base.
Programs like Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Florida and nebraska can get away with swapping coaches around following a year-or-two of subpar results. Those schools have the name recognition which permits them to continue to attract star talent, and they can afford to pay coaches the big bucks--the sort of coaches that high school recruits recognize by name and face. But even most of those schools suffer in the short term. Look at Oklahoma and Texas in the 90s, Michigan last year, Notre Dame since 1990 and nebraska for this current millennium. Those coaching changes have taken their toll on even programs that should suffer minimally from such changes.
Coach Hawkins has somewhat overachieved on recruiting despite fighting against negative perceptions of our university. He came into a tough situation and is building in the right direction. Fast enough? I don't know, because while we talk about how bad things were when he arrived, I can't tell you honestly how he's done with what he's had to work with. I've got a hunch which says that things were pretty bad, and he's done the most with what he was given. I'm sure you and I (and syko) will continue to disagree on that point and that's okay.
But I tell you one thing, I don't question the man's drive to win. I still believe he's building something special and his media savvy serves as a foundation for winning games, not a substitute.
Finally, your post lacks what I see as a viable alternative. Like I said, we made a smart hire on paper (and I happen to believe in reality as well). What would you differently? Make another hire? That would set the program back even further.
As I've said in previous posts, programs like Kansas and Missouri demonstrate what a sustained tenure can do for a coach. It takes more time for the "have nots" to build a winning program. Look, I'm impatient too, and I genuinely hope this is the year (I graduated in 93 and stuck around for another year of grad school--my expectations are pretty high). But if it's not, I don't really see what choice we have except to wait it out and wait for it to pay dividends.
What would you do differently?
