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Build Rick George a Statue (was #fireRickGeorge)
- Thread starter ZandiBuff
- Start date
WTF is Rick George and CU doing right now? There is so much news about the ACC, Realignment, Private Equity, and we have the most valuable asset in the entire Power Conferences in Coach Prime and we have no idea if there is a new contract, if he has chosen to stay with his current contract and pushed money towards NIL, or whatever the heck is going on. What is happening Rick?
Just read an SI article related to the Buffs that Coach Prime's buyout is now $8M and drops to $5M after this upcoming season. Coach Prime did talk about his contract but you have to wonder if Coach Prime is betting on himself for an extension after this upcoming season. If CU has another season like last year, Coach Prime would get a nice pay bump. It's easy to blame RG but you have to think about what Coach Prime's camp is trying to achieve.
I understand the concern about keeping coaches under RG's watch. If I recall correctly, FHCMM did flirt with the Ole Miss job at the time following the 2016 season, then Mel Tucker took the money bag to East Lansing. But those things were under the old administration.
Guess 4BTDs will be having a panic attack after reading this post.
I understand the concern about keeping coaches under RG's watch. If I recall correctly, FHCMM did flirt with the Ole Miss job at the time following the 2016 season, then Mel Tucker took the money bag to East Lansing. But those things were under the old administration.
Guess 4BTDs will be having a panic attack after reading this post.
Prime should be getting that pay bump now. He doesn’t need another season. If RG isn’t offering him a significant bump, enough to get him to sign now, it’s because RG sucks at his job.
If RG suddenly retires, that could be a sign.
I remain convinced RG can foul up a cup of water. We have had a good run of luck lately, let's hope it continues.
This kind of thing amazes me. CU athletics is now about as strong as it’s ever been. Basketball struggles this year aside, in a 12 month time span, CU sent two basketball teams to the NCAA tournament, won a National Championship in skiing, and went to a bowl game. We managed to find a landing spot after USC and UCLA ****ed the PAC 12. The finances for the AD are stronger than they’ve ever been and we have people bitching about the job RG has done? I get the frustration with the lack of support for the hoops programs, but all things considered, I have very little to complain about.
Well, left to his own devices, it seems RG would have had us riding the Bronco Mendenhall minivan, probably to a couple of 4-8 or 5-7 years under his belt here by now. Apparently, the PTB motivated RG to go for Prime and he succeeded. Great. Everything positive after that is Prime. RG inherited Tad. Tad is, for my money, one of the best MBB coaches there is, and does more with less than just about anybody, which is good, because less is what RG gives in support. Skiing? When hasn't CU won the NC in skiing?
So, RG succeeded in getting Prime and that is huge. But without Saliman, I am somewhat doubtful that happens. Other than that, RG has been, at best, mediocre, and that is being generous.
Aside from giving Prime a boss that he enjoys and being a solid fundraiser, we owe very very little to RG. He’s incompetent at a majority of the responsibilities associated with his position.
Agreed wholeheartedly. He has poor organizational management skills, can't fund raise effectively, can't manage people, is a terrible communicator both internally and externally, does not support numerous of his programs with adequate financial resources and is unable to complete many major projects (stadium naming rights, Folsom Field upgrades, Events Center upgrades, etc). Other than that, he is fantastic.
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Forgot to add he is one of the worst contract negotiators imaginable.
Athletic Director is different today than even 5-10 years ago
Conference Realignment, Fundraising, Sponsors, NIL, Settlement, etc, are huge now and were not then
If it was good ole college sports that was still amateur, with level playing field, and just the love of the sport, I like RG if the AD is supportive and we just want to win once in a while, yee haw, but it is not.
Our AD needs to be a business killer, a marketing savant, and a creative deal maker, which RG is really not built for.
He is a good man that has done good things for CU, but times are different, **** is happening every day, and we are NOT in the top conference, and we have a once in a generation Unicorn that we need to give the biggest runway to. I hope it works out.
PTB = Powers That Be.
| Team | Total | Men | Years: Men | Co-ed | Years: Co-ed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denver | 24 | 14 | 1954 1955 1956 1957 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1969 1970 1971 | 10 | 2000 2001 2002 2005 2008 2009 2010 2014 2016 2018 |
| Colorado | 20 | 11 | 1959 1960 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1982 | 9 | 1991 1995 1998 1999 2006 2011 2013 2015 2024 |
| Utah | 16 | 1 | 1981 | 15 | 1983 1984 1986 1987 1988 1993 1996 1997 2003 2017 2019 2021 2022 2023 2025 |
| Vermont | 6 | 1 | 1980 | 5 | 1989 1990 1992 1994 2012 |
| Dartmouth | 3 | 2 | 1958 1976 | 1 | 2007 |
| Wyoming | 2 | 1 | 1968 | 1 | 1985 |
| New Mexico | 1 | - | 1 | 2004 |
We are 3rd over the last 40 years and Utah is catching up quick.
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So we are unwilling to give RG credit for anything that’s gone right in the AD, but blame him for all the problems.
Ok.
So, RG succeeded in getting Prime and that is huge.
There, I said it again, all better now?
I just think you have to give him some credit for the success of the athletic department and not give all the credit to others while throwing all the blame at him. It’s disingenuous to say we are looking for results and when the results happen to say he had no part in it. I share some frustration that he should be more supportive of the hoops programs. He’s all in on football, which is the financially prudent course of action, but I think there’s room to help with basketball.
The Saliman stuff is valid, but we have all pretty much said that we felt that DiStefano was the anchor. He’s gone, and now we see that we were pretty much correct in that assumption, but we can’t see that RG was fighting a losing battle while Phil was his boss?
I can give him credit for a number of things:
Champions Center
Prime hire
Folsom improvements
Keg improvements
Prentup improvements
Successful hires on a tight budget for non-football coaches
My biggest gripes would be mismanagement of basketball and being on the damn NCAA committee but still getting caught with his pants down on NIL. The MacIntyre contract, Tucker fiasco and KD hiring/contract were also embarrassing bungles.
That's all fair. None of us are perfect at our jobs, but as long as the good outweighs the bad, we manage to remain employed. I wouldn't ever claim that RG has been perfect, but perfection appears to be the standard he's held to by many folks.
I think the bad outweighs the good especially when you take into consideration that prime was not going to be the hire until he was told “do better”.
And I don’t expect perfection. But when one of the core staples of your job is contract negotiation and structure so that the university isn’t completed screwed by a coach leaving/being fired and you’re absolutely horrendous at it, that’s a major issue.
That is where I am at. RG is a decent corporate manager. But football is it. Bringing in Tucker was, at the outset, a good hire. I don't know what happened and why RG could not retain him, but mostly I look at Dr. Phil. Every AD has bad hires. But there are bad hires and catastrophic hires. Karl Dorrell was a catastrophic hire. The guy was a complete flop at UCLA where you can toss a rock out the window and hit a five-star recruit in the head. He couldn't recruit and get it done there, it absolutely mystified me that anyone thought he would succeed here. Add to that they just threw bushel baskets full of money at him when no one was knocking on his door and the hire becomes even worse.
I do believe left to his own devices we would have hired Mendenhall, and would likely be still in the Pac 2, floundering around with WSU and OSU, since I believe the main draw to get is to the big 12 was Prime. The narrative that somebody had to practically push him to go get Prime underscores how bad of the trajectory he had us on, and would've kept us on, unless somebody intervened. Thank you, Pres. Saliman. To me, that makes him substandard. Even though he might be good at other aspects of his job, if you flop at football, you take the whole department down with you.
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With the ink dry on Coach Prime's contract extension, when will RG announce his retirement and then the new AD? Or are we waiting for the west side announcement? Only the US government seemingly has been more evasive about UFOs than CU and the west side.
Rick George is likely sticking around longer than anticipated, potentially through the Prime era. I would say through the 2027 season at the very least.
We were on the brink of losing a seat at the table with realignment. It looks like that seat was saved. RG was a member of the team that saved it. Could be dumb luck. But I think we were really close to going into the dustbin of irrelevance. Thank god the team realized the importance of it.
I have to roll my eyes at some of the RG bashing. He had his hands sort of tied by previous administrations didn’t he? There are so many dynamics that went into where we are today that were sort of out of anyone’s control.
Like:
High court rulings
Conference realignment
NIL
And then things that aligned, like:
Hiring an AD friendly President
Removing recruiting restrictions
Courting Prime
Getting donors on board
Hiring Prime and, now, extending his contract
It hasn’t been one person or thing. It has been almost a miraculous alignment of the stars.
Now the trick will be to see and grasp the future. Plan for it. Be proactive.
Like:
High court rulings
Conference realignment
NIL
And then things that aligned, like:
Hiring an AD friendly President
Removing recruiting restrictions
Courting Prime
Getting donors on board
Hiring Prime and, now, extending his contract
It hasn’t been one person or thing. It has been almost a miraculous alignment of the stars.
Now the trick will be to see and grasp the future. Plan for it. Be proactive.
Contract runs through June 30, 2026...about 15 months away. There were two things that RG needed to do before that day were extending Coach Prime and the west side project. Once that second item gets announced and construction is under way, there's not much else RG needs to do...except show off the latest CU themed Nike sneakers.