Wednesday Mailbag: Time to get serious about CU football
Hello friends, welcome to another mailbag!
The good people at AllBuffs brought some very serious questions this week. I'm going to touch on the football team and what is going on with recruiting.
And also get into the discussion of should Colorado become a basketball school? One of my favorite questions to answer.
Let's get right to it.
Anonymous on AllBuffs: Is recruiting a priority under this staff?
This is a loaded question. The way I want to answer this is I believe recruiting is a priority for most of the assistant coaches. I think coaches such as Brian Michalowski, Taylor Embree, Demetrice Martin, Mitch Rodrigue, Chris Wilson and of course Darrin Chiaverini have been aggressive on the trail and some of the fruits of their labor haven’t showed up yet. But I do believe they truly care about recruiting the best players possible to Colorado.
I think Karl Dorrell, although he emphasizes teaching and coaching, he understands the importance of trying to get the best players to Boulder. One of my favorite lines from his introductory press conference was when he was asked what type of player he is looking for on the trail and his response was, “The best players.”
I am not convinced he fully understands recruiting in 2020 and the resources that go into it like Mel Tucker did coming from the SEC. That’s where the biggest gap is for me. Maybe in the mid-2000s when Dorrell was at the helm of at UCLA, you could get away with a Director of Player Personnel and a few recruiting assistants. I truly believe if you want to compete for the best players year in and year out, you have to put resources into your recruiting staff, you have to have a Director of Recruiting and a Director of On-Campus Recruiting with all of their assistants and interns.
It baffles me that they poured resources into recruiting and we saw what that returned in the 2020 class and they have just stopped utilizing those resources. Bob Lopez and Chandler Dorrell, two guys that haven’t held these types of positions at power five schools before, can’t do it all.
It shouldn’t lie on one guy but I’d like to see more resources, especially more people, on the recruiting staff.
Go Buffs on AllBuffs: How many diehard Buff football fans will remain after we sign the worst class in the P12 (based on average stars)?
You guys have been here for the last 15 years, right? What would make you guys leave now?
Buffspokerams on AllBuffs: It’s purely frustrating seeing multiple recruits sign with other teams and witnessing CU drop in the recruiting rankings to embarrassing levels. Karl Dorrell has used the “no excuse” motto when it comes to everything football. He won’t use COVID as an excuse or the dead period associated with it. Dorrell just simply doesn’t seem to have the personality that attracts big time talent. Our 4 commitments have a handful of power 5 options and it feels like we are back to recruiting against the likes of Boise St and Kansas. Rick George wants a championship football program, and I can’t imagine he’s pleased with the recruiting results thus far, COVID or no COVID, especially considering that George emphasized wanting that trait in any new coach. New hires are supposed to bring excitement and energy to a program. Dorrell sounds like a great person but an unenthusiastic recruiter and coach. Mel Tucker may have a been a scumbag, but he emphasized recruiting and then followed through with our highest recruiting class in years. I promise I’m trying to be optimistic, considering Dorrell hasn’t even been able to have a practice with his team, let alone coach a game, but this is ugly. At this point I’m simply counting down the clock on Dorrell. Please change my mind! Where do you see this class being ranked? What should be an expected average in a small class?
Long-winded question! First half of the question is basically the debate you guys had that Dorrell isn’t enough of an a-hole to be a successful college football coach. I’m not going to touch that. I think Dorrell’s style will resonate with some recruits and won’t resonate with others but that’s how every other coach is as well. I think if you group all recruits into looking for the same thing, you are looking at it wrong. There’s enough energy out of the assistants on this staff, it shouldn’t be an excuse or a problem.
Class will not be ranked high, that’s a given for multiple reasons. It will be ninth or worse in the Pac-12. Remember last season was the first season they finished ahead of eighth since joining the Pac-12 and they finished seventh. So it’s not the dropoff you guys seem to believe it is. The expected average should be around 85, likely a touch below. The only years, since joining the Pac-12, they’ve been above 85 in a class are 2017 and 2020. Right now they are just above 84 and a lot of you guys say most of the commits so far shouldn’t be takes. Again, not a big drop off.
Now, like I said when answering the other question: resources, resources, resources. They need to pour money into recruiting if they want to see returns.
If you want a super optimistic point of view, it’s that this is by far the best year to have a weak recruiting class. There are only nine guys expected to graduate and move on. The roster looks really good for 2021 and 2022. Possibly 2023, depending on how good Lewis really is. So a bad season in 2020 isn’t going to hurt that much IF they win a bunch of games in 2021 and 2022.
patebuff on AllBuffs: What is your breakdown of commits per position in the 2021 class (Ex. QB- 1, RB-1, etc.)?
So when I did my ideal classes, I did it off of a class of 15. I will not be surprised if it ended up having more than 15 recruits. There’s rumor of taking a kicker/punter on scholarship, you would have to go to 16 for that, I believe.
QB-1
RB-0
WR-2
TE-1
OL-2
DL-2
OLB/STAR-2
ILB-1
S-2
CB-2
Not Sure on AllBuffs: At what point does CU cross the line between a football school and a basketball school? It feels like we may be really close now. Our hoops team spent the better part of the last season ranked and just landed a very solid recruiting class. Boyle is set up to win a lot of games over the next 4-5 years. Meanwhile, the football team looks, well, ****ty, and doesn’t look to be getting any better anytime soon.
This might not be the answer that some of the fans will like: as soon as everybody accepts it. The only Pac-12 schools that spent less in 2019 on men’s basketball are Oregon State, Washington State, Cal, Stanford and USC. USC may surprise some people but their hoops team actually made $3 million dollars less revenue than Colorado in 2019. Yet they only had $350k less in expenses. The only schools with more profit (revenue-expenses) in men’s basketball are Arizona State and Washington by slim margins and Arizona by a very large margin.
What all of these numbers say is CU is spending at the rate of a meddling men’s basketball team, yet, they’re profiting like one of the elites in the Pac-12.
I think Colorado can be an elite Pac-12 hoops team as soon as they put the resources into it.
I don’t thing becoming a “basketball school” means to forget about football completely. It is possible to be good at both. But I’m of the opinion, I’d rather my school be really good at one and bad at the other than average in both. Basically, ask yourself the question, would you switch spots with Arizona (without the allegations) right now?