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!

Save the season, save the job

Yellow Shirt

Club Member
Club Member
Dictated into phone in car, apologies and advance for pockets of gobbledygook.

From 1970 until 2003, thirty three years, Missouri was terrible. That's us.

For thirty years they had coaches that stayed between three and four years. None of them getting more than a 6-5 kind of blip. Lots of two and three win seasons sprinkled throughout.

In 2001 they hired Pinkel. In 2002 and 2003 he landed the #27 classes. He coached his way to a 2003 independence bowl appearance (L), missed a bowl the following year and then went on a 9 bowls in 10 years run. With the exception of those two 27 ranked classes that he got with his hire honeymoon, he's only cracked inside the top 30 twice, has never had a better than a 21, and routinely pulls classes in the 30s and even 40s. His recruiting average is rank is 34.4.

After regressing on the field in 2004, and watching recruiting classes continuing to slip lower (27, 27, 45, 38, 46), fans wanted him gone like his predecessors. Why did they keep him? Because over a ten year run as the head coach of Toledo, he had a .571 winning percentage, with an 11-0 in year 5. Because he coached his way to a bowl game with the same low grade talent that had been in shower-pissing in the MU locker room for thirty years.

What went right for Pinkel:
1 His resume at Toledo had the credibility needed to get those two #27 ranked classes
2 He had the coaching chops to elevate low talent to an above average cohesive team (that first independence bowl)
3 He knows what kind of player he wants and recruits consistently: rarely lower than 30 (unfortunately), but also never ever outside the top 50 (noteworthy)
4 He can still coach. Pinkel consistently gets his "34th" ranked players to finish higher in the standings.

All of this translates into concerns about MM.
1 He missed his recruiting bump that comes with a hire -this speaks to the true depth and quality of his professional resume.
2 He just lost a game that was slated as a win in the majority of bowl game scenarios. The verdict is still out on his ability to elevate talent.
3 Recruiting: if memory serves, this issue has been discussed inat least one other thread on the site.
4 unless something amazing happens in the remainder of the season, we will never get to "4."

I am not actively rooting for Mike McIntyre to fail. I do believe that the comparison above raises legitimate concerns, it opens the door for a firing. I don't think Mike McIntyre has the resume, has demonstrated superior set of coaching skills, or has the recruiting clout to hang onto his job. He won't get the years that they gave Gary at Missouri. In sum, I believe that is only chance of keeping the Colorado job is to find a way to win all the rest of the out of conference games, and three if not for conference games. Anything short of that, and considering that Gary Pinkel was on the hot seat with much more supporting his cause, I just can't see McIntyre rally support to keep his job.
 
its been 1 ****ing game this season. damn.

Think everyone is in the same boat here, we are all primed to abandon the SS MacIntyre. The team needs to improve. Got it. We have like 5684 of these posts since friday. Comparing CU to Mizzou or HCMM to Pinkel only fits if you want to make it fit. We haven't been bad for 30 years. We also didn't hire a coach with a 5 year stint at his previous job. Pinkel probably was hired without much controversy. We had controversy. We visibly struck out on our top choices. The situations are different.
 
I'm saying we're in that coach churn that can keep a team bad for thirty years. I know we haven't been bad for thirty. The way you break the cycle is capitalize on a recruiting bump reaped from an "exciting" hire, and have that coach be one of those special guys who can always elevate talent.

My point is that if MM doesn't find a way to win conference games this year, he will have missed that window to break the cycle. Doesn't mean he won't go on to do great things, it just means that CU will need to hit reboot again hoping to... hire an elevator of talent who has a resume that create a 2 year recruiting bump.
 
I do agree about decades of "coach churn." It's easy to look back and say that we hired the worst coaches. Yet, if you look at the situation at the time of the hire, the hire was praised by many and the guy was considered moving in a strong trajectory.
Hawkins was considered by many to be on a lot of schools' wishlists, Embree, well I dunno, certainly a proud Buff and to some that was VERY important. And MM came in with a lot of credential and experience in doing what CU needed done to get back to prominence.

And all that said, I hope to back off the ledge and put down the kool-aid as I consider this first game a predictor of the entire season.
 
I do agree about decades of "coach churn." It's easy to look back and say that we hired the worst coaches. Yet, if you look at the situation at the time of the hire, the hire was praised by many and the guy was considered moving in a strong trajectory.
Hawkins was considered by many to be on a lot of schools' wishlists, Embree, well I dunno, certainly a proud Buff and to some that was VERY important. And MM came in with a lot of credential and experience in doing what CU needed done to get back to prominence.

And all that said, I hope to back off the ledge and put down the kool-aid as I consider this first game a predictor of the entire season.

Hawk - right hire on paper
Embree - disaster you could see coming
MM - reach with a plausible narrative.
 
Missouri was terrible for 33 years? Seems like the only real drought was between 1983 and 1997. They went 14 years without being ranked once or appearing in a bowl game. CU is already getting close to that range. I do see parallels between what happened to them and what happened to us, but they only had one ten loss season in that entire stretch. We've had three in four years.
 
The Pinkle argument is often one that comes up for those better endowed with patience than I, but even within that narrative there is the recruiting bump which we just did not see.
 
Exactly. He had a nice enough run with Toledo that he was a hot hire. Instantly had two consecutive #27 classes. He's only had 4 classes in the 20's total. Half of them came with the hire bump. MM got no such bump. It hurt his chance of being the guy right out of the gate.
 
I remember the Pinkel comparisons during the middle Hawk years. Luckily we stuck with our guy and he rewarded us for our patience!

JK, he sucked. Not every ****ty coach suddenly becomes Mac1, Cutcliffe, or Pinkel if given a massive cushion.
 
I remember the Pinkel comparisons during the middle Hawk years. Luckily we stuck with our guy and he rewarded us for our patience!

JK, he sucked. Not every ****ty coach suddenly becomes Mac1, Cutcliffe, or Pinkel if given a massive cushion.

I want MM to be the guy. I am not saying he's a ****ty coach (your words). However, with the way the college football head coach game is played, his window is closing.
 
If Mike McIntyre wants to keep his position at CU, he needs to figure out how to get to 7 wins despite dropping Hawaii. That will take excellent/above the curve coaching -which is what a CU coach should be.

I suppose one way of looking at it is that getting to 7 after losing to Hawaii would absolutely convince me that he is a special coach.
 
I want MM to be the guy. I am not saying he's a ****ty coach (your words). However, with the way the college football head coach game is played, his window is closing.

I also wanted him to be the guy. Unfortunately it is quite likely he is not. I'll wait for the rest of the season before knowing for certain, but it's looking pretty likely.
 
Having lost Hawaii the CSU game becomes a must for him. If he loses that one even a conference upset leaves him at 3 wins which doesn't get it done.

Win CSU and the other two OOC games and I give the team a decent chance of getting 1 or even 2 conference games puting them at 4-5 wins. As long as the loses aren't mostly of the embarrassing types that could give him another year.
 
If Mike McIntyre wants to keep his position at CU, he needs to figure out how to get to 7 wins despite dropping Hawaii. That will take excellent/above the curve coaching -which is what a CU coach should be.

I suppose one way of looking at it is that getting to 7 after losing to Hawaii would absolutely convince me that he is a special coach.
If they can get to 7 wins, then I will absolutely eat crow. I find it hard to believe that we can win 3 games, and if that's the case then MM absolutely has to go.
 
Last edited:
Pinkie benefitted greatly from the demise of CU. He moved into Texas just as we were losing our place with the TX recruits.
 
I agree that 4 wins should not keep him his job but we all remember the extra year for Hawkins that really hurt this program.
 
I agree that 4 wins should not keep him his job but we all remember the extra year for Hawkins that really hurt this program.

4 wins should not get him another year and 5 probably will. That means he has to win the remaining OOC games because if the drop the CSU game, there are not 3 more wins on the schedule that I can find (hope I am wrong). He needs to get the ship on course this week and build on the success they hopefully find and carry it into the Ewe game.

As for the win total and keeping his job, RG is not Bohn so I think the parallels stop there. I do not think there will be an extra year if RG loses confidence in the MM as the guy. If that happens, I think a change gets made and RG is allowed to go out and get his guy. We will see.
 
This is not a vote for or against but the Vegas boy's, the one's that have the real opinions that matter had CU's win total at 5 1/2, and said they would be much improved.
I also think Phil Steele had us at 5 wins, yet much improved
I would also like to point out that Bill McCartney didn't get any recruiting bump, in fact until he switched to the wishbone he didn't get **** for recruits.
There are no magic potions, no zen prayers, and no short cuts. I was there for 0-10-1 and this is not that, its close but not to that extreme. At some point we have to give a coach 5 years to do his job. There are exceptions like the wheels shooting off under Embree. Again not a vote for or against just pointing out what should be obvious.
 
Saw a cut from Mac's presser on News 4 sports last night. By his demeanor, I'd say Mac is feeling the pressure. The cut I saw had him saying, basically, that we beat Hawaii in every aspect of the game but "bonehead mistakes" cost us the game. My retort would be, "Yeah, bonehead mistakes cost you the game, but you didn't have the team ready to play. Your offensive line was getting worked by Hawaii's defensive line. Sefo was under pressure most of the game. Your play calling sucked. The team played with no urgency. That's on you, Mac."
 
images
 
We didn't have recruiting
This is not a vote for or against but the Vegas boy's, the one's that have the real opinions that matter had CU's win total at 5 1/2, and said they would be much improved.
I also think Phil Steele had us at 5 wins, yet much improved
I would also like to point out that Bill McCartney didn't get any recruiting bump, in fact until he switched to the wishbone he didn't get **** for recruits.
There are no magic potions, no zen prayers, and no short cuts. I was there for 0-10-1 and this is not that, its close but not to that extreme. At some point we have to give a coach 5 years to do his job. There are exceptions like the wheels shooting off under Embree. Again not a vote for or against just pointing out what should be obvious.
We didn't have recruiting experts and services back then, but I think you should go back and look at Mac's early recruits. There were some highly sought after players, including Embo, and nobody signed by MMac can compare to them in how much they were desired by elite programs. MMac does not have the dynamic personality that allows coaches like Mac to attract players interested in other schools. The reality is that we now get the leftovers after the rest of the P5 teams are done eating. Very very very few programs have success without getting the players that they want.
 
We didn't have recruiting

We didn't have recruiting experts and services back then, but I think you should go back and look at Mac's early recruits. There were some highly sought after players, including Embo, and nobody signed by MMac can compare to them in how much they were desired by elite programs. MMac does not have the dynamic personality that allows coaches like Mac to attract players interested in other schools. The reality is that we now get the leftovers after the rest of the P5 teams are done eating. Very very very few programs have success without getting the players that they want.
Your right there were no experts, Embree, Barry Remington etc. were local stars nothing more, when you turn the corner JJ Flannigan comes, the first of the really big names. Hell it was such a coup that the Sporting News wrote a piece on it. Then Alfred, Sal, Hagan etc. etc. its not the same thing and that wasnt either
 
1 game at a time. We need to see what we do this Sat against umass. If we crap the bed, he is a bad coach. If we blow them out? then we will all be wondering if umass sucked. If we struggle, but win? then all this talk starts all over again.
 
Back
Top