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Hawkins or Embree? Who damaged our program more?

Hawkins took us almost to the bottom of the barrel. Embree then took us the rest of the way down and broke out the bottom of said barrel.

I don't know if you can say one was more damaging than the other since they each inherited vastly different situations... but I think Embree was definitely the lesser coach. He was so hopelessly clueless he made Hawkins feel like someone who had a clue in retrospect, even though I remember constantly feeling Hawk was in completely over his head from mid '08 onward.

I don't hate either of them- Hawkins may have been a bit of a douche with all his vague, depthless zen bull****, but I don't think he's a bad guy. I believe he tried his best most of the time, and he must have been put into a hell of a situation with Cody, especially since Cody was such a stand up kid, a smart guy and a solid competitor who simply lacked the necessary physical skills to be a competent power 5 qb. The awful feeling of nepotism really hangs over those years like a cloud, and I can't help but feel things could have been slightly better without it. Would have been best for both of their careers if he just told Cody to go to Boise. Either way, he clearly wasn't the answer as a gameday coach anyway. In the end, I don't feel sorry for Hawk, the whole thing is just unfortunate. On the other hand, I do feel sorry for Embree. That was an awful, awful hire in all respects. The dude had no business being a head coach, and his results showed that and pretty much nothing but.
 
Dr. Phil DiStephano.

The man who insisted that Hawkins be kept in the job at least one year longer than any rational person would have. The same man who directed the hiring of Embree simply because He was cheap and was a "CU guy" to placate the fans without making a reasonable investment in a coach with a resume that justified getting a P5 job.

Hawkins and Embree both get their share of the blame but they were in the position to do that damage because the man at the top put them there.
 
MtnBuff said:
Dr. Phil DiStephano.

The man who insisted that Hawkins be kept in the job at least one year longer than any rational person would have. The same man who directed the hiring of Embree simply because He was cheap and was a "CU guy" to placate the fans without making a reasonable investment in a coach with a resume that justified getting a P5 job.

Hawkins and Embree both get their share of the blame but they were in the position to do that damage because the man at the top put them there.
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Agree! The fact that he came through all of this unscathed is really strange to me.
 
Duff Man said:
Mike Bohn.
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Ding, ding, ding.

It's the common thread.

Would have taken a superstar coach to exceed GB's success during that era. Let's remember that Bohn fired GB for losing ugly at the end of a season that reached the conference championship & bowl game after offering an extension earlier in the season when things were rolling.

The support, resources and administrative competence simply were not in place to allow a poor hire to be anything but a disaster. I'm not going to defend either Hawkins or Embree, but neither were as bad as they looked.
 
Hawkins. Embree wouldn't have been hired of Hawkins didn't destroy the program.


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Buffnik said:
Ding, ding, ding.

It's the common thread.

Would have taken a superstar coach to exceed GB's success during that era. Let's remember that Bohn fired GB for losing ugly at the end of a season that reached the conference championship & bowl game after offering an extension earlier in the season when things were rolling.

The support, resources and administrative competence simply were not in place to allow a poor hire to be anything but a disaster. I'm not going to defend either Hawkins or Embree, but neither were as bad as they looked.
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sorry, but those last two games under GB made me want him to be gone too at the time.
 
Who was Bohn's boss? Who kept him around because he was a good yes man and didn't insist on making the changes that needed to be made?
 
FChairbanks said:
sorry, but those last two games under GB made me want him to be gone too at the time.
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I did too. In hindsight, though, I have realized that GB was keeping things afloat within an environment that was completely toxic to winning football.
 
Buffnik said:
I did too. In hindsight, though, I have realized that GB was keeping things afloat within an environment that was completely toxic to winning football.
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therein lies the rub. unfortunately we as fans don't have the whole picture. GB was dealing with a ****storm that was circling around him and he did his best to work with the system.

if only he could have kept his thoughts to himself we may be in a better place right now.

but...we're not.

let's focus on the positive and keep moving forward.
 
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1. Dan Hawkins was retained for year 5 (likely connected to 2).

2. We lacked the adequate finances to find a competent replacement and/or elevate our program. Embree was making 1/2 of that of his conference peers, his failure shouldn't have been a surprise.
 
If I saw Embree I would say hello and thank him. He at least tried and gave two ****s. He loves the Buffs and wanted to see us succeed. His speech, while awkward and uncomfortable showed his love and disappointment in losing his dream job.
If I saw Hawkins I would maybe punch him in the face and tell him to exit the premises before worse happens.

Hawkins didn't give a ****. He wanted Hawkins football. Not CU football.

I blame Hawkins. Even the ****tiest coach should not lose to a D-1AA team when they return a team that went to a bowl game. That is worse than the loss Embree took. We knew his team lacked talent and enough experience . Hawkins lacked organization, coaching, motivation and any connection to CU with how he isolated the tradition.

Even though we don't need to go back to the CU well, we grew up Buff fans.


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The hawk hire was a consensus A+. You're just using 20/20 hindsight and being idiots. Hawk and his mojo was supposed to be the cure to our so called toxic football program. He was brought in to "clean up" the mess.
 
FLounder said:
The hawk hire was a consensus A+. You're just using 20/20 hindsight and being idiots. Hawk and his mojo was supposed to be the cure to our so called toxic football program. He was brought in to "clean up" the mess.
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i can't disagree with your premise, but if we had done the appropriate due diligence we may have realized the true picture with hawk/peterson...

doesn't matter at this point though...we sit where we sit. what happens next is the critical focus.
 
Hawkins turned us into an intramural program. Embree wasn't given a whole helluva lot to work with. Embree was not put into much of a position to succeed. I'm going with Hawkins in this one.
 
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Embree by far. Hawk at least had us as a below average team, but winning some games, including over ranked teams.

Embree was hot garbage
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The argument that Embree wasn't given much to work with ignores the fact that he wouldn't be able to win with unlimited resources. He was that bad.

As as for which one did more damage, probable Embree. Had we hired a real coach after Hawkins, we would have recovered by now.
 
FLounder said:
The hawk hire was a consensus A+. You're just using 20/20 hindsight and being idiots. Hawk and his mojo was supposed to be the cure to our so called toxic football program. He was brought in to "clean up" the mess.
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Hawkins was the "hot" candidate at that time. If we hadn't hired him some other major program would have. There is never a guarantee that a guy can succeed stepping up a level.

The problem with Hawk was not the hire but the delay in firing him. Had we fired him one year or better two years earlier and as Sacky says hired a real coach we would not be where we are now.
 
As said by others all problems start well above the coaches. We had an admin that wanted nothing to do with fielding a competitive football team. After Barnett they spent years looking for the cheap fix and trying to make the easiest decisions possible.

Hawkins was considered by almost everyone to be a great hire. Why he was kept around for year 5 was a decision made by Bohn or DeStephano depending on what story you believe. From what I have been told the boosters had money in place to fire Hawkins and Bohn was going to get rid of him. The decision to keep him was made above Bohn. Had he been fired after year 4 who knows where this program would be.

As far as the coach hate. I blame Hawkins for 90% of our on field issues. He came here with his zen BS sayings and false bravado and proceeded to fail in spectacular fashion. The minute the failings were pointed out he went full asshole with comments saying your can't criticize because you never played, or your don't have kids. Again more BS.

Embree was 100% in over his head. He was given a job he was unqualified for and made things worse by hiring an entire staff that was unqualified for their jobs. This might have been workable had the team been a .500 squad with some holes to fix. Embree inherited a dumpster fire and after 2 years it was pretty clear the entire coaching staff had no idea on how to even begin to solve the problem. My only issue with Embree was he turned his firing into a racial issue.
 
Bohn. He presided over both, and he had numerous opportunities to alter the course. If he wasn't getting the Admin support that he needed, then he should have thrown a public fit about it, developed better relationships with boosters who could have had influence on the situation, and made a better case to the Regents (as RG has). Instead, Bohn acted like everything was fine and part of a greater plan, or he just assumed that certain things were unattainable. RG has shown that there were doors that could have been opened, whereas Bohn was unable to find the knob.
 
Embree. He was horrible and then threw CU under the bus. The guy is a disgrace.
 
BuffNut99 said:
Bohn. He presided over both, and he had numerous opportunities to alter the course. If he wasn't getting the Admin support that he needed, then he should have thrown a public fit about it, developed better relationships with boosters who could have had influence on the situation, and made a better case to the Regents (as RG has). Instead, Bohn acted like everything was fine and part of a greater plan, or he just assumed that certain things were unattainable. RG has shown that there were doors that could have been opened, whereas Bohn was unable to find the knob.
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Different time, different environment. RG has done things that Bohn could never do. I wouldn't dispute that for a second. I just don't think that it would have mattered what Bohn tried to do. Dr. Phil was an institutional ****-block. By most accounts, Bohn wanted Hawkins fired after year four. That didn't happen. By most accounts, Embree was forced upon Bohn. Could he have done something about it? I honestly doubt it, given the environment at the time. Bohn had his shortcomings, that's true. Blaming him for where we are now ignores who he was working for, though.
 
sackman said:
Different time, different environment. RG has done things that Bohn could never do. I wouldn't dispute that for a second. I just don't think that it would have mattered what Bohn tried to do. Dr. Phil was an institutional ****-block. By most accounts, Bohn wanted Hawkins fired after year four. That didn't happen. By most accounts, Embree was forced upon Bohn. Could he have done something about it? I honestly doubt it, given the environment at the time. Bohn had his shortcomings, that's true. Blaming him for where we are now ignores who he was working for, though.
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That's the dumbest side of the argument I have heard. I can't believe that you took the time to answer it. If only Bohn had disregarded his boss' direction and gone rogue all would have worked out. I'm sure Phil would have had a nice chuckle and stayed out of it from then on. All of the big donors wanted DH gone, and it didn't happen, Bohn would have only succeeded in getting his own ass fired sooner. Like him or hate him, you can't deny Mike loved the school, and cherished his job.
 
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