Waiting Game

For better or for worse, Mike MacInytre is the CU head coach, and most people seem generally pleased and satisfied (outside of the Buffs4Life crowd), calling it a “good fit”, but those who are calling it a “home run hire” are few and far between.  Likewise for Sonny Dykes and Cal, where it got more press and positive reviews than MacIntyre’s hire here.  Most people like the hire there, a few are ecstatic with the offensive potential, however, there are many in the Berkeley camp who actually wanted MacIntyre for Cal, and he was supposedly was a very close second to Dykes.  Was the difference just offense vs. defense, something their AD Sandy Barbour just liked in Dykes, or didn’t in MacIntyre?  This will make for some interesting blog posts leading up to the CU-Cal game this fall.

Still not a lot of new news to actually report, but enough tidbits for a Sunday morning post:

Assistant Coaches: We are still waiting on news of the coaching staff, although MacIntyre supposedly met with most the current staff Friday, and will meet with a few more Saturday.  I hope he has told those he knows won’t be returning straight up so their families know what their future entails. Remember, they are all still technically employed and can’t really seek out other jobs. Bohnhead only fired Embree, cutting short the plan to let Brown and Cabral go, save his own ass, and “ask” Brown, Cabral, Bienemy and the rest to continue working and recruiting, which has to be really nice for their families, having so much uncertainty heading into the holidays.

SJSU OC Brian Lindgren and DL coach Jim Jeffcoat appear to be locks to follow MacIntyre to Boulder after the SJSU bowl game.  However, it seems that MacIntyre is waiting on San Jose State to decide if they want DC Kent Baer as head coach; otherwise, he will come here as DC/LB; if not, the staff could go in a few directions, depending on who he keeps on his staff (he might try to keep Jeffcoat as DC for instance).  He said that he won’t announce anything else about the staff until it is complete, maybe not until after Christmas. Let’s hope MacIntyre has a better backup plan than the Bohnhead has usually been able to manage when his first brilliant idea goes splat.

It may seem that this process of getting an assistant staff is taking forever, especially after the Butch fiasco and extended search.  At least we can be glad we are not in Western Michigan’s boat, which finds itself into day 30, almost the second month, of its head coaching search.

The “Pistol” offense Lindgren will install was on display on ESPN for the opening of the bowl season with (wtf is) the Gildan New Mexico.  Nevada uses it exclusively under head coach Chris Ault, and Arizona (who started using the formation a lot late in the season, especially rolling it out for rival ASU), also mixed it in some similar sets and plays successfully in coming back and beating the Wolfpack in a frantic 49-48 Wildcat win. Go Pac-12!

Stuart did a nice write-up on the offense: http://www.cuatthegame.com/2012/introducing-the-pistol-offense/  Included is a link to another piece about the Pistol that has a few video examples.

This is also the last weekend where coaches (at CU that is the brand new head coach and the group of lame duck coaches) can have face-to-face contact with potential recruits until January 3.  I haven’t heard much about MacIntyre doing anything more than calling guys on the current commit list, and without new coaches, it is hard to sell the program to anyone else.  It is unfortunate they weren't able to make any headway in this area and will have to rely on only phone calls until the final push in January.  However, they can have anyone visit who wants to in January, as they have most of their “official visits” left to use.

2013 Recruiting: CU still is holding at 12 verbal commits, with at least half re-affirming their commitment to CU-QB Sefo Liufau WA), RB Philip Lindsay (Denver South), WR Elijah Dunston (CA), and OL Sam Kronshage and Jonathon Huckins (TX), Colin Sutton (CA) and John Lisella (Columbine). I have not seen or read anything specifically about commits LB George Frazier, DE Jimmie Gilbert, or OT Gunnar Graham.

WR verbal Bryce Bobo appears to be waiting to hear WR coach Bobby Kennedy’s fate before deciding whether or not to reaffirm his commitment to CU, follow Kennedy wherever he goes, or possibly look elsewhere.  WR/DB Devin Ross was definitely testing the waters elsewhere.

Valor Christian QB Luke del Rio, who de-committed from Oklahoma St. when OC Todd Monken took the head coaching position at Southren Miss, spurned scholarship offers from at least Oregon St. and csu to accept a “preferred walk-on” slot with Alabama.

Niwot native and former CU player Matt McChesney, who is always up for an interview about the Buffs, said he thinks that there are usually 10-12 Division I caliber prospects coming out of the state of Colorado and the team needs to get more of them to Boulder. I recently read where Chris Fox, huge o-line prospect and number one recruit from Colorado said he would have definitely considered staying in-state if the general quality and success of football was better, but he grew up mostly watching mediocre and poor Buff teams, and committed early to Michigan, without giving the Buffs even a sniff.

Current players: MacIntyre held a general team meeting and also met individually with about 10 current players Friday.  He hopes to meet with 25-35 more individually this weekend, and the rest early next week, to get to know everyone, clarify anything they want to know about him and the program’s direction.

The Bohnhead said the school is not releasing any players from their scholarship yet, at least until things have had a chance to settle, the coaching staff is in place, maybe until after spring practices, and hopefully let other teams fill out their rosters and maybe move one, forgetting about our guys.

There had been rumors of a few team defections but this news has still been speculative with nothing substantiated except for “I heard that…”  Reed Marks said he has heard of ‘few’ players wanting to transfer; one chat room poster said they heard WR Gerald Thomas was on his way to TCU.  The other two most often mentioned names have been CB Kenneth Crawley (although he said he had a good meeting with MacIntyre) and TE Vincent Hobbs. 

Program Notes: From Norm’s Notes Q&A in Mile High Sports Magazine: “Do the higher-ups in Boulder really care about football? Not as much as they care about being self-righteous.”

A couple of good quotes from Mark Kizla of the Denver Post: “The Buffs have Pac-12 and sashimi tastes but WAC and baloney support.” and “Did CU really need to quadruple the salary that MacIntyre earned at San Jose State? Was anybody else offering him $2 million? If Bohn didn't have a long history of paying football coaches to go away, maybe the Buffs could afford a new weight room for players.”

Interesting stat from last year, generally not a surprise, but pretty big numbers: CU had 51 starts by freshmen to lead the nation, with 38 of those on defense.  With only eight seniors graduating, some of whom never started a game in their entire career, the team will return a ton of playing and starting experience across the roster. [This is assuming not too many guys leave, but Crawley (10), G. Thomas (3) and Hobbs (6) account for about 20 of those 51 frosh starts.] This gives MacIntyre a much more experienced roster than Embree ever had.  With that experience, among other factors in mind, like all the money spent, we should expect major improvement next year, no?  MacIntyre got a 400% raise, more than twice what Embree had been making, plus all the other investments including $1.5M for “immediate improvements to the Dal Ward”, they must obviously be ready to make a run at a title.