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Hindsight - Things almost worked with Hawkins

Buffnik

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
We all remember how it ended and how things got burnt to the ground those last couple years.

But as I look back, I think that it was 1 big mistake and 1 big stroke of bad luck that turned things.

At Willamette, a D2 program, he built them from mediocre to having a record of 40-11-1 over 5 years.

Moved to Boise State where he was a key assistant in building the program for 3 seasons before taking over as HC and going 53-11 over 5 years.

After CU, his return to college at UC-Davis (FCS level) has seen him take a struggling program and go 28-18 so far (5-0 this year so far).

He can coach.

I definitely question how well his act plays with more elite athletes on a bigger stage, given his time at CU followed by the way they ran him out of the CFL during his 1 season.

However, I think it was close to working at CU.

Offensive staff was very strong with Jeff Grimes, Mark Helfrich and Eric Kiesau. So I think the "no Petersen" narrative is severely overblown.

2006 transition recruiting class was #47 (previous year was #40), so not all that good. Also, he chose to recruit his son to play QB - The Big Mistake.

But the Hawkins model, which worked so well at Boise State, was to host visits and bring in recruits after the season during bowl practices. Finding underrecruited guys who blew up as seniors or more heralded guys who weren't firm in their commitments in order to complete most of a class. (More on this later.)

2006 season: 2-10 record, but with a signature win over a Top 5 Oklahoma team. (Edit- OU was the following season)

2007 recruiting: #27 class (leveraging his previous success)

2007 season: 6-7 with a close bowl loss to Alabama.

2008 recruiting: #15 recruiting class (recruiting strategy was working). Glaring issue, in retrospect, is we couldn't attract a QB recruit - a problem that never was overcome as the coach's son was starting as a freshman and was obviously not going to be leaving early for the NFL.

2008 season: 5-6 heading into the Nub game. 4 of 6 losses to ranked teams + losses at Florida State and aTm. Plus a win over a ranked West Virginia. Not quite a good team, but not a bad team that had beaten the teams it should have. Game was lost in the final 2 minutes when the Nubs hit a ridiculous 57 yard FG - The Big Stroke of Bad Luck.

2009 recruiting: #49. No bowl practices, no momentum. The Nub loss derailed the strategy his recruiting was built upon.

And the death spiral began. He'd lost his mojo. Key assistants had been leaving with downgrade replacements. First Grimes to Auburn. Then Helfrich took the Oregon OC job at the end of April leaving us with no OC or QB Coach during spring ball. Players also decided to abandon ship.

2009 season: 3-9

2010 recruiting: #57

2010 season: 3-6 (fired Midseason)

Looking back, I think it was real close to Hawkins having enough success here to jump for a higher paying job and leave us with a winning program and a very talented roster... if not for 1 Big Mistake and 1 Stroke of Bad Luck.

P.S. For perspective on those recruiting ranks and relevant to other threads:

2011: #64
2012: #39
2013: #68
2014: #74
2015: #69
2016: #69
2017: #35
2018: #53
2019: #44
2020: #36
2021: #64

What these numbers convince me of is that if the coaches focus on recruiting even without success (EB, Tucker) or have a little momentum (MM after bowl season), CU is fully capable of bringing in Top 40 recruiting classes. So anything below that is unacceptable to me and should be to everyone. What Hawkins showed is that success + emphasis of staff makes us a Top 30 recruiting program. With momentum (probably after some sustained success at this stage), CU is capable of the occasional Top 20 class.
 
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Lord Christ GIF by K-Ci Hailey
 
A really well thought out, well articulated post and half the replies are like "Haha, nah"
Confused Little Girl GIF


Recruiting his own son to start WAS a huge mistake. Wasn't Landry Jones going to commit until he was scared off by the coach's son being the starter? Even MacIntyre was smart enough to only let his son play as a receiver. Imagine if that mistake had been avoided and Cody went to Boise State instead?

That being said, I think you could do a big write up about how it almost worked with HCMM or how it almost worked out with HCMT but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
 
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Joe Theismann's Leg said:
A really well though out, well articulated post and half the replies are like "Haha, nah"
Confused Little Girl GIF


Recruiting his own son to start WAS a huge mistake. Wasn't Landry Jones going to commit until he was scared off by the coach's son being the starter? Even MacIntyre was smart enough to only let his son play as a receiver. Imagine if that mistake had been avoided and Cody went to Boise State instead?

That being said, I think you could do a big write up about how it almost worked with HCMM or how it almost worked out with HCMT but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
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With HCMM, the place it went sideways is that he was job hunting and didn't get that 1 or 2 more wins the year that followed the 10-win season. He'd have been gone with CU getting paid for the end of his tenure. That was real damn close to working out well, but slipped back & then broke the budget. Root cause of the slide, I think, was the Tumpkin scandal.
 
He should have had Georgia on the road, but made a coaching blunder by not taking the safety, and instead punted from back of end zone.

On the other hand, he blew that game against KU trying to get his kid the passing record or whatever that was.
 
dio said:
He should have had Georgia on the road, but made a coaching blunder by not taking the safety, and instead punted from back of end zone.

On the other hand, he blew that game against KU trying to get his kid the passing record or whatever that was.
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Yeah. And he also lost to 1AA teams, which is inexcusable. I'm far from a Hawkins fan, but I do think he could have been a guy who left us better than he found us if not for those 2 things I mentioned.
 
Buffnik said:
Yeah. And he also lost to 1AA teams, which is inexcusable. I'm far from a Hawkins fan, but I do think he could have been a guy who left us better than he found us if not for those 2 things I mentioned.
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Completely agree with the entire post. starting his son as QB was so dumb that it defies explanation. It really makes you wonder how dumb he was
 
Joe Theismann's Leg said:
That whole situation sucked. Tumpkin was a rising star in the coaching world and I remember being really excited when we got him and then... what a ****show.
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The Tumpkin situation completely and utterly broke MM and made him quit. He was livid that CU didn't fight for him (I can understand to a point because we know how much this AD and administration sucks). However, he had some momentum with that class and obviously that season. Mistakes were made in that situation but CU, like ALWAYS, folded like a lawn chair in the wind when something negative happened within its athletic department.
 
SpacemanSpiff said:
I think Cody was the best QB we had that first year. But Hawkins downfall was not finding a better QB for the subsequent years.
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Kind of did with a walk-on. Seth Lobato was good enough to get a cup of coffee in the NFL. We saw his talent in the spring game. Inexplicably, Hawkins moved this 6'6" QB to safety (protecting Cody's job?) and caused him to transfer. That blind spot nepotism was a killer - with the final act being the KU game @dio mentioned.
 
patebuff said:
The Tumpkin situation completely and utterly broke MM and made him quit. He was livid that CU didn't fight for him (I can understand to a point because we know how much this AD and administration sucks). However, he had some momentum with that class and obviously that season. Mistakes were made in that situation but CU, like ALWAYS, folded like a lawn chair in the wind when something negative happened within its athletic department.
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And this is another example of why it’s impossible to have any respect for CU as an institution.
 
patebuff said:
The Tumpkin situation completely and utterly broke MM and made him quit. He was livid that CU didn't fight for him (I can understand to a point because we know how much this AD and administration sucks). However, he had some momentum with that class and obviously that season. Mistakes were made in that situation but CU, like ALWAYS, folded like a lawn chair in the wind when something negative happened within its athletic department.
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^^This. So much this.
 
Joe Theismann's Leg said:
A really well though out, well articulated post and half the replies are like "Haha, nah"
Confused Little Girl GIF


Recruiting his own son to start WAS a huge mistake. Wasn't Landry Jones going to commit until he was scared off by the coach's son being the starter? Even MacIntyre was smart enough to only let his son play as a receiver. Imagine if that mistake had been avoided and Cody went to Boise State instead?

That being said, I think you could do a big write up about how it almost worked with HCMM or how it almost worked out with HCMT but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Click to expand...

L Jones was a heavy land thieve lean from early on.
 
I do wonder how things would have been different had we won that game at KU. We beat KSU & ISU after the firing to finish 5-7. We also had two close losses at home to Baylor and TT (last CU game I went to).

Had CU finished 8-4 in its final Big 12 season there would have been no Embree.
 
Lack of money and institutional support are more of a problem than coaching. After 25 years, CU is what it is as a football program. There isn’t any evidence to suggest otherwise. In fact, there is more evidence that it has settled into a nice cozy Vanderbilt armchair.

My advice, become a basketball fan.
 
Creebuzz said:
Lack of money and institutional support are more of a problem than coaching. After 25 years, CU is what it is as a football program. There isn’t any evidence to suggest otherwise. In fact, there is more evidence that it has settled into a nice cozy Vanderbilt armchair.

My advice, become a basketball fan.
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The Chancellor of the School has been the constant in all of this.
 
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