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Woody Paige Q/A on Dan Hawkins.

JimmyBuff

Well-Known Member
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Woody actually is making sense and right for a change. Hard to believe.


Hey, Woody! I always love your column and seeing you on "Around the Horn." You write pretty smart to act so goofy on TV. I liked your answers on athletes you have been wrong on. So what happened with Dan Hawkins at CU? I thought he was the perfect hire for the Buffs based on what he did at Boise State, but he has been awful. Is he a bad coach, a bad recruiter, or what?

— Grace, Denver

Paige: Grace, women who have been in my life, like my mom, would tell you I act so goofy in person, too.

Dan Hawkins was hired by CU while I was away in New York acting goofy on TV, so I didn't really take a side at the time, and wasn't close enough to know. From a distance, I thought he had done an excellent job at Boise State.

Having seen him up close, now, for years, I'd tend to say he's an "or what." I think that as a father, he did the right thing to bring his son to Boulder. I think as a coach, he did a terrible thing for himself, his son and the program. That's for starters.

Father-son quarterback situations in college football rarely happen, and when they do, rarely work. Cody should have gone where his father wasn't the coach. Cody is not a high-quality Big 12 (or whatever conference CU is in today) quarterback.

He's a brilliant young quarterback, but he's too short, too slow, and he doesn't have a great arm. I know his presence kept high school quarterbacks from coming to CU. Would you have if you knew the coach's son was going to be there for years?

Secondly, I think Hawkins was able to recruit better at Boise State (although some would claim his assistants were the real good recruiters) because the academic standards really aren't as tough as at CU, and he was able to recruit that area of the country. and got a lot of overachievers (which he hasn't done at CU.)

It has often been said that CU got the wrong coach from Boise State. They've accomplished more with his former assistant, and they certainly have a better offense and uniqueness we don't see in Boulder.

Under Hawkins, Colorado hasn't been strong recruiting in Texas, Florida or California, or, for that matter, in Colorado. And the school, under many circumstances, didn't allow borderline athletes to be admitted.

I've been told that Darrell Scott was permitted to be enrolled, but couldn't, or didn't want to, handle the academic load.

I'm not in love with Hawkins as a game-day coach. He was overwhelmed with going for it on fourth down (even in his own territory) when it made no sense, even to me (and I always want coaches to go for it on fourth down).

The game plans have been horrendous, for the most part. The Buffs, as you know, almost never win on the road in the Big 12. They've pulled off a couple of major upsets, but they've lost to equal and inferior teams too often.

His rah-rah didn't work up there, and some of the statements Hawkins has made were ludicrous, promising 10 victories and chewing out parents, the players and, finally the media (for not having children).

He just never has gotten it. His staff, with a few major exceptions, wasn't that special. Now he says there are so close, whatever that means. He is so close to being gone.

The alumni (with money) are very restless, and ticket sales are down. CU wants everybody to get behind the program, but it's hard for a lot of people in Colorado to do so when he's talking about the scorched-earth program he took over (which had won the Big 12 North each of the two seasons before he got there) and blaming everybody but himself.

He kept his job because the school didn't want to pay him off. I think he got in over his head when he came here. He had better produce this year. Or what? Or he'll be out of here.


http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_15264539
 
Woody's summation probably belongs in the reference section of the Dan Hawkins wiki page.
 
Sadly though, Hack will NEVER admit his shortcomings all the way to the end of his soon to be shortened coaching career. No one except UC-DAvis or Northern California HSs will hire him.

The sooner he's gone to quicker we can look towards a new future; hopefully CU will actually get a homerun on the next coach hiring.
 
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Woody's comments on soccer were pretty ignorant. It's like he thinks nothing has changed since 1995. As for as Hawk... not bad.
 
Believe it or not, I think Woody is right on the money. Hawkins has better have figured it out going into this season.
 
Yea, he better figure it out. Win or gone. I do not think that 6 or 7 wins saves his job. I am not quite sure that 8 will now save it. I am hoping that the parade and comments we have seen over the last week are truly a turning point in the committment to athletics at CU. I think he does need to hit it out of the park with wins this year or he is gone.
 
Yea, he better figure it out. Win or gone. I do not think that 6 or 7 wins saves his job. I am not quite sure that 8 will now save it. I am hoping that the parade and comments we have seen over the last week are truly a turning point in the committment to athletics at CU. I think he does need to hit it out of the park with wins this year or he is gone.

It isn't solely about wins and losses. It will be about direction. Momentum. We have two years to build momentum leading to the Pac. With a fresh new bank roll, mediocrity won't get it anymore.
 
I seriously doubt we will see anything new to make us feel optimistic about Hack as the CU coach, so Bye Bye Dan, It's DIVISION 1 FOOTBALL! THE PAC -12!! Go Play Intramurals Dan, Go play Intramurals!
 
I actually believe that the Hawkins-Bohn relationship is strained to the point where a 7-5 season and maybe even 8-4 will not save Dan Hawkins's job. There's a likelihood from what I am hearing that we could have a "blue sky" scenario, assuming that Hawkins delivers a decent year: winning record, strong recruiting class, and a new head coach in place before our bowl game.
 
Its kind of funny or ironic or something, but I think the Pac move has raised the bar for Dan. Where a 7 win season and a trip to a mediocre bowl would have possibly saved him before, I think he will have to do better than that now. Quite possibly, even eight wins may not get it done if recruiting doesn't pick up.
 
Its kind of funny or ironic or something, but I think the Pac move has raised the bar for Dan. Where a 7 win season and a trip to a mediocre bowl would have possibly saved him before, I think he will have to do better than that now. Quite possibly, even eight wins may not get it done if recruiting doesn't pick up.

Every Big 12 game for the next two years will be magnified X100.
 
Yea, I get feeling he and Bohn do not share many conversations and are not on each others Christmas card lists.
 
A columnist job is to provoke thought and emotion and get people to want to read his paper just to see what he has to say each day. If a columnist doesn't piss a bunch of people off on a frequent basis he is probably going to be unemployed soon unless he works for a paper in Omaha or Austin where he just has to have a dark brown nose.

I have been pissed at Woody at times myself but understanding what his job is and that he is not a Buff fan at heart he is right a lot more than he is wrong. The difference between Woody and a douchebag like Kizla is that Woody actually thinks and he does work hard to find different and interesting angles instead of just throwing crap out there to piss people off.

He also when he wants to can have a very good perspective on things and this column is an example of that. He states what I have believed for a long time, that Dan Hawkins in a good guy who got in over his head and failed to do the job at this level.

I have very little question in my mind that this will be Hawk's last year as HC at CU. By the end of this season the political pressure of an election during a state government financial crisis will be over. He will have another losing year under his belt and with five years nobody can say he didn't have a fair chance.

What a moron like Kizla doesn't bother to check is that the three coaches prior to Hawk all played in BCS level bowl games. This is a program that has been, can be, and should be among the elite in college football. We don't have the resources of Texas, Florida, LSU, Ohio State, etc. but we damn sure are not comparable in any way to CSU, Wyoming, SDSU, and the rest of the mid-major bunch and to say so shows a complete lack of knowlege and thought.
 
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