Kyle Ringo of the BDC Chat - Tons of Good Information, Ringo Is Telling It Like It Is
Regarding Darrell Scott:
I've heard that he has had communication of some sort with CU coaches and that there might be a slim chance that he will return to the program. But I have also heard he is considering going to Arizona. Very uncertain at this point
On the mismanagement of the Hawkins situation:
Of course it's hurting. How could it not hurt? That's why it was completely foolish to handle the situation the way it was handled. If they were going to keep Hawkins, they should have came out and said so at midseason and been done with it then, so it would be much less of an issue now. Instead they managed to get every last drop of negative press they could and just at the last moment, they found a way to get even more of it. It's an absolute disaster and a clinic in how to mismanage the situation. ...But that is what happens when you have someone swoop in from on high and micromanage a situation for political reasons. A total dropping of the ball.
On Colorado's mediocre recruiting effort so far:
Far below mediocre? Sure. define it anyway you want. When you're ranked in the 60s and 70s in recruiting and you play in the Big 12 Conference, you're not getting the job done. You're Baylor. Teams like Boise State can be in the 60s and 70s every year because they only have to beat a couple teams every season and smash the cupcakes on the rest of the schedule and they can win their conference and go to a decent bowl or even rise up to the BCS bowls. Different deal at a BCS school
On the real reason Hawkins was retained:
This is the problem with "the real story." No one who allegedly has proof of what happened or was involved in what happened wants to talk about it. I have tried to get boosters to talk to me about it with no success so far. Mike Bohn has turned down an interview request and says he won't be discussing the topic any more and is working toward the future. So unless someone out there decides to grow a pair and stand up tell the truth, we will probably never know. ...Having said all of that, some of my sources who I trust have told me that president Benson refused to allow the firing and buyout because it would have caused political problems with his lobbying efforts at the Legislature. So Hawkins was retained
8 months ago
Bob_Bell
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he must have got totally shut out by the administration at Colorado and now he is
opening up…he is very candid and honest in this chat. Not an easy thing to do but I think the media, all at once, is turning on Colorado.
The Ralphie Report - Covering the Colorado Buffaloes on SBNation - http://www.ralphiereport.com/
Not Surprised
That is the most troubling realization of this whole ordeal. The Administration is satisfied with competitive and has swung to far to the side in reaction to the scandals under Barnett. Chris Fowler said during the Okie Light game that the money was there for a buyout. I think Chris is privy to info on the status of the program that most don’t have access to. While Bohn has not negotiated this mess well, I think he was ready to fire Hawkins, but was over ruled by Distefano and Benson. It makes sense in light of the hints Ringo is dropping and how Bohn backed away from Hawkins at the tail end of the season. If the administration is not on board with producing a winning program, we are only going to sink lower and lower in the Big XII. Maybe we can become a basketball school like A&M did.
Darrell Scott
I was a big Darrell Scott supporter, I think he was great talent but all we got to see was small glimpses. Even as devoid of play makers as this team is, I think it is best that Darrell goes somewhere else for his sake and CU. Sometimes when things go bad you can’t always fix them. Darrell would be better off with a fresh start else where and Colorado would not have to deal with the issues that would surround his return.
He did not leave at the end of the season, he quit for with four games left. They were talking like he would be available for the last 3 maybe 2 games. No one knows if was going to be available, look at the Kasa situation for clues to communication problems on this team. Best as we can tell he didn’t leave to take care of a sick mom or pregnant girl friend. Those would be easy to understand, but we really don’t know why he quit. I wonder how many of his former teammates want him back? The microscope would zoom in that much closer if he were to return, even more than when he came in as the nation’s number one running back. I wish him the best but hope he lands on his feet at another program.
I’d hate to be an assistant coach out on the recruiting trail trying to sell kids on this program. Talk about a tough sell…….
We need to address the coaching situation - Hire someone to make a splash
We need to make some additions to the staff…. badly…. Make Riddle Focus on Tight Ends and bring in someone with nasty special teams. Have Ambrose work with DB’s (duh) and hire a New Offensive coordinator (or co-OC with Kiesau) and someone to coach the WRs that has either played or coached the position (Not Hawkins). We have some talent at WR but we need to develop it and utilize it.
Have Cody coach QBs. And start Clark Evans from this day forward.
That was a very interesting read.
A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.
by SlamDunkTheFunk on Dec 15, 2009 6:34 AM MST reply actions
If the whole Bruce Benson thing...
is true, then CU, and not just the football is seriously screwed with him in charge. Holy moly – god knows what he’ll do when he tries to micromanage the astrophysics research dept. or the music dept. or UCAR or… you name it. Or, maybe he’s such a genius he figures he can micromanage a football program without ever having been intimately involved with one before because its just football. Wow. We so utterly screwed in football, it’s not even funny. Honestly, we’re worse than Iowa State.
Ringo
That Chat was pretty far out there for Ringo. For someone that professes to be neutral and have no vested interest, he sure sounded like a scorned woman on some of those responses. That type of ranting should be reserved for people who do have an interest in the program, like all of us!!
I found it to be incredibly refreshing.
I can see his frustration from a journalist’s POV when he knows there’s a damn fine story to tell and all of his digging is leading to a brick wall. I’d probably lash out a bit, too.
A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.
by SlamDunkTheFunk on Dec 15, 2009 8:44 AM MST up reply actions
Hang on Everybody
We can’t continue to look at some of this stuff in a complete vacuum. The school is some pretty intense financial straits. In the next few years after the stimulus money runs out, there are going to be academic programs dropping left and right. They’ve already cut a bunch of classes, and are beginning to thin out graduate student and instructor ranks.
If you think the Athletic Department is the only place on campus feeling and economic squeeze, you are ignoring the greater problem. CU, which already receives much less State funding than most other public Universities, is having issues on the whole.
DAG
by DavidAGerhardt on Dec 15, 2009 11:02 AM MST reply actions
Apologies
That should be “…school is FACING some pretty…”
DAG
by DavidAGerhardt on Dec 15, 2009 11:03 AM MST up reply actions
I also think Benson didn't want to justify the situation to faculty
Just look at what Texas is dealing with. Mack Brown’s football team is making money for the university and their faculty is pissed that he’s getting a raise. Imagine the outcry in Boulder if we were paying money to fire someone:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4744679
Very true
All of this means that we’d BETTER start winning with Hawkins, ONE because we don’t want to fire him, and TWO, it’ll be tough to afford just about anybody as a new coach as contracts to continue to get larger. The worst part about all of this, is that Hawkins is already really poorly compensated compared to the rest of the Big 12
DAG
by DavidAGerhardt on Dec 15, 2009 2:37 PM MST up reply actions
So how do other states/university do it?
Not to get all political here, but is TABOR holding CU back? What’s the solution? Why doesn’t somebody run on a pro-CU & higher-ed platform for the state assembly? It’s crazy to me that one of the top reseach graduate schools in the country (I think CU is #11 in total federal grant money?), with an $825M endowment doesn’t have enough money. WTF?
by BuffulanceMan on Dec 15, 2009 3:28 PM MST up reply actions
TABOR is definitely a part of it
But only in terms of multi-year deals.
The money thing is a whole different deal. The operating costs of Colleges and Universities are astronomical. Even with an endowment that large (and CU doesn’t rate anywhere near the top schools in terms of endowment size), CU struggles to keep up financially. The federal grant money helps, but CU and most other schools are barely operating over the red line. And with the recent economic crisis, most schools are now operating below it, having to dig into the endowments more and more, which only hurts them long term and is the last thing any institution wants to do—EVER.
DAG
by DavidAGerhardt on Dec 15, 2009 6:30 PM MST up reply actions
New commit
At least it’s not all bad news — according to Scout we picked up a new DE commit today:
Houston (Texas) St. Pius X defensive end Kirk Poston will take his game from Big 12 South country into the Big 12 North.
According to his father, Carl, Poston will be playing at Colorado.
The Buffs land Poston ahead of offers from Arizona, Baylor, Georgia Tech, Houston and Kansas State.
He ended the year with 13 sacks.
I'm not quite as worried about recruiting
We always make the late push under Hawkins. And he also makes it clear that he is selling guys on the school as much as on himself and the program. I think these kids are coming here (most of them, at least. Ahem DScott) because they want to attend CU as much as they want to play for Hawkins
DAG
by DavidAGerhardt on Dec 15, 2009 2:38 PM MST up reply actions
This situation has been a mess since the last year of Barnett
….if you listen to the Barnett interview again, he implied they were looking for a reason to fire him. Remember, the “scandal” was the previous off season, and the Buffs were winning despite all that was happening around them. Then the Iowa St loss…and it was the opening Bohn needed.
Fast forward to 2009….a loss to Iowa St….Bohn backs away from Hawkins. But something happened. DiStefano.
I don’t believe that Benson cares one bit about the football team. Remember, the real power at the University are the regents. Benson is just the “money” guy. I firmly believe that DiStefano has a horse in this race…and HE is the person who stepped in to block the firing of Hawkins. Hawkins is DiStefano’s guy. Did anyone see that ridiculous press release from his office? Unbelievable.
Truth be told guys….Ringo cracked long before this. During the season he was giving interviews to Klatt and Kregman about the state of the program. Its Woelk who sucks up the administration. He’s the same guy who wrote a column about Hawkin’s needing to be fired…and then wrote a column a week later contradicting the last one.
by jpage78 on Dec 15, 2009 3:16 PM MST reply actions 1 recs
Ironic, but ...
Does it surprise anyone that the schools which bring the most revenue in are the same ones usually the ones winning more games? Why can’t WE have that mentality AGAIN????
Why is Benson more concerned with competing academically against Stanford (which may aid us in a few federal grants) than competing against UT – OU – NU on the football field (which UT has shown can bring in millions yearly)? If Benson would embrace CU football the way he should, he might not have to crawl on his hands and knees down to the capitol building every year and beg for more money.
One of our MAIN problems on the football field is the fact that athleticism and high GPAs alot of times don’t go hand in hand. Let’s face it, it can be done (Stanford, GA Tech), but most times it doesn’t (Harvard hasn’t won too many national titles here of late). Our admission requirements cut our legs right out from under us. Do you think the University of Alabama really cares if they are among the academic elite?? Heck no, they’re laughing all the way to the bank.
We can’t have it both ways (all the time). We can be a great academic institution and “be competetive” OR we can make our academic requirements the same as our peers in the Big 12 and compete for conference / national championships. We can’t blame this one on Dan Hawkins, it sounds as if this way of thinking is the reason Coach Mac left when he did.
Well, I am not sure about that
You bring up Harvard, which is a private school, standford is too, so is USC for that matter. But I think there are good public institutions that compete both academically and on the football field: Texas, Michigan, UW, Cal, all are acedmically top schools and usally they can field some competive teams in multiple sports. CU still had high standards when they won the national championship, so I don’t think it is necssarily a case where you have to lower the standards to get guys in (like say K-State), I think there are plenty of very good football players that have a good enough IQ to be able to attend CU, we just aren’t recruiting those guys and the guys we get in here aren’t getting the coaching to be able to compete.
But I do agree, CU needs to look and realize that the football program is a huge money generator or could be. It comes down to what are you willing to do to get it to that point, they need to invest in a coach who can get them into a winning mode again. If we make a bowl game every year and a BCS bowl game once every four years, all this money issues go away real quick.
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different deal alright
“Teams like Boise State can be in the 60s and 70s every year because they only have to beat a couple teams every season and smash the cupcakes on the rest of the schedule and they can win their conference and go to a decent bowl or even rise up to the BCS bowls. Different deal at a BCS school.”
Yeah different deal at CU for sure. Our “cupcakes” smashed us to pieces.
Nice to see Mangino getting his $3M buyout. Schools like KU, Mizzou, and Okie St sure are committed to their football programs.
by The Notorious R.O.B on Dec 17, 2009 7:03 AM MST reply actions
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