reflections on the descent into football oblivion

[MtnBuff]

I see your point that elite athletes generally want to play at top notch programs, but I disagree that Boulder's location and physical beauty isn't a factor. I think coach Cabral said it once, but the key is actually getting players to visit. Back in the late 80s and 90s, blue chip recruits were actually visiting and were impressed by Boulder and the mountains. Nowadays, a lot of them don't even visit so there's no chance for them to be impressed. Case in point, Yuri Wright. He visited and was very impressed. That combined with him liking the coaches (and maybe some work from Tony Jones) has us in his top 5 or 7 or whatever it is. Not saying he's going to sign, but I don't think he'd even be considering CU if he hadn't seen Boulder.

Trying to figureo out why any 18 year old makes the decision he does is inviting a trip the the shrinks office. They decide based on a lot of things, where did they see the cutest girls, who has the best uniforms, video games in the locker room. I heard of a kid who decided based on a milkshake he had while visiting a school.

Very few kids are going to pick CU just because of Boulder and the Mountains but for many it may be an influencing factor. Simple truth is that unless we can get kids to visit we will lose out for a lot of reasons. If you can get a kid in you have a chance to make them feel like they fit, get to know some of the other players, imagine themselves in the stadium and more importantly get to know the coaches and see them in action.

Embree and Co. are and will have to work hard just to get kids to visit. When you have lost twice as many games as you have won over the past 5 going on 6 years the glory days don't mean anything. Getting relationships established with the HS coaches and getting kids on the camp circuit does.

We didn't expect all the injuries and other issues this year but realistically we expected or should have expected this year to be terrible. A lot of recruits will give the staff a pass on this year because the players aren't theirs. Next year it is critical that we show significant improvement. That doesn't neccessarily mean a bowl, although that would help a lot, but it does mean at least 3-5 wins and being much more competitive in our losses. Do that and the coaches can sell an upward moving program that still has room for guys to play early and play a lot.

As Liver points out so well, it has taken a long time for things to get this bad, the program is rotten to the core. Fixing will not be an instant process either but good steady progress with strong fan support will be key.

The potential is there. This program can regain its status as a top 10 type program. Get us to the point were we are mentioned every year for BCS bowls and better and then seeing the campus, seeing the mountains, visiting Pearl Street, seeing a packed stadium going nuts, are all clinchers for the kind of talent that we had once and can have again.

 

[buffsyko]

I don't think I've seen a positive post from you about this staff. All you and buffsyko do is bitch and bitch some more.

Leave me out of your little spat asswipe.

I've said plenty of poisitve things on this board, some of you nancies just tractor beam yourselves to anything jimmy or I say. Go ride your unicorn and snort some pixi dust richard simmons.

 

[Quattro]

Leave me out of your little spat asswipe.

I've said plenty of poisitve things on this board, some of you nancies just tractor beam yourselves to anything jimmy or I say. Go ride your unicorn and snort some pixi dust richard simmons.

:rofl:

 

[buffsyko]

:rofl:

Thanks, not a bad rant for being sober...

 

[96 Buff]

EB ****ing sucks. He has no idea what the **** he is doing. Why the hell did we hire him. Etc.

You're confusing Jimmy, who is fairly knowledgeable about football, with Jerry, who is a complete ****tard and quite possibly the most idiotic poster this site has. Yes, even more than you.

 

[Idot Buff]

nm

 

[White_Rabbit]

You're confusing Jimmy, who is fairly knowledgeable about football, with Jerry, who is a complete ****tard and quite possibly the most idiotic poster this site has. Yes, even more than you.

Jerry is the reason I know how to ignore people in chat. Thanks btw Junc. Not that the game wasn't bad enough, but that guy was making it insufferable.

 

[JimmyBuff]

You're confusing Jimmy, who is fairly knowledgeable about football, with Jerry, who is a complete ****tard and quite possibly the most idiotic poster this site has. Yes, even more than you.

:lol: Thank u.

There is no way I would be ripping EB during the 1st game of the year when I advocated hiring him as head coach 2 years ago. Tini WRONG again.



BTW I actually thought DBT got booted from the chat during Hawaii for complaining about EB but I might be wrong about that.

 

[Quattro]

:lol: Thank u.

There is no way I would be ripping EB during the 1st game of the year when I advocated hiring him as head coach 2 years ago. Tini WRONG again.



BTW I actually thought DBT got booted from the chat during Hawaii for complaining about EB but I might be wrong about that.

Well they both begin with J's. I could have sworn it was you, but if it wasn't, I apologize. You're still a negative mother****er though.

 

[Liver]

most of you are good fans, in your own way. let's not cannibalize our own fanbase. we've got enough sharks circling, without us shanking each other.

 

[White_Rabbit]

:lol: Thank u.

There is no way I would be ripping EB during the 1st game of the year when I advocated hiring him as head coach 2 years ago. Tini WRONG again.



BTW I actually thought DBT got booted from the chat during Hawaii for complaining about EB but I might be wrong about that.

I remember that too, DBT is not a EB as OC fan for some reason. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I don't get that one. I do love me some drunk DBT game rant.

 

[JimmyBuff]

Well they both begin with J's. I could have sworn it was you, but if it wasn't, I apologize. You're still a negative mother****er though.

apology accepted. Part of Embree's staff is still weak though.

 

[BuffUp]

I disagree. The way I read that summary, I'm not sure there was one fatal blow. I think it was more like "death by a thousand cuts."

agree 100% - it's been all the "little things"

 

[Walter White]

agree 100% - it's been all the "little things"

If you’re talking about a fall from the elite of 17 years ago, then yes, 1000 cuts.

If you’re talking about the cause for falling to the absolute bottom, then it’s more about one thing, the Hawk extension.

 

[SJBuff]

This. The right coaching hire after Mac could have made CU a perennial powerhouse. The teams in the early nineties were absolutely stacked. Slick Rick follows the same pattern everywhere he's coached. A couple of good years followed by a steady decline. Very surprising to me that UCLA gave him the job after the same pattern at both CU and UW (but I suspect UCLA's hiring had something to do with money as well). Let's hope Embree follows the opposite trajectory. A slow start followed by a steady rise to dominance.

I dissagree to a point. Not about the team being stacked part, only about the perennial powerhouse part.
I don't think it would have mattered who we hired after Mac, the program was doomed. I think the program had already begun it's slide toward the dulldrumbs 3 years before Mac left when Gordon Gee left CU. With Gordon at the helm Mac and the football program had the support and backing of the entire administration - a real partnership, after Gordo left the support to the program quickly dwindled which made it inevitable that the program would fall. The fact that we had several clown presidents after Gordo (Albino, Betsy the "term of endearment", etc.) only accellerated the velocity the program's fall and made for an even deeper crater for us to climb out of once we hit bottom.

Things are better now. I can see there is some support from the administration, but I'm still not convinced we have the right guy in the job for the program to get the kind of support it needs to get back to the levels we had under Mac. At the end of the day, I don't think lasting success is possible without an administration that is truly committed to the full support of the program. If we had "President Badass Football Fan" at the helm of CU I think the program would eventually take care of itself.

 

[Deleted member 807]

I saw something in the Daily Camera comments section that caught my eye.

To paraphrase:

CU isn't going anywhere until the president says "I'm committed to winning a national championship."

Support is not going to be there when university leadership waffles by only advocating a commitment "to being competitive."

 

[Ozbuff]

I dissagree to a point. Not about the team being stacked part, only about the perennial powerhouse part.
I don't think it would have mattered who we hired after Mac, the program was doomed. I think the program had already begun it's slide toward the dulldrumbs 3 years before Mac left when Gordon Gee left CU. With Gordon at the helm Mac and the football program had the support and backing of the entire administration - a real partnership, after Gordo left the support to the program quickly dwindled which made it inevitable that the program would fall. The fact that we had several clown presidents after Gordo (Albino, Betsy the "term of endearment", etc.) only accellerated the velocity the program's fall and made for an even deeper crater for us to climb out of once we hit bottom.

Things are better now. I can see there is some support from the administration, but I'm still not convinced we have the right guy in the job for the program to get the kind of support it needs to get back to the levels we had under Mac. At the end of the day, I don't think lasting success is possible without an administration that is truly committed to the full support of the program. If we had "President Badass Football Fan" at the helm of CU I think the program would eventually take care of itself.

You're probably right. The lack of support would have influenced their decision not to look for a big name coach after Mac. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and hiring Slick Rick could have ended up being a great move. With the benefit of hindsight, though, I think the decline definitely started with that hire. It's all been about recovery since then. Barnett was supposed to return us to "dominance", which never really materialized. I like Barnett, but never got the feeling with him coaching that we would ever consistently challenge Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Then came the "home run" hire, which, I have to admit, I thought would work out. Of course, it didn't. So now we find ourselves in full rebuild mode. I hate to think what could happen if Embree can't turn things around. As it stands, we get little to no respect on a national level. Another few years of losing and we'll be even worse off.

That being said, I'm confident Embree and his staff will turn things around. On top of that, Boyle looks to be transforming us into a very respectable program. I'd love to see top-15 football and basketball programs at CU in four or five years!

 

[MtnBuff]

If Embree and Boyle can get the programs back into the news for positive results the administrators will have no choice but to see the benefits of having successfull programs.

Winning football teams and basketball teams will result in publicity and media attention that the university could never buy. Get the university in the media in a positive way on a constant basis and it makes all fundraising programs much easier. People like to be associated with winners and highly successful people especially like to be associated with success.

Make Benson's job easier and more successful and he will become a supporter out of self-interest.

 

[TimmyDUBs]

If Embree and Boyle can get the programs back into the news for positive results the administrators will have no choice but to see the benefits of having successfull programs.

Winning football teams and basketball teams will result in publicity and media attention that the university could never buy. Get the university in the media in a positive way on a constant basis and it makes all fundraising programs much easier. People like to be associated with winners and highly successful people especially like to be associated with success.

Make Benson's job easier and more successful and he will become a supporter out of self-interest.

I was thinking yesterday about how CU could take dvange of the crowd and hype of the sports teams. Why not support whatever clubs or values the school is trying to push during halftime or commercial breaks? Show a short film to rep the film department, feature a political debate, highlight some important scientific discovery we've recently unveiled. whatever the approach, try to use the inevitable hype and attention sports produce and take advantage to market whatever the school feels is more important deep down...

 

[The Guest]

This thread...wow! A couple of points:

1. I'm in no position to determine who is a bigger CU fan between Slade and Jens, but I feel confident saying that Slade is a far bigger OU fan than Jens.

2. At one point in time, Coach Mac was the highest paid coach in college football. An expectation to finish as a top 5, or at least a top 10 team, coupled with the highest paid coach should have put us up with the elite of college football if you take a snapshot in 94. I'm aware that we lacked the boosters/fanbase and tradition of the top tier, but in that moment, we were up near a 10 (I'll give it a 9).

3. Was the scandal mentioned in Liver's descent to oblivion? I forget, but I'd argue that it was certainly an accelerator. A lot of things could have been overcome without that.

This whole thing sucks.

 

[leftybuff]

I saw something in the Daily Camera comments section that caught my eye.

To paraphrase:

CU isn't going anywhere until the president says "I'm committed to winning a national championship."

Support is not going to be there when university leadership waffles by only advocating a commitment "to being competitive."

Exactly. I have come to the conclusion the admin. wants to give the impression that they "are really behind the football program" when in reality, they want it to do just well enough to keep the donors and keep the stadium 85% full, but no better. IMO they see the FB program as a potential headache, and therefore, keep it on a short leash. They see the Mac era as an aberration where they had a FB coach they couldn't control, and the last thing they want is to have that again.....

 

[Alfred91]

It's funny, I was having this same discussion with my dad and uncle just yesterday.

The first blow was obviously Mac leaving, but I will always believe that there was more to Mac leaving than PK. I think he saw the writing on the wall. TABOR had just been passed, and the ban on multi-year contracts started. I am sure that Mac saw what this was going to do to what had been previously a consistent stable of superior assistant coaching talent. He was never in favor of the Big 12, and it wouldn't surprise me if he had an inkling of how CU would be stuck in the end in a dead-end conference. I'm not saying Mac didn't leave because of PK, rather, I think the contributing factors helped him in deciding what the right time was. That was the first major hit, imo.

The second major hit was the 'scandal'. I'd never seen anything like it before, or since. It was the perfect storm of sorts. The perfect combination of a town that hated the local sports teams, a TV market filled with people hoping to advance their careers on any 'big' story they could, a TV network looking to advance their own uber-liberal agenda, and a bunch of idiot elected officials with no ability to think of anything other than seeing their names in the paper, all combining against an institution with weak leadership and a football coach with a propensity to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I still believe that if the 'scandal' had happened in almost any other major college football town, it would have never come to 25% of what happened to CU. I strongly believe that if the 'scandal' had never happened, Barnett would still be the coach at CU, and while we would not be a top ten program by any means, we would be a much stronger program with a much brighter immediate future, going into the Pac-12.

Obviously Hawkins was the last blow, but I don't know if Hawkins was the biggest blow, as much as just the straw the broke the camel's back. Coming off of Barnett's firing, only a perfect hire would have been able to bring CU back to where we wanted it to be. Obviously Hawkins was horrible on the field and off, and I think most coaches would have at least kept us from hitting this far down, but I don't know how many coaches could have lifted the program very high, considering the situation at the time. Extending Hawk though was a terrible mistake. It was obvious to the more than casual observer that Hawkins was not the answer on the field or in recruiting.

 

[Denver_sc]

Exactly. I have come to the conclusion the admin. wants to give the impression that they "are really behind the football program" when in reality, they want it to do just well enough to keep the donors and keep the stadium 85% full, but no better. IMO they see the FB program as a potential headache, and therefore, keep it on a short leash. They see the Mac era as an aberration where they had a FB coach they couldn't control, and the last thing they want is to have that again.....

What I wish the administration understood is that a good football program is FREE ADVERTISING. I had someone in admissions at Boise State say that their admissions applications bumped by 35% after the victory over OU in the Fiesta (? I think) Bowl.

 

[SuperiorBuff]

What I wish the administration understood is that a good football program is FREE ADVERTISING. I had someone in admissions at Boise State say that their admissions applications bumped by 35% after the victory over OU in the Fiesta (? I think) Bowl.

My daughter and I attended one of the out of state college fairs last week and the longest line by far was Oregon. Over 200 colleges and universities represented and Oregon's line was 2-3 times longer than any other, including USC; I'm willing to guaranty that wasn't the case 10 years ago. Successful sports absolutely impact interest. On a side note all of the kids that I talked to think Oregon has the coolest uniforms in the country, second.... Maryland:wow:

 

[skibum]

Has anyone (older than about 35) compared the number and percentage of out-of-state students at CU from when they were in school to now? During the 90's there was only one school with more nationally televised football games than CU: Notre Dame. But, you know, I'm pretty sure that having a football program that is merely "competitive" would generate an equal amount of positive exposure for the university.

 

[77buff]

Well, we can't sink any lower. The only direction we can go is up now. If octogenarian geezer Bill Snyder can do it in a God awful place like Kansas State, then somebody can do it for Colorado. I think the administration is a huge problem for CU athletics.

 

[77buff]

Has anyone (older than about 35) compared the number and percentage of out-of-state students at CU from when they were in school to now? During the 90's there was only one school with more nationally televised football games than CU: Notre Dame. But, you know, I'm pretty sure that having a football program that is merely "competitive" would generate an equal amount of positive exposure for the university.

I don't think athletics ever lured out of state students to CU. All of my out of state friends were rich kids who went to CU to ski and party, and smoke dope.

 

[96 Buff]

All of my out of state friends were rich kids who went to CU to ski and party, and smoke dope.

Out-of-staters during my tenure were there to to that AND because of the football team.

 

[skibum]

I don't think athletics ever lured out of state students to CU. All of my out of state friends were rich kids who went to CU to ski and party, and smoke dope.

And they knew that CU even existed as a school because???

Almost NO ONE attends a school "because" of athletics. It just does NOT happen. However, people become aware of schools through 1,000 different means. Athletics, especially football and men's basketball, are one of the most effective means a university has to increase awareness of the university.

The academic literature has a name for the phenomenon of athletic success = increased applications. They actually call it the "Doug Flutie effect." BC's application rate increased by 25% over the two years following Flutie's Heisman. But, I would bet a lot of money that 25% of the students wouldn't tell you that they "chose" the school "because" of Flutie. They chose it because it's a solid private Catholic school in a good location that had a very good X program (where "X" = whatever the student majored in). Boise experienced the effect to the same degree that BC did. George Mason did as well when they got to the final 4 a couple years back.

People don't buy a car "because" of the cool commercial or "because it's a Ford" (or Chevy, or Jeep, or whatever), but they do consider a Ford because of the commercial or the brand. Likewise students don't choose Oregon because of the good football team with "great threads," but they consider it - and when they do, they discover a pretty good school in a nice location that they can probably get into.

I'm living on the east coast now - and I'm pretty confident in saying that if CU wants to continue to draw kids from out here that a. aren't legacies, b. aren't die hard skiers/boarders, or c. aren't actively recruited by alumni involvement somehow - they've got to increase awareness on this coast. Solid athletics is a quick and (relatively) easy way to do that.

 

[leftybuff]

I dunno, when I was looking at the place from which I would obtain my degree, I had three criteria. Academics, location and amenities (read parties and outdoor activities) and FB. I wanted to see some real CFB as a student. I narrowed it down to UDub, LSU and CU...