How recent is "relevant"?

[Buffnik]

At CU we like to talk a lot about the good ole days.

The national championship from 22 years ago. The build up to that which started 30 years ago.

To a lesser extent, the conference title from 12 years ago.

Is there anything relevant from those days other than the enjoyment of reliving good memories?

In your job, what if someone said, "This is how we did it in 2000" or, "How we did it in 1990" or even, "Back in 1982, this worked like a charm"?

What I've always been told is that if market research is more than 3 years old, throw it out. That may even be outdated now, considering how quickly things change in the information age. But 3 years old is probably still useful in my business. It may not be in some. Maybe some of you are in an occupation where things haven't really changed in 30 years. I'm curious.

 

[Lt.Col.FrankSlade]

Gene Chizik won the BCS championship in 2010. 2 years later he might be coaching his final games at Auburn.

 

[LaserDeathHawk]

Last week

 

[BuffNut99]

I think about this often. The temporal aspect you speak of gets less and less as our average relative attention spans get shorter and shorter.

I tend to think about our current quandary in terms of how far we are deviating from our mean winning percentage, mean score margin, mean home winning percentage, etc. Our performance from the last 6 years is seriously bringing down our historical prowess. For example, we are about to hit some troubling statistical areas. We just went under .500 all time on the road (@ Washington last season) and the UCLA home loss this season put us under 200 games over .500 at home.

We are definitely irrelevant until (unless?) we regress to our mean. But with 18 year-olds these days, anything that happened more than 3 minutes ago is irrelevant.

 

[Deleted member 807]

In this question I see a distinction between "culture" or maybe "tradition" and "comparative relevancy."

Culture and tradition are behaviors that older generations seek to pass on to younger generations. We participate in cultural and traditional activities because those activities define who we are. CU's glory days left a strong impression on what it means to be a CU Buffalo for those whose formative years were spent in Boulder during the glory days. One reason many of us are passionate about correcting this football mess is because it is in our cultural DNA to pass a winning tradition along to those who follow in our footprints. We cannot tolerate our pride and tradition being undermined by the timid and the weak.

When using the lense of comparative relevance, CU today resembles nothing like what existed 6 years or 22 years ago. The BCS era and the metamorphosis of conferences under lucrative television contracts and proliferation of mass market sports entertainment broadcasting has changed the landscape of college football entirely. CU has failed to adapt to the changing environment in a way that perpetuates traditional success. Football excellence has passed CU by. Old recipies no longer apply. CU has elected to ignore the facilities and coaching salary arms race. As a result, our traditional and cultural expectations are out of alignment with what reasonably can be expected.

 

[Buffnik]

.... As a result, our traditional and cultural expectations are out of alignment with what reasonably can be expected.

Yep. If you look at what CU has to offer a recruit, we're performing exactly as we should be. We lag behind in facilities, getting players into the NFL, coach prestige and fan support. Academic prestige is about average. Location is always a struggle since it's a plane flight for most recruits and parents. We have to have a calling card that makes recruits want to visit here so they can see what a beautiful campus and cool town we have. Our main selling point is "early playing time in a BCS conference". That's only going to attract the under-the-radar guys who feel slighted by their only offers being from WAC, MWC, C-USA and WAC programs. And that's exactly who we see making up the vast majority of our recruiting classes.

 

[Mick Ronson]

i think there's a pretty serious closing window you get that's relative (to a degree) to the age of recruits. kids today don't have a robust respect for history to begin with...but when you are talking about things that happened when they were toddlers or before they were born....i think it gets a little dicey to be selling that on the recruiting trail...and that's the lifeblood of a program.

if what i say is true, then i think CU is in a pretty critical time...and sadly, we haven't been worse on the field since the early 80's. and even that, is starting to look like a dubious feature of the present.

 

[Mick Ronson]

Yep. If you look at what CU has to offer a recruit, we're performing exactly as we should be. We lag behind in facilities, getting players into the NFL, coach prestige and fan support. Academic prestige is about average. Location is always a struggle since it's a plane flight for most recruits and parents. We have to have a calling card that makes recruits want to visit here so they can see what a beautiful campus and cool town we have. Our main selling point is "early playing time in a BCS conference". That's only going to attract the under-the-radar guys who feel slighted by their only offers being from WAC, MWC, C-USA and WAC programs. And that's exactly who we see making up the vast majority of our recruiting classes.

part of my issue both as a grad student at and working for CU...and as a lifelong Buff fan...was that CU is in a place with the current leadership and general lackadaisical attitude in some areas of administration and faculty salaries....and campus wide complacency based on the idea that the mountains and boulder sell themselves (and fat admin wallets from out of state tuition...yet CU is always strapped for cash when other public universities don't have anywhere near that tuition boost from out of state students)...

CU is becoming more of a place that instead of offering a lot of great things in a complete package...very good academics, grad programs, faculty, a great town to be a student, lots of unreal options for non school stuff...the mountains, Denver, pro sports etc.....to a place that is sort of middling in all areas. complacent. doesn't take much to go from the former (complete package) to the latter (not excelling at anything except the Nobel Prize)

 

[CUFan]

Yep. If you look at what CU has to offer a recruit, we're performing exactly as we should be. We lag behind in facilities, getting players into the NFL, coach prestige and fan support. Academic prestige is about average. Location is always a struggle since it's a plane flight for most recruits and parents. We have to have a calling card that makes recruits want to visit here so they can see what a beautiful campus and cool town we have. Our main selling point is "early playing time in a BCS conference". That's only going to attract the under-the-radar guys who feel slighted by their only offers being from WAC, MWC, C-USA and WAC programs. And that's exactly who we see making up the vast majority of our recruiting classes.

The glory days are long gone and meaningless to recruits now. We must play the game (new facilities, good coaches, etc.) to be remotely relevant again. The mountains and Boulder do bring something to the table, but only with all else being at least nearly equal. No one wants to join an organization thats seemingly makes little effort at success.

 

[Dark Bohner]

The glory days are long gone and meaningless to recruits now. We must play the game (new facilities, good coaches, etc.) to be remotely relevant again. The mountains and Boulder do bring something to the table, but only with all else being at least nearly equal. No one wants to join an organization thats seemingly makes little effort at success.

Yep, we don't want to be like Nub fans who still pound there chests to the uncaring world about being God's gift to college football because of the TO days.

 

[slider]

Relevant enough that Embree and Co bring it up whenever they get a chance

 

[Buffellow85]

Relevant enough that Embree and Co bring it up whenever they get a chance

It's brought up because Embree believes it gives him credibilty.... something his won-loss record does not.

 

[Buffalo Brad]

If it happened more than a couple of years ago, it is irrelevant. We all like the memories but kids in high school today could give a crap. In the age of social media, instant access to information on the next and mobile technology, stuff becomes irrelevant more quickly everyday.

 

[BlackNGold]

Relevant enough that Embree and Co bring it up whenever they get a chance

Fans bring is up frequently also when they make statement like "CU should be bringing in top 25 classes every year". I think CU brings up the past because they lack a solid vision for the future.

 

[77buff]

Gene Chizik won the BCS championship in 2010. 2 years later he might be coaching his final games at Auburn.

He will be available along with Derek Dooley.

 

[CUFan]

Fans bring is up frequently also when they make statement like "CU should be bringing in top 25 classes every year". I think CU brings up the past because they lack a solid vision for the future.

I believe the bolded to be very true.

 

[Ozbuff]

Not sure what the answer to the question is, but we haven't been a powerhouse since the mid-90s. I love the 2001 team, particularly since I was at CU at the time, but it wasn't a dominant team by any stretch. The Nebraska game was incredible, but Texas (edit: Chris Simms) blew it in the Big 12 championship game and Oregon routed us. We haven't had a title contender since, what, 1994?

 

[buff4bcs1985]

the national championship is no longer relevant... id say the window is also shut on the big12 championship...and the only thing anyone remembers about salaam is the pot if they remember him at all...

 

[CVilleBuff]

The national championship is obviously a great thing, but its relevance is very, very little at this point. We're recruiting kids now who were born in 1996 and '97. They are too young to even remember the Big 12 championship. A generation has grown up on CU being mediocre at best in football (and now the single biggest laughingstock) and Benson and DiStefano seemingly love this fact.