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The worst jobs in P5 college football (ESPN Insider)

Sacky's point about the substandard media facilities at Folsom is an important one. Don't get me wrong, the IPF, new locker and weight room, etc were more important, and will be a bigger part of improving the results on the field and consequently media attention, but our press box may be the absolute worst press box in the P5, and it's probably one of the worst in all of FBS. It's not a pleasant working environment for the media, and while they are actually too professional to ever directly mention it, you can't argue that it leaves a positive impression.

It's not too hard to imagine a national media member actually wanting to cover a Buffs game, but choosing to go to an away game rather than sit in an uncomfortable rusty metal box for 4 or 5 hours. The fact that Boulder >>> any city in the Big 12 used to make this less of a problem for us, because hey a rusty metal box in Boulder is better than anything in Lincoln, Lubbock or Manhattan, but that is no longer as big of an advantage as it used to be.

And it's entirely reasonable to think that until this changes, the media narrative will always have a "CU needs to improve facilities" undercurrent.
 
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That's a pretty rosy outlook for CU for a change, but they lost me with their "fertile recruiting grounds" reference to Denver
 
As much as anything it is important for the media narrative to be that we are on the rise. It would be great for us to do some kind of new marketing/PR campaign over the next couple years to help boost perception and help make recruits feel like we are the new fresh team on the scene.
 
As much as anything it is important for the media narrative to be that we are on the rise. It would be great for us to do some kind of new marketing/PR campaign over the next couple years to help boost perception and help make recruits feel like we are the new fresh team on the scene.

Agree. That has to be one of the top items on the priority list from whoever replaces Benson and DiStefano.
 
Why does it have to wait for them to leave?

I don't think Benson is a problem but as long as DiStephano is occupying his office we will be limited. He is simply not the kind of leader who can or will support dynamic changes and significant cultural moves.

The facilities upgrades and other initiatives that Rick George has accomplished have I believe been done mostly in spite of Dr. Phil, not because of him. They are happening because Benson finally decided that the stench from the decay in athletics in Boulder was to bad to ignore and he passed down the word to at least start to patch things up. He probably got tired of big money boosters asking him why athletics was such an embarrassment.

Trouble is the if Dr. Phil is good at any one thing it is playing politics and keeping his job. I don't think he leaves until Benson does at which point I think any competent new president of the system will want to make his mark on the flagship campus and put his own guy in place.
 
I don't think Benson is a problem but as long as DiStephano is occupying his office we will be limited. He is simply not the kind of leader who can or will support dynamic changes and significant cultural moves.

The facilities upgrades and other initiatives that Rick George has accomplished have I believe been done mostly in spite of Dr. Phil, not because of him. They are happening because Benson finally decided that the stench from the decay in athletics in Boulder was to bad to ignore and he passed down the word to at least start to patch things up. He probably got tired of big money boosters asking him why athletics was such an embarrassment.

Trouble is the if Dr. Phil is good at any one thing it is playing politics and keeping his job. I don't think he leaves until Benson does at which point I think any competent new president of the system will want to make his mark on the flagship campus and put his own guy in place.

Doesn't answer my question
 
As much as anything it is important for the media narrative to be that we are on the rise. It would be great for us to do some kind of new marketing/PR campaign over the next couple years to help boost perception and help make recruits feel like we are the new fresh team on the scene.

I think 2015 was supposed to be the rebrand year with new facilities and uniforms. However 2-10 and a potential bowl-less season ended that discussion imo
 
I don't think Benson is a problem but as long as DiStephano is occupying his office we will be limited. He is simply not the kind of leader who can or will support dynamic changes and significant cultural moves.

The facilities upgrades and other initiatives that Rick George has accomplished have I believe been done mostly in spite of Dr. Phil, not because of him. They are happening because Benson finally decided that the stench from the decay in athletics in Boulder was to bad to ignore and he passed down the word to at least start to patch things up. He probably got tired of big money boosters asking him why athletics was such an embarrassment.

Trouble is the if Dr. Phil is good at any one thing it is playing politics and keeping his job. I don't think he leaves until Benson does at which point I think any competent new president of the system will want to make his mark on the flagship campus and put his own guy in place.
I'm getting tired of the DiStefano stuff. I think his impact is overblown.
 
I'm getting tired of the DiStefano stuff. I think his impact is overblown.

If Phil hadn't pushed for keeping him we would have been done with Hawk at least a year earlier. Had we had a competent person in the Chancellors office we wouldn't have gone cheap with a replacement coaching staff that included a HC and two Coordinators who had zero experience as coordinators or head coaches. If Phil had not stood in the way we wouldn't be so far behind in terms of getting facilities started.

Is he the entire reason we have fallen so hard, of course not. Is he a big part of the reason, absolutely.

His desk is where responsibility for what happens on the Boulder campus ends up. What has he done to show that he isn't at the point of the problems.
 
I'm getting tired of the DiStefano stuff. I think his impact is overblown.

I agree with DBT on this one.

It does seem like we are finally getting past it. I don't think that Dr. Phil had a revelation, I think his boss Benson told him enough was enough and time to get moving a different direction.
 
I'm getting tired of the DiStefano stuff. I think his impact is overblown.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I'm tired of the DiSefano stuff, too. His impact is underblown.

After 38 years on CU's campus, it's a valid question to wonder how much gas he has in the tank, and whether he really is the right guy to be a custodian of the CU Boulder flagship campus.

Maybe we can get Alabama Chancellor Robert Witt to help kill the CSU football program like what he did with UAB. :lol:
Or the TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini who oversees a school with 10,000 students and 18 varsity teams. This guy knows fundraising.
Or A&M Chancellor John Sharp who is a national political heavy weight.
Or UT Chancellor Admiral William McRaven who is a bona fide national hero.

Or we can keep Phil DiStefano around, who's only Wiki listing is tied to Ward Churchill.

Let's give Dr. Phil a free pass. Let him stay around for as long as he wants and spend our collective Allbuffs wisdom arguing about the merits of changing uniforms to get better recruits.
 
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I agree wholeheartedly.

I'm tired of the DiSefano stuff, too. His impact is underblown.

After 38 years on CU's campus, it's a valid question to wonder how much gas he has in the tank.

Maybe we can get Alabama Chancellor Robert Witt to help kill the CSU football program like what he did with UAB. :lol:
Or the TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini who oversees a school with 10,000 students and 18 varsity teams. This guy knows fundraising.
Or A&M Chancellor John Sharp who is a national political heavy weight.
Or UT Chancellor Admiral William McRaven who is a bona fide national hero.

Or we can keep Phil DiStefano around, who's only Wiki listing is tied to Ward Churchill.

Let's give Dr. Phil a free pass. Let him stay around for as long as he wants and spend our collective Allbuffs wisdom arguing about the merits of changing uniforms to get better recruits.
If only we had those team's donors/budgets.
 
When we won the MNC and were on a roll, I don't recall that donations started pouring in. I prefer to put more credence into our AD.


U of Alabama Endowment: $632M
U of Colorado Endowment: $1.1B

You get the results you prioritize.
 
If only we had those team's donors/budgets.

How will we know if we don't have a Chancellor who aggressively goes out and tries to change things.

We may never have the kind of support that some other schools have but you can't tell me that we couldn't have much more that we do if we had a chancellor who was an active and positive advocate for the university.

Skid hits the nail on the head, the guy is an empty suit.

I would find it much easier to give him a pass if he had some outstanding area of accomplishment even outside of athletics. He doesn't. What area have CU leaped forward in as a result of DiStefano's leadership? What significant new programs has he brought in, what programs have leaped into elite status as a result of his efforts. The best you can say for him is that most areas haven't lost significant ground.

A good way to look at it is by asking when was the last time we heard about another school trying to hire him away. Colorado has a history of Chancellors moving on to higher paying or higher status jobs. What other schools want Dr. Phil.

He is a living example of the Peter principle.
 
How will we know if we don't have a Chancellor who aggressively goes out and tries to change things.

We may never have the kind of support that some other schools have but you can't tell me that we couldn't have much more that we do if we had a chancellor who was an active and positive advocate for the university.

Skid hits the nail on the head, the guy is an empty suit.

I would find it much easier to give him a pass if he had some outstanding area of accomplishment even outside of athletics. He doesn't. What area have CU leaped forward in as a result of DiStefano's leadership? What significant new programs has he brought in, what programs have leaped into elite status as a result of his efforts. The best you can say for him is that most areas haven't lost significant ground.

A good way to look at it is by asking when was the last time we heard about another school trying to hire him away. Colorado has a history of Chancellors moving on to higher paying or higher status jobs. What other schools want Dr. Phil.

He is a living example of the Peter principle.


Let's be fair. He killed 420 on campus with fishy smelling fertilizer and Wycliff Jean. I just don't get how SmokeyMcPots still has a hard-on for that guy.
 
Leadership at CU involves more than a couple of people. While I am not a big fan of DiStefano, I also believe the problems run much deeper including a mindset within many parts of the University and Boulder Community that is anti-athletics. It is also tough for an outsider to come in and be effective in that role because of some of the existing attitudes. Bud Peterson had the role shortly and could not wait to leave.

CU Football (which is what makes the AD even function) is suffering the results of what happened when the administration allowed an incident to be blown out of proportion to become a scandal on the same level as the Penn State scandal (at least locally). The administration threw athletics under the bus and hired an AD that would not rock the boat and would always try to make sure everyone was appeased (an impossible task). The Rick George hiring signaled the end of that era, but the damage and wreckage still exists and will not be fixed right away.

Some fans want to claim that winning will fix everything. IMO, that outlook is naive at best. CU has lost a lot of donors and football season ticket holders and I suspect the trend is not changing this year. A few years ago the Buff Club had almost 10,000 donors, last year it was closer to 7500. The 10,000 number is low compared to our peers in the Pac 12 (or most of the other P5 conferences) to begin with and going lower puts CU at a big disadvantage. I think it is going to take more than 7 wins to get some of these people back on board and many of them will not come back.

Rick George has a big challenge in front of him.
 
Winning cures almost everything. Look at basketball, put a exciting product out on the field and the fans will flock back.
 
Leadership at CU involves more than a couple of people. While I am not a big fan of DiStefano, I also believe the problems run much deeper including a mindset within many parts of the University and Boulder Community that is anti-athletics. It is also tough for an outsider to come in and be effective in that role because of some of the existing attitudes. Bud Peterson had the role shortly and could not wait to leave.

CU Football (which is what makes the AD even function) is suffering the results of what happened when the administration allowed an incident to be blown out of proportion to become a scandal on the same level as the Penn State scandal (at least locally). The administration threw athletics under the bus and hired an AD that would not rock the boat and would always try to make sure everyone was appeased (an impossible task). The Rick George hiring signaled the end of that era, but the damage and wreckage still exists and will not be fixed right away.

Some fans want to claim that winning will fix everything. IMO, that outlook is naive at best. CU has lost a lot of donors and football season ticket holders and I suspect the trend is not changing this year. A few years ago the Buff Club had almost 10,000 donors, last year it was closer to 7500. The 10,000 number is low compared to our peers in the Pac 12 (or most of the other P5 conferences) to begin with and going lower puts CU at a big disadvantage. I think it is going to take more than 7 wins to get some of these people back on board and many of them will not come back.

Rick George has a big challenge in front of him.


Winning cures almost everything. Look at basketball, put a exciting product out on the field and the fans will flock back.

Winning is a requirement to bring the program back but BnG makes some solid points. The decay both inside and outside the program isn't something that happened overnight and it isn't going to be fixed overnight. Not only is football (and basketball) going to have to win but they are going to have to do it over a number of years.

If the athletic department can put quality product on the field (and court) then the fans and the donors will come back and with the growth in the region new ones can be added. At the same time a lot of these people are going to be cautious taking a wait and see attitude before jumping into backing the program again.
 
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Winning is a requirement to bring the program back but BnG makes some solid points. The decay both inside and outside the program isn't something that happened overnight and it isn't going to be fixed overnight. Not only is football (and basketball) going to have to win but they are going to have to do it over a number of years.

If the athletic department can put quality product on the field (and court) then the fans and the donors will come back and with the growth in the region new ones can be added. At the same time a lot of these people are going to be cautious taking a wait and see attitude before jumping into backing the program again.

I think the seats start filling in Folsom pretty damn quickly at the first sign of the Buffs being a 7 win per season caliber team. Lot of disillusioned fans/alums who we lost somewhere between 2009 and 2012 will show up again. Now, getting our Buff Club numbers above their rather embarrassing levels is certainly a far more challenging task that will take some years of winning and concerted effort from RG & Co.
 
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