Who would want to come here?

Jon Embree was emotional, honest, articulate as always in his exit press conference, focusing the first seven minutes on addressing his team, encouraging them to stick together and keep the heart of the buffalo always.  He got the shaft and made that known (he was constantly told they were all in it for the "long haul" by Bohn, therefore the exact definition of "long haul" is "23 months"), but he never lost his cool or ripped into Bohn for all the lying and deceit.

Although it is hard to argue with the results and I am hard pressed (as many others are) to describe what exactly should have been done, this was not it.  The last two days leave a terrible taste in your mouth, especially if you caught Bohn on any of his radio interviews.  He was smug, defensive and rarely actually answered the questions he was posed, speaking more business school jargon and bullshit.  He continues to bring up the facilities improvement plan, but with nothing concrete and no way of paying for any of it.  A few people commented that at times it sounded more like he was begging donors for money, and I am sick of him blaming us, the fans, for not giving enough cash.  We will never compete with USC, UCLA and Stanford for money, but what about Washington State, Oregon St, Utah?  We should be crushing them in fundraising, and facilities.  Who is in charge of that?  Oh yeah, that would be Mike Bohn. Not only local, but national media are questioning him and ridiculing him.

Many are asking, if Mike Bohn said that the whole picture wasn't working, the whole team wasn't "galvanized" and everyone had to get on the same page, who is in charge of that?  The one constant in the program over the last EIGHT disastrous years has been Bohn and university central leadership.  When do they, when does Bohn become accountable? He has failed twice in hiring and supporting new coaches, and that was after he so brilliantly handled the end of the Barnett saga.  Bohn wasn't hired because of his record of signing big coaches, he was brought in to fund raise, and although he has made some improvements in other areas of the athletic department (he can't take much credit for the basketball program because it is a way different game, although he did hire Bzdelik who got lucky with Alec Burks), he has failed miserable in raising funds for the football related projects.  So why does he get the chance to choose a third football coaches when he has been terrible at it, paying out almost $8 million in buyouts.  Embree was not his first choice and maybe not even top five. Bohn tried to point at other athletic directors who have chosen numerous coaches but comparing his situation to Kentucky (how many losing seasons have they had over the past decade at the bottom of the SEC?) and Texas (where AD Deloss Dodds raises tens of millions a year) is kind of a joke-one prgram that also sucks and another that has won national titles and has been ranked recently.  Bohn even had trouble explaining why a coach would want to come here at this point.

Bohn said in interviews that he is forming a search committee but that he has at least one current coach in mind, and that he wants someone with head coaching experience, but that nothing has been advanced yet.  The conventional wisdom is that he wants Troy Calhoun, who might just use this to get another raise out of Air Force as he did last time.  There are a bunch of coaches at very successful smaller schools like Utah State's Gary Anderson among others.

But why would they want to come to Boulder to coach this team in this environment?  Let's count the reasons why they might not want to take this job.  Besides the obvious state of the team in terms of talent (and could be less with defections) and morale after a 1-11 season, any coach has got to be worried about how fast he can turn it around, after seeing his predecessor gone after only two years.  He will have seen and read all the crap about Bohn and would certainly not feel trust in him, after the blatant lies he told Embree or after even listening to part of his press conference or interviews.  Plus, that person would have to be worried that if does not have immediate success, then Bohn might be the next one fired, leaving that coach in limbo with a new AD.  The department has very little money to spend on anything (but that's the fans fault as Bohn continues to insinuate). Embree had to bring his own desk from home and purchased things like water for the staff out of his own pocket.  The facilities are among the worst in the Pac-12 and the coaches are among the lowest paid, with the entire staff making less this past year than the average head coach salary in the league.  There are also about a dozen jobs out there, including 4 SEC, one Big Ten, one Pac-12, a couple of ACC and some smaller schools that any coach would probably prefer to the situation in Boulder, especially if they are not white.  Lastly, there is the matter of the one-year contracts in Colorado that limit how many decent assistants they can attract.  I believe that President Bruce Benson, Chancellor Phil DiStefano and AD Mike Bohn all have a multi-year contract (maybe not all three but...) but will any of them give theirs up for a coordinator?  Of course, not, which shows the level of support they are actually willing to give.

I am very concerned about the state of this program.  It is embarrassing to be associated with it, for the third time during Mike Bohn's tenure.  Do you trust Mike Bohn to make a good decision?  I didn't think so.