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CU Coaching Discussion

Per 247 Sports, CU's football rankings have stacked up like this since HCMM has been steering the ship:
2013: 68
2014: 74
2015: 69
2016: 69
2017: 35
2018: 42 to date, will be about 44ish based upon previous years avg. per player point averages using last years rankings.

Perhaps trending up, but the jury is still out if top 35 classes are in the mix in the next few years. The past says no. But who knows?

Really need to focus on top 20 classes to make real progress in the win/loss columns.
Hey, look at that, Wisconsin just scored again.
 
we are systemically healthier as a program than we were when embree took the hawkins dumpster fire and lit it on fire. by an incredibly large margin. this isn't all because of mm but without the right hc, we would not be where we are now.

i understand the skepticism of some who question whether he can get us to the next level. what i would say is that i see plenty of evidence that we have a very high performing ceo as hc. he does so much of this right. i

agree with nik-- i think we are about 2 bad ass recruiting assistants from being set up to be good again, every year. of course, much can go wrong, as we all well know-- mm could leave. we could make a bad hire again. etc. but, we are in position, at least far better than for a long time. play it out.
 
Per 247 Sports, CU's football rankings have stacked up like this since HCMM has been steering the ship:
2013: 68
2014: 74
2015: 69
2016: 69
2017: 35
2018: 42 to date, will be about 44ish based upon previous years avg. per player point averages using last years rankings.

Perhaps trending up, but the jury is still out if top 35 classes are in the mix in the next few years. The past says no. But who knows?

Really need to focus on top 20 classes to make real progress in the win/loss columns.


Nebraska recruits after huskers get dominated at home again and realize they will live in lincoln....

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and another thing--- there is no ****ing way mm gets fired this year so this is a completely silly thread that serves no purpose other than allowing those that don't like him to jerk each other off. take a step back... is there ANY realistic chance he is getting fired this year, absent a horrific scandal? any at all? no. of course not. so why post this ****? does it help the program?
 
and another thing--- there is no ****ing way mm gets fired this year so this is a completely silly thread that serves no purpose other than allowing those that don't like him to jerk each other off. take a step back... is there ANY realistic chance he is getting fired this year, absent a horrific scandal? any at all? no. of course not. so why post this ****? does it help the program?
who gets the bread?
 
I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have better talent on the O line and D line. If we can get that addressed in recruiting (and I believe that started with the last class on the O line), then I think we will be in good shape. I am thoroughly disappointed that both are sub-par this year. MikeMac should have built better depth by now, but I am encouraged that maybe we aren't that far from the goal (at least on the O line).

MikeMac seems like the right one for the job to me. We just need a few more Jimmys and Joes.
 
I wonder how many people are willing to commit to a stance on what the bar is for offseason AC changes, if we can mostly agree that AC recruiting is a big problem?

Is it acceptable to see no material changes to the staff composition, 1 or 2 lateral moves, etc.?
 
I wonder how many people are willing to commit to a stance on what the bar is for offseason AC changes, if we can mostly agree that AC recruiting is a big problem?

Is it acceptable to see no material changes to the staff composition, 1 or 2 lateral moves, etc.?
I think everybody here is in agreement that 2 current staff members need to be replaced and a 10th AC added. All three of the new staff members should be established recruiters, or up-and-comers that are going to put most of their focus in recruiting.
 
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I honestly don’t think it’s a lack of emphasizing recruiting. It’s hard to change the perception of years of craptitude that recruits have of CU. It’s been said time and time again, it’s going to take a long time for that perception to change. Not just one season. CU needs several winning seasons before there is a big bump, regardless of what people think should happen.

Then our opinions differ. I see MacIntyre as a guy who goes after low hanging fruit - I have seen the excuses on these boards for years. He needs his type of guys, we cannot recruit because of our record so we need under the radar guys we can develop, etc. I am just not buying it. We seemed to get a bump because of Chiaverini who worked a lot of his recruiting connection from Texas Tech. Recruiting a talented player is a lot of work - you have to get in on them early and keep the lines of communications open and build their interest. CU seems to give up on players that are being recruited by the top programs. We won the PAC12 South last year for cripes sake - that should give us a nice story to tell this year.

I see the same attitude towards hiring assistant coaches. Most of the guys hired have few options - out of work or soon to be out of work. Eliot had defensive play calling taken away from him at Kentucky and it was known he was on the way out there - so CU gave him a big raise and a multi-year contract. To me that is questionable but seems to be how MacIntyre approaches hiring.
 
Then our opinions differ. I see MacIntyre as a guy who goes after low hanging fruit - I have seen the excuses on these boards for years. He needs his type of guys, we cannot recruit because of our record so we need under the radar guys we can develop, etc. I am just not buying it. We seemed to get a bump because of Chiaverini who worked a lot of his recruiting connection from Texas Tech. Recruiting a talented player is a lot of work - you have to get in on them early and keep the lines of communications open and build their interest. CU seems to give up on players that are being recruited by the top programs. We won the PAC12 South last year for cripes sake - that should give us a nice story to tell this year.

I see the same attitude towards hiring assistant coaches. Most of the guys hired have few options - out of work or soon to be out of work. Eliot had defensive play calling taken away from him at Kentucky and it was known he was on the way out there - so CU gave him a big raise and a multi-year contract. To me that is questionable but seems to be how MacIntyre approaches hiring.
Do you think MM is lazy?
Do you think MM doesn't want to have good players and good coaches?
Do you think MM lacks confidence?
If you don't think any of those things, how do you explain your belief?
 
Do you think MM is lazy?
Do you think MM doesn't want to have good players and good coaches?
Do you think MM lacks confidence?
If you don't think any of those things, how do you explain your belief?

Sure I believe he wants good players and coaches - everyone wants that. Everyone wants to be successful but not everyone is successful!!!

I am judging by what I observe. We are in year 5 saying we need better recruiters as assistant coaches.
 
Do you think MM is lazy?
Do you think MM doesn't want to have good players and good coaches?
Do you think MM lacks confidence?
If you don't think any of those things, how do you explain your belief?
To be fair, I think anybody who answers Yes to any of these is being disingenuous. You can't even make it in the high school coaching ranks if you're lazy, he clearly has confidence in his abilities, and he offers and recruits all the top players around the country, so you know he wants good players. However, he isn't blind to the recruiting/coaching situations at DL and TE, so the only logical conclusion people can make is that he is fine with having below average to bad staff members in certain areas.

People have speculated about too much turnover being a reason JJ and GB have retained their jobs, but it's year 5 at CU, and they are suffering from GB's horrible OL and now lack of TE recruiting, and they continue to strike out on highly regarded DL recruits because JJ can't close, and are resorting to the JUCO ranks once again.
 
Ok would it be fair to say you'd rather have assistant coaches who recruit better than they coach? Just an honest question.
 
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Ok would it be fair to say you'd rather have assistant coaches who recruit better than they coach. Just an honest question.
I think you need to be above the conference average in either recruiting or coaching to justify remaining on this staff and we have guys that don't meet that standard now.
 
Ok would it be fair to say you'd rather have assistant coaches who recruit better than they coach. Just an honest question.
Every coach on the staff needs to be somewhat competent at recruiting, but certain positions need to be recruiters first, IMO. TE, RB, WR and DL coaches have to be recruiters first (obviously with some exceptions like the WR coach also being the OC). LB, DB, OL, and QB coaches need to be top notch coaches first as those positions are highly technical and come with a lot of responsibilities.
 
Well, appreciate the answers and really I agree with both takes on it. I definitely see some changes I think should be made.
 
Then our opinions differ. I see MacIntyre as a guy who goes after low hanging fruit - I have seen the excuses on these boards for years. He needs his type of guys, we cannot recruit because of our record so we need under the radar guys we can develop, etc. I am just not buying it. We seemed to get a bump because of Chiaverini who worked a lot of his recruiting connection from Texas Tech. Recruiting a talented player is a lot of work - you have to get in on them early and keep the lines of communications open and build their interest. CU seems to give up on players that are being recruited by the top programs. We won the PAC12 South last year for cripes sake - that should give us a nice story to tell this year.

I see the same attitude towards hiring assistant coaches. Most of the guys hired have few options - out of work or soon to be out of work. Eliot had defensive play calling taken away from him at Kentucky and it was known he was on the way out there - so CU gave him a big raise and a multi-year contract. To me that is questionable but seems to be how MacIntyre approaches hiring.

I really don't get how this thread still exists, but I guess I'm now going to contribute to the problem by responding.

While I disagree with some of what you say about recruiting, whatever, fair. Your statement about hiring assistants though seems off. I think you're applying Eliot's situation to everyone he's hired. Even if you say that Leavitt was a RG hire, I think Tumpkin could have gotten many other jobs as well (the off field thing of course aside). Brown also seemed like a solid candidate. Chev too had a lot of opportunities, unless, you again see him as an RG hire. Eliot is disappointing, but that's one example.

Mac is a good coach; I'm glad he's my football coach.
 
Well of course, it always benefits you to have better players as a coach for the most part, not always. Instinct is a huge thing to have as a player, some have it, some don't, unfortunately.
 
I really don't get how this thread still exists, but I guess I'm now going to contribute to the problem by responding.

While I disagree with some of what you say about recruiting, whatever, fair. Your statement about hiring assistants though seems off. I think you're applying Eliot's situation to everyone he's hired. Even if you say that Leavitt was a RG hire, I think Tumpkin could have gotten many other jobs as well (the off field thing of course aside). Brown also seemed like a solid candidate. Chev too had a lot of opportunities, unless, you again see him as an RG hire. Eliot is disappointing, but that's one example.

Mac is a good coach; I'm glad he's my football coach.

It goes farther back than that - see the initial staff. But Leavitt did not have a job - Harbaugh had gone to Michigan and did not take Leavitt with him plus he was tainted in the college ranks because of the incident at USF, at Central Michigan Tumpkin was the DC and the head coach quit in the spring - he did not have a lot of opportunities, Brown came from Army with no P5 experience, Chev had ties to CU and got a big promotion and is the only outlier. Goes back to my low hanging fruit approach to hiring. MacIntyre does not go after successful guys in other programs and hire them away.
 
Do you think MM is lazy?
Do you think MM doesn't want to have good players and good coaches?
Do you think MM lacks confidence?
If you don't think any of those things, how do you explain your belief?

My major question in regards to how he hires assistant coaches is two-fold:

1. Is him being turned down by his top choices bad luck or something else?

2. Why is the process seemingly well outside the norm in terms of timing?
 
Do you think MM is lazy? No
Do you think MM doesn't want to have good players and good coaches? No
Do you think MM lacks confidence? Possibly.
If you don't think any of those things, how do you explain your belief?
Could also be the guy who takes maimed animals home. Some folks are Cubs fans you know.
 
My major question in regards to how he hires assistant coaches is two-fold:

1. Is him being turned down by his top choices bad luck or something else?

2. Why is the process seemingly well outside the norm in terms of timing?
Exactly.

It's not that he's not working hard. It's not that he's not respected. It's not that he doesn't desire to have the best coaches and players as possible in his program (within some parameters he likely has on football character). It's not that he is stupid and doesn't know the difference between good and bad.

This is a very experienced and competent football coach.

So the fact that he hasn't gotten where he needs to get in these areas brings up a "why?".

Part of it is that it was a hard job that he took over.

Coaches didn't want to come here. No security due to 1-year contracts, low relative pay, and a string of guys getting fired. This was all less true in the past offseason and will be even less true the upcoming offseason (particularly if the team wins at least 2 of its last 5 to have another bowl season).

Players didn't want to come here. It was a losing program that didn't have the bells & whistles of other places, is far from home, and didn't put guys in the NFL. Some of that was still true last offseason and with the same "particularly" caveat as with the Coaches paragraph, it will be even less true this upcoming offseason.

I think we have a few things at play here that started with the coaching staff.

First, when MacIntyre took over he had a way he knew he wanted to do things and brought mostly a staff of guys who knew his corporate culture and had succeeded with him.

I believe that there was also a loyalty factor which played into that, rewarding those assistants by giving them an opportunity to ride his coattails into the bigger job. That also seems to play into holding onto coaches who aren't working out a year too long.

With that, I believe that he values his culture and the dynamics of how his staff interacts a ton. This causes him to be very deliberate in choosing coaches to whom he wants to offer a position. That deliberateness coupled with how CU has been far from a first choice opportunity for most coaches has resulted in a hiring process that takes too long and usually doesn't land the 1st choice guy.

Last, and I believe that this is what impacts recruiting, is that he puts more weight on the value of that staff dynamic than he does on the individual coach's recruiting chops. Couple that with what I believe to be true on how he views football character and we lose out in both ways on the guys who are rated real high by the services: 1) we don't have coaches who are able to pull a rabbit out of a hat in recruiting; and, 2) we aren't willing to take risks on super talented guys who are prima donnas or lazy in the classroom -- the guys the super elite programs don't bother with so a program like CU can land if they put on the full court press even without having ace recruiters on staff. That leaves us with the tier below that.

Anyway, I like our current staff better than the initial staff. I like our current recruiting better than the initial recruiting. Things are coming up, albeit in a slow and deliberate manner that's frustrating.

What I hope, and will be disappointed in if it doesn't happen, is that MacIntyre recognizes that recruiting needs a shot in the arm if CU is going to challenge USC for the top of the South. That he recognizes the fact that the timing is great to make it happen with multi-year deals a thing at CU, his budget being larger than we've ever seen, and an AD who is about as supportive as it gets. That he recognizes the fact that the timing is also great to land players due to the major hurdles of being a losing program that doesn't put guys in the NFL having been erased by the end of this season.

He has to strike hard in December after what is likely a pre-Christmas bowl game. Get the new coaches on board at least by quickly after the early signing period and take this 2018 class over the top by landing some diamonds on the regular February signing day to finish this up.
 
My major question in regards to how he hires assistant coaches is two-fold:

1. Is him being turned down by his top choices bad luck or something else?

2. Why is the process seemingly well outside the norm in terms of timing?
Some really good questions. What staff member has he brought in that was a clear #1? Chev?
 
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