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How Colorado's football program got mired in a decade of losing

I'm confused. The by line reads Patrick Saunders and Tom Kensler.

I've heard lots of reasons for the downfall, but this article for me put the timeline in perspective...about how the non-scandal really affected the program in recruiting. I knew the scandal hurt, but I didn't understand to what depths it hurt the program. I thought someone else might find it informative.

Honestly, the reactions seems way out of proportion to a simple little post.
 
Bufffan68 said:
I'm confused. The by line reads Patrick Saunders and Tom Kensler.

I've heard lots of reasons for the downfall, but this article for me put the timeline in perspective...about how the non-scandal really affected the program in recruiting. I knew the scandal hurt, but I didn't understand to what depths it hurt the program. I thought someone else might find it informative.

Honestly, the reactions seems way out of proportion to a simple little post.
Click to expand...

Please ignore tini on this.

Kensler is good peeps and has always been fair.

Thanks for sharing the column. Rep.
 
The article is factual enough, but being the DP, I do have to ask, "why now?". What is the point of re-hashing this story in the wake of a defeat to Utah? That's the problem I have with it.

I think there were many other directions they could have gone. Instead of going over what happened 10 years ago, recap the season, or follow up with where are the seniors going next? Who has draft/NFL aspirations? Heck, write about the CSU coaching change. This seems like just another time to dump on CU.
 
Bufffan68 said:
I'm confused. The by line reads Patrick Saunders and Tom Kensler.

I've heard lots of reasons for the downfall, but this article for me put the timeline in perspective...about how the non-scandal really affected the program in recruiting. I knew the scandal hurt, but I didn't understand to what depths it hurt the program. I thought someone else might find it informative.

Honestly, the reactions seems way out of proportion to a simple little post.
Click to expand...

Lay it on those two mother****ers the President and Chancellor that placed the preposterous recruiting restrictions on the program. ****ing weasels succumbing to the sleazeball Governor and press without due-process.
 
goalline said:
The article is factual enough, but being the DP, I do have to ask, "why now?". What is the point of re-hashing this story in the wake of a defeat to Utah? That's the problem I have with it.

I think there were many other directions they could have gone. Instead of going over what happened 10 years ago, recap the season, or follow up with where are the seniors going next? Who has draft/NFL aspirations? Heck, write about the CSU coaching change. This seems like just another time to dump on CU.
Click to expand...

The timing makes total sense. CU just finished its season at 2-10. It's now 10 years ago that CU had its last winning season (7-6) in a season that saw the wheels fall off with losses in the final 4 games and a coach getting fired.

The only way CU puts this behind itself is by winning. Until then, "what happened to this elite program?" is completely valid at the close of every losing season.
 
DP never misses a chance to rap CU. Overall, not a terrible article, but again, as others have observed, why fling the poo now?

Bitsy, her lap dog Byyny et al. can go take a flying leap for all I care.
 
Yeah I don't need to read the article. Sadly the story is imbedded in my brain. It all started with "the scandal" and the stupid decisions made by the powers that be at the time as a result of "the scandal".

After that it was bad coaching hire after bad coaching hire. All the losing has negatively affected the perception of the program making it harder to recruit here.

It's going to take a special coach to turn it around and I am hoping HCMM is the one because if he isn't, well that would make it that much harder to turn this thing around.

I believe, without the so called "scandal" or even if it was handled better, Gary Barnett would still be our coach and we would be a perennial top 25 team.

Ok now I'm depressed. Thanks Bufffan68 :bang:
 
I think that the article lays it out pretty well and finally has some comments from those that need to be heard. Glad Barnett was included among others. This is the first article that lays it out straight and explains it. I do not see it as poo tossing at CU. Kensler I like a lot but Saunders was just as guilty as the rest of the media in screwing CU during all of the non-issues that were drug thru the press.
 
We had already dropped below top25 perrenial competitor in my mind by 2004. We were the best team in the North, but we couldn't compete with Texas or Okla after 2001, when Slick's recruits started to graduate to the NFL.

Barnett's recruiting was a giant falloff each year from the Neuheisel and Mac years.

Neuheisel was the first giant mistake, but at least Rick kept bringing in athletes - but as he's proven several times now, he's not a good football coach. Hiring Rick Neuheisel to succeed Mac was a giant mistake.

And Rick bringing in Katie Hnida was one of the dumbest things ever. "The scandal" was made worse by Gary's comment of "she wasn't a very good kicker". That was straw that broke the back.
 
so what were all of the self imposed recruiting restrictions. The article mentions a few of the big ones, then a quote by Barnett about GPS kind of hinted that there were many more restrictions. Anyone have a list? It could be interesting
 
buff190 said:
Yeah I don't need to read the article. Sadly the story is imbedded in my brain. It all started with "the scandal" and the stupid decisions made by the powers that be at the time as a result of "the scandal".

After that it was bad coaching hire after bad coaching hire. All the losing has negatively affected the perception of the program making it harder to recruit here.

It's going to take a special coach to turn it around and I am hoping HCMM is the one because if he isn't, well that would make it that much harder to turn this thing around.

I believe, without the so called "scandal" or even if it was handled better, Gary Barnett would still be our coach and we would be a perennial top 25 team.

Ok now I'm depressed. Thanks Bufffan68 :bang:
Click to expand...
LOL. It's my superpower :lol:
 
bombay said:
Pretty good detailing of how betsy and mary murdered a program and cost the university a fortune.
Click to expand...
But they can rest well in their self-righteous "but we're CU"...as if we we're ****ing Stanford or Harvard or something. I hope that streak of snobbery and liberal elitism has left the leadership of the university forever.
 
I always wonder how much GB's falling off in recruiting was his failure and how much was the restrictions placed on the team. The man could coach (well, except for the first few games of the season), but it was obvious at the end that he didn't have the athletes.

Overall though, pretty much all of it is on the administration(s):

Hiring the weasel.

Completely ignoring facilities from the completion of Dal Ward until the east side boxes, and then completely ignoring them again.

Over reaction to the non scandal, putting ridiculous restrictions on the recruiting process.

Bending over to [strike]take it from[/strike] please the NCAA on stupid minor violations.

Pissing off pretty much every HS coach in the state by mishandling GB's firing.

Keeping Hawkins on for the lame duck season (killing two recruiting classes in the process).

Hiring a completely unqualified head coach and staff in order to "save" money.

Being fair, hiring GB was probably a good move, hiring Hawkins was also a good move at the time, and moving to the P12 was also a good thing. But that little bit of good was killed by all the stupidity (and more) listed above...
 
skibum said:
I always wonder how much GB's falling off in recruiting was his failure and how much was the restrictions placed on the team. The man could coach (well, except for the first few games of the season), but it was obvious at the end that he didn't have the athletes.

Overall though, pretty much all of it is on the administration(s):

Hiring the weasel.

Completely ignoring facilities from the completion of Dal Ward until the east side boxes, and then completely ignoring them again.

Over reaction to the non scandal, putting ridiculous restrictions on the recruiting process.

Bending over to [strike]take it from[/strike] please the NCAA on stupid minor violations.

Pissing off pretty much every HS coach in the state by mishandling GB's firing.

Keeping Hawkins on for the lame duck season (killing two recruiting classes in the process).

Hiring a completely unqualified head coach and staff in order to "save" money.

Being fair, hiring GB was probably a good move, hiring Hawkins was also a good move at the time, and moving to the P12 was also a good thing. But that little bit of good was killed by all the stupidity (and more) listed above...
Click to expand...

You know what the craziest thing about the "scandal" always was to me?

Dick Tharp

Tharp was hired in 1996 with absolutely zero qualifications for being an Athletic Director. He was a law student at CU who went on to a career in lawyering, including for CU.

So we had a guy as AD who knew no more about sports and sports management than I do. The one thing -- THE ONE ****ING THING -- he was qualified to do and should have been good at was covering the athletic department's ass if there was an investigation into misconduct.

Unreal.
 
leftybuff said:
Hard for me to disagree more. But, it's water under the bridge. It really started to get bad when the recruiting restrictions kicked in, that hurt more than anything.
Click to expand...

I'd modify your statement to say it started when the "scandal" was looming and some of our best recruiters jumped ship to join Dorrell at UCLA.
 
Buffnik said:
I'd modify your statement to say it started when the "scandal" was looming and some of our best recruiters jumped ship to join Dorrell at UCLA.
Click to expand...
I was wondering about the timing of JE and EB leaving for UCLA. This makes sense. But in 2003, where GB's recruits were Jr and Sr, we had a losing record. GB was good, but he was losing his touch even before the scandal. Pigeon was a good hire at the time...the extension really killed us. Not firing a coach who was 3-9 is ridiculous. Jesus, last time we were any good...I had much more hair and less gut.
 
Heywood said:
so what were all of the self imposed recruiting restrictions. The article mentions a few of the big ones, then a quote by Barnett about GPS kind of hinted that there were many more restrictions. Anyone have a list? It could be interesting
Click to expand...
No more hookers and blow.

CALM DOWN!! Just kidding. The ones I remember were the 1 day visit thing. The curfew. I think they stopped having the recruit team up with a player or two for the evening, right?
 
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After the Ochs and Houston debacles, GB convinced himself he didn't need star players. He would look for any reason to turn down recruiting a kid if he smelled a helicopter parent or a prima donna. He leveraged the recruiting restrictions as an excuse to no longer go after those types of players.

I'm not saying the recruiting restrictions did not hurt, but GB hurt the program equally as much through a myopic viewpoint that he could coach up mid-tier talent that really put us behind the 8 ball by the time Hawkins showed up (who was a totally different disaster on a whole other level).

PS - somebody asked it before, but I didn't see an answer. I read GB's comments about not being allowed to have GPS in rental cars as one example of other things going on that were not previously known. Anyone know the full scoop on that?
 
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