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!

USC hires Mike Bohn to replace Lynn Swann as AD

Serenity is correct. La loves the dodgers, Lakers and raiders...still.

Yep there's a lot of Raiders fans here still. Probably a decent number of them will be hopping on short flights to Vegas once they're there. And some weekend trips to Vegas.

Which is great, the more exporting of Raiders fans the better.
 
Is 1% not even close?

In a region with 20 million people? I'm shocked you didn't notice this, but the article you found was from before the Dodgers won the NL pennant in 2017 and again in 2018. Wonder what the numbers say now? Also, the Dodgers haven't won the World Series since '88. In that time the Lakers have won six NBA titles, have Lebron and AD now, and still the Dodgers are more popular. I was only born, raised and live here, but you're the expert.
 
In a region with 20 million people? I'm shocked you didn't notice this, but the article you found was from before the Dodgers won the NL pennant in 2017 and again in 2018. Wonder what the numbers say now? Also, the Dodgers haven't won the World Series since '88. In that time the Lakers have won six NBA titles, have Lebron and AD now, and still the Dodgers are more popular. I was only born, raised and live here, but you're the expert.

You’re the expert.
 
Don't you work in the AD? What are you hearing or are you guys in the dark

No, I work in the School of Engineering but I know the Associate AD and some other folks there fairly well. Understandably, they're not saying much. But the sentiment is most people want Bohn hired ASAP with Urban to follow. However, there is a small group who are opposed to Urban because of the baggage. President Folt is concerned about it but, ultimately, I think she'll come around. In spite of all the good changes she's made recently, notably to the Board of Trustees, the voices that want Urban are too powerful for her to resist. I think she's playing this very well. The boosters/alums/fans will get what they want with Urban and she can say to the people with concerns that she completely vetted the situation and Urban won't be a problem. There will still be a vocal minority who will be pissed that Urban is hired, but **** 'em, they are anti-football in general, as we know all too well at CU.
 
Totally disagree about the Dodgers but that’s splitting hairs, it doesn’t matter either way.

I’m sorry, the Las Vegas Raiders?? You mean the rams?
Serenity is correct. La loves the dodgers, Lakers and raiders...still.

Who is arguing they don’t? I certainly never said anything of the sort. Merely said I disagreed and we would be splitting hairs over something that doesn’t matter.

Who would have known the mere assertion that the 8th most valuable franchise in the world is the most popular sports franchise in LA would be a ludicrous take lol.

But it’s Allbuffs where you can say the sky is blue today and some middle aged, bored **** will argue with you about it because he thinks it’s gray and he’s been alive longer and seen more skies.
 
No, I work in the School of Engineering but I know the Associate AD and some other folks there fairly well. Understandably, they're not saying much. But the sentiment is most people want Bohn hired ASAP with Urban to follow. However, there is a small group who are opposed to Urban because of the baggage. President Folt is concerned about it but, ultimately, I think she'll come around. In spite of all the good changes she's made recently, notably to the Board of Trustees, the voices that want Urban are too powerful for her to resist. I think she's playing this very well. The boosters/alums/fans will get what they want with Urban and she can say to the people with concerns that she completely vetted the situation and Urban won't be a problem. There will still be a vocal minority who will be pissed that Urban is hired, but **** 'em, they are anti-football in general, as we know all too well at CU.
If she's really concerned with getting it right, she'll put some institional controls in place that will outlast any Meyer tenure.

"You guys get your coach, but the cost is this new set of institional controls that makes sure he (and future coaches) don't get the University in trouble again."

Changing out of personnel without changing the institional structure that allowed previous personnel to **** up isn't really addressing the problem - those problems can (and given humans probably will) happen again.

This is also why I think **** Baylor, Pedo State and Michigan State continue to deserve our ire: they never addressed the institional structures that allowed those heinous abuses to happen in the first place.
 
If she's really concerned with getting it right, she'll put some institional controls in place that will outlast any Meyer tenure.

"You guys get your coach, but the cost is this new set of institional controls that makes sure he (and future coaches) don't get the University in trouble again."

Changing out of personnel without changing the institional structure that allowed previous personnel to **** up isn't really addressing the problem - those problems can (and given humans probably will) happen again.

This is also why I think **** Baylor, Pedo State and Michigan State continue to deserve our ire: they never addressed the institional structures that allowed those heinous abuses to happen in the first place.

She has already begun to address them by firing Swann and restructuring the BOT. She’s made more changes in four months than the previous presidents made in decades.
 
If folks think Bohn did some stellar job with CU basketball, a history lesson is in order. Yes he hired Tad Boyle, but at the time that was a stretch. He bumbled and stumbled all the way to somehow getting Tad here.
  • He failed in his handling of Ricardo Patton's final season (2006-07). Patton was allowed to go into the final year of his contract a year later than it was obvious to ALL basketball fans that he needed to be gone. Imagine if a football coach, hanging by a thread, was allowed to go into his final year with no vote of confidence. It was just as terrible, only on a smaller scale. In my 40 years of watching CU BB, I cannot remember a more depressing time. Mike Bohn did that.
  • After Patton's team that year lost by 38 points to Air Force in CS, he then hired their coach Jeff Bzdelik. Granted he had an NBA resume, but he was clearly not a fit here. Bzdelik had him by the short hairs from the moment he was on campus. In Jeff's first year, half the team was gone. No apologies to tickets holders from anyone about the absolute ****e storm happening up there.
  • Bzdelik STUNK for 3 years (12-20, 9-22, 15-16), but did manage to bring some guys here. Somehow he convinced Wake Forest to hire him, which worked out well.
  • Bohn looked for the next best coach in Colorado at the time and found Boyle. It was a reach at the time, but it has worked out reasonably well for CU since then. (Tad needs to get back to the tourney, like NOW.) Boyle is a good guy, clean and a proud Buff, but if THAT hire is the reason he's a great hire for USC then good luck to those guys.
I met Bohn a bunch of times, both here and on the road at BB and FB games. Decent guy but no genius. He was in over his head here, but managed to fool Phil and the other guys up there. It's hard to imagine this latest gig working out well for anyone at USC.
 
Run a quick overlap of years USC was good at football and years the Rams or Raiders were playing in Los Angeles. There are more than twice as many people in LA County alone than the entire state of Colorado.
I hope they stay there.
 
I was able to interact with Bohn a couple of times while in college in a work/research type setting and I always thought he struggled to grasp all of the different parts that went into being an AD. It was like he was trying to focus on 10 different things instead of delegating and figuring out where he was needed the most at any different time. For example, out football program was going down the ****ter, he has an opportunity to have a bunch of business students do research (a full summer of graded and professor guided/graded research) on whatever he wants and he focuses on ticket sales. This is while he is also focused on the Bball program and facilities. Man, your ticket sales suck because you were in charge of a once proud program that is now a complete disaster.

Now his hires at CU were a complete disaster but I do agree that Mac was decent to bring us out of where we were (the thing that Wilner misses there is that Bohn is the one that put the program in that situation in the first place) and Fickel was a really good hire at Cincy. Maybe he has learned his lesson but singling in on Urban Meyer before you even have the job doesn't seem to indicate he has.
 
Here’s another thing that just occurred to me: USC’s most recent run at the top of college football came at a time when there were no professional football teams in Los Angeles. Now there are two. USC isn’t the big dog anymore, and pretty soon, there will be a nice shiny new stadium in Inglewood (Its Inglewood, right?) that will be a lot more pleasant than the Colosseum. The competition for the sports dollar in LA just got a lot more intense. They could be looking at a 90,000+ seat colosseum with 50,000 or so folks rattling around in there.
There’s this thing about LA I’ll share with you having lived there; when you spend hours and hours in traffic 5 days a week it’s pretty hard to convince yourself to do it again for a 6th time voluntarily on a day off.

I realize that no new shinny stadium with luxury suites was the issue last time. The Chargers are for the 2nd year having the worst attendance in the NFL drawing only 25,000 per game but the stadium they use only holds 27,000 (they should be selling out every game). And they are playing just 11 miles from where the new stadium is being built (the Rams are 10th in attendance btw using The Coliseum). Maybe two teams is one team too many for LA. I get why they are building at that location but the 405 is dreadful and it’s surface streets once you exit to reach SoFi Stadium. I have some doubts about how much one steals from the other (NFL from USC or even UCLA) when you factor how dense LA is people wise. The move to LA was really about the TV audience and the network contracts.

 
Last edited:
If folks think Bohn did some stellar job with CU basketball, a history lesson is in order. Yes he hired Tad Boyle, but at the time that was a stretch. He bumbled and stumbled all the way to somehow getting Tad here.
  • He failed in his handling of Ricardo Patton's final season (2006-07). Patton was allowed to go into the final year of his contract a year later than it was obvious to ALL basketball fans that he needed to be gone. Imagine if a football coach, hanging by a thread, was allowed to go into his final year with no vote of confidence. It was just as terrible, only on a smaller scale. In my 40 years of watching CU BB, I cannot remember a more depressing time. Mike Bohn did that.
  • After Patton's team that year lost by 38 points to Air Force in CS, he then hired their coach Jeff Bzdelik. Granted he had an NBA resume, but he was clearly not a fit here. Bzdelik had him by the short hairs from the moment he was on campus. In Jeff's first year, half the team was gone. No apologies to tickets holders from anyone about the absolute ****e storm happening up there.
  • Bzdelik STUNK for 3 years (12-20, 9-22, 15-16), but did manage to bring some guys here. Somehow he convinced Wake Forest to hire him, which worked out well.
  • Bohn looked for the next best coach in Colorado at the time and found Boyle. It was a reach at the time, but it has worked out reasonably well for CU since then. (Tad needs to get back to the tourney, like NOW.) Boyle is a good guy, clean and a proud Buff, but if THAT hire is the reason he's a great hire for USC then good luck to those guys.
I met Bohn a bunch of times, both here and on the road at BB and FB games. Decent guy but no genius. He was in over his head here, but managed to fool Phil and the other guys up there. It's hard to imagine this latest gig working out well for anyone at USC.

If we were grading his tenure here, its a C-/D+. The only two things that keep from being a big, fat F are bringing Tad here and his work with student engagement for basketball.
 
There’s this thing about LA I’ll share with you having lived there; when you spend hours and hours in traffic 5 days a week it’s pretty hard to convince yourself to do it again for a 6th time voluntarily on a day off.

I realize that no new shinny stadium with luxury suites was the issue last time. The Chargers are for the 2nd year having the worst attendance in the NFL drawing only 25,000 per game but the stadium they use only holds 27,000 (they should be selling out every game). And they are playing just 11 miles from where the new stadium is being built (the Rams are 10th in attendance btw using The Coliseum). Maybe two teams is one team too many for LA. I get why they are building at that location but the 405 is dreadful and it’s surface streets once you exit to reach SoFi Stadium. I have some doubts about how much one steals from the other (NFL from USC or even UCLA) when you factor how dense LA is people wise. The move to LA was really about the TV audience and the network contracts.


Don't we all assume that the Chargers won't be in LA very long? They will try to hold up some other city for stadium money within a decade.
 
Maybe he has learned his lesson but singling in on Urban Meyer before you even have the job doesn't seem to indicate he has.
But from all accounts, his relationship with Urban is one of the primary reasons he was even considered for the job. Maybe there's other information that I don't know, but I actually don't see this as egg on Bohn's face, but more USC President/hiring committee being incompetent with the process.
 
Yeah, that move to the Pac12 was certainly a wash.

I'd give a lot more credit to Larry Scott and the Pac 12 leadership for that than Bohn. Even with that though-he botched Patton's final season, Jeff Bzdelik recruited well but didn't set the world on fire here, his two WBB hires both flopped, and he's the man who hired the two worst coaches this football program has seen in my lifetime in D2 and Embree.
 
I'd give a lot more credit to Larry Scott and the Pac 12 leadership for that than Bohn. Even with that though-he botched Patton's final season, Jeff Bzdelik recruited well but didn't set the world on fire here, his two WBB hires both flopped, and he's the man who hired the two worst coaches this football program has seen in my lifetime in D2 and Embree.
Remember that Hawkins name a was mentioned with the Notre Dame hiring him too. He was considered a rising star at Boise State that was ripe for the taking from the lower ranks. Lots of people on this board thought Charlie Strong was the second coming of Jesus too. Chuck Fairbanks, as I understand it, was once thought of as a great college coach too based on his success at OU.

People lie during interviews. A relative of mine was an Inc 500 CEO and he described the work force as “80% of the people are incompetent”. Sometimes they stop giving a crap after cashing their paycheck. Pat Bowlen hires John Elway to be GM. The point is **** doesnt work out sometimes.
 
Last edited:
If he had such a great relationship with Urban Meyer, why wasn’t he hired at CU?

Am I the only one who is just now finding out that Mike Bohn has some kind of great relationship with Urban Meyer?
I don't know their specific relationship, but from all accounts, it's pretty good? Also, and I'm just spitballing here, maybe, just maybe USC is in a different stratosphere of jobs relative to the CU job? Also, and not that it matters, but Urban was winning Nattys at Blue Blood programs when Bohn was making football hires?
 
Back
Top