Bohn's Decision to Retain Hawk

[Mick Ronson]

What I was told by a friend last night was that there was buyout money in place.

However, Bohn sat down with the major boosters in Maui and basically came to an agreement to keep Hawkins for another season.

The #1 reason was they did not have any strong canidates for HC. To buy out Hawk, would have forced them to settle for a lesser known HC that would have been just as big a risk.

CU was not going to get any of the big time names that were mentioned on this board. The boosters & Bohn crunched the numbers and decided that the loss in donations/ticket sales was going to be about the same as it would to fire Hawkins.

Without a better replacement option available to them, they decided to stay with what they had, knowing the buyout would be much less in 2010 if he fails.

#2 was the recruiting that would be lost. Since it took until end of November to make a decision on Hawkins, many people felt that getting rid of him now would eliminate any chance at a decent recruiting class for 2010.

I was also told that many boosters expect Hawkins to be on a very short leash when the new season starts. If 2010 starts like 2009 did with three losses in the first four, don't expect Hawkins to be around for the start of Big 12 play.

this post makes a lot of sense to me. much more than the logical rumor-based gymnastics i've read over the last week that seem to want to go to great lengths to exonerate Bohn and blame "the academics" (a consistent theme among CU fans reproduced here ad nauseum).

Benson is a very GOP friendly dude (has his roots in neocon energy policy).

wasn't it the original knucklehead theorem that CU needed a GOP prez who would automatically support football? i think it's funny to see Benson lumped in with the typical scapegoats of the all-powerful commie faculty who hate on CU sports and militate endlessly toward the single purpose of the failure of the football program.

it's the same theme with different players.

 

[Duff Man]

I just think it's funny that people bring up recruiting in this discussion. Here are CU's numbers according to Rivals:
2006 #48 class
2007 #32
2008 #15 but after losing the top two plus two 3* guys, this falls to the 40s
2009 #48

Hawkins has not recruited well, and after this season, will be in the 40s again (if we're lucky). That puts us in or close to the bottom quartile of the 66 BCS teams. This is what we are settling for with Hawkins as coach.

I think Hawkins has found some gems that have been 2* guys (Chap Brown, Speedy, and Jalil Brown come to mind), but I also tend to agree that his recruiting quite simply has not been good enough to warrant such high praise. The biggest issue with Hawk's recruiting is the undersigning that has occurred most of the time he has been here. It is killing our depth.

 

[HotRack]

I think Hawkins has found some gems that have been 2* guys (Chap Brown, Speedy, and Jalil Brown come to mind), but I also tend to agree that his recruiting quite simply has not been good enough to warrant such high praise. The biggest issue with Hawk's recruiting is the undersigning that has occurred most of the time he has been here. It is killing our depth.

What's the "strategy" behind doing this? I (probably like most of you) have never understood this course of action. :huh:

 

[Darth Snow]

What's the "strategy" behind doing this? I (probably like most of you) have never understood this course of action. :huh:

its called not attracting enough quality recruits imho.

"what kills a program isn't the guy you lose, but the guy you get who does nothing" or something like that.

 

[stampy]

What's the "strategy" behind doing this? I (probably like most of you) have never understood this course of action. :huh:

I think it is that he is holding out for certain kids and ends up short. John Riegel used to talk about the opposite with Barnett. Barnett's mo was to not hold schollies. If a kid committed, he was guaranteed a schollie as long as he wasn't taking trips, if he was taking trips, he was not always guaranteed a spot.

According to Riegel, this policy resulted in Barnett not always being in the hunt for some highly regarded guys who wanted to wait longer, but he was sure to fill his needs (this is prior to the scandal and recruiting restrictions, that's a whole other thing).

Perhaps Hawk's is just an opposite, "swing for the fences" recruiting philosophy.

 

[HotRack]

I think it is that he is holding out for certain kids and ends up short. John Riegel used to talk about the opposite with Barnett. Barnett's mo was to not hold schollies. If a kid committed, he was guaranteed a schollie as long as he wasn't taking trips, if he was taking trips, he was not always guaranteed a spot.

According to Riegel, this policy resulted in Barnett not always being in the hunt for some highly regarded guys who wanted to wait longer, but he was sure to fill his needs (this is prior to the scandal and recruiting restrictions, that's a whole other thing).

Perhaps Hawk's is just an opposite, "swing for the fences" recruiting philosophy.

Having just read Buffnik's update on Ching out of Utah, this could be case where the strategy of undersigning works in our favor.

Now that I think about it, guess one could say the undersigning strategy worked out for us with WillJeff in that we had a scholly available when no one else did so all anyone else could do was offer preferred walk-on status.

Kind of a risky strategy, but hey, according to Hawk, what do we know about taking risk? :sad1:

 

[Duff Man]

The undersigning strategy had nothing to do with Will Jefferson coming here. That scholarship was available regardless. The fact we lost three guys from the 2009 class to admissions issues made it a mere formality.

The undersigning strategy has not worked. It merely allows Hawkins to use his "we're young" or "we still have depth issues" constantly.

 

[SINKRATZ]

The undersigning strategy had nothing to do with Will Jefferson coming here. That scholarship was available regardless. The fact we lost three guys from the 2009 class to admissions issues made it a mere formality.

The undersigning strategy has not worked. It merely allows Hawkins to use his "we're young" or "we still have depth issues" constantly.

Or to hand out scholarships to walk-ons midseason after brief flashes of success (a certain pk comes to mind). :huh:

 

[ScottyBuff]

this post makes a lot of sense to me. much more than the logical rumor-based gymnastics i've read over the last week that seem to want to go to great lengths to exonerate Bohn and blame "the academics" (a consistent theme among CU fans reproduced here ad nauseum).

Benson is a very GOP friendly dude (has his roots in neocon energy policy).

wasn't it the original knucklehead theorem that CU needed a GOP prez who would automatically support football? i think it's funny to see Benson lumped in with the typical scapegoats of the all-powerful commie faculty who hate on CU sports and militate endlessly toward the single purpose of the failure of the football program.

it's the same theme with different players.

I agree with the decision making scenarios presented in this thread as well. However, what would the harm have been for Bohn to do a little "public damage control" to try and keep season ticket holders, alumni, small donors, etc on board for another year?

He didn't have to come out and say "We aren't firing Hawk because we are supporting Basketball" but he could have outlined the athletic departments goals and priorities in a more public way. Seems like an awful lot of lost revenues to go through the motions when they could have put together a PR agenda that kept fans engaged throughout the "outcry".

I know it would not work with 100% of fans, but when you have such an involved fanbase that wants answers, and assumes the worst when it doesn't get them, this seems like a smart idea.

 

[somebody]

I think Hawkins has found some gems that have been 2* guys (Chap Brown, Speedy, and Jalil Brown come to mind), but I also tend to agree that his recruiting quite simply has not been good enough to warrant such high praise. The biggest issue with Hawk's recruiting is the undersigning that has occurred most of the time he has been here. It is killing our depth.

I agree - obviously not all of the stars assigned always work out anyway, but how else are you going to make comparisons?

 

[Duff Man]

I agree - obviously not all of the stars assigned always work out anyway, but how else are you going to make comparisons?

I think it is a perfectly valid comparison. I was mostly agreeing with you anyway. Hawk's recruiting prowess is mostly overstated.