Hey Stewart, I was wondering your thoughts on Colorado. They are 0-2
with two bad losses and don't appear to be heading in the right
direction. Can Jon Embree and crew turn it around? And do you think
they can ever return to their glory years of the late '80s and
early '90s?
-- Carson Thomas, Frisco, Texas
I tweeted after the Sacramento State loss that Colorado is the
closest thing you'll ever see to a post-Death Penalty program that
never received the Death Penalty. The Buffs have never recovered
from the sex scandal that rocked that program in the mid-2000s.
Though no NCAA violations were committed, the stigma and rigid self-
imposed restrictions regarding prospects' visits hamstrung then-
coach Gary Barnett's recruiting efforts. Barnett's successor, Boise
State's Dan Hawkins, proved unfit to recruit at the highest level,
and, due in part to the athletic department's financial woes, AD
Mike Bohn stuck with Hawkins at least a year longer than he should
have. Then when Bohn did make a change, he went the cheap route
again, entrusting a daunting major-conference rebuilding job to a
first-time head coach.
It's too soon to write off Embree, who seems a nice enough guy and
is certainly a better recruiter than Hawkins. But he sure seems in
over his head. At $725,000 a year -- the lowest salary in the Pac-12
by far -- you get what you pay for. There's also a bit of bad timing
here. Less than a year after Embree's hire, Larry Scott made
everybody filthy rich with the conference's new TV deals, allowing a
school like Washington State to afford a coach like Mike Leach ($2
million). The Pac-12 is a great fit for Colorado, and eventually it,
too, will be able to take advantage of those resources. With the
right coach, it could return to its former perch. But right now it's
even farther from that level than it was during Hawkins' tenure.