Not long ago, a big name, a football legend, was hired to make flowers bloom in a coaching graveyard. “He’s a Hail Mary,” they said. “So crazy, it just might work,” they said. “Why not? The school’s tried everything else,” they said.
He’d won big at his previous job. He had a plan. He made his kid the starting quarterback. He had another kid around constantly. His family took over the place. And that was cool, because, again, this was a big name, a winner, beloved by millions.
Then he lost.
Players, at first. Then coaches. Then games. Then more players.
Stories came out. Whispers got louder. There was buzz that he was never fully invested. That he’d set up multiple strike zones — a strict one for most of the roster, but more lax for a chosen few. That he had too many competing business interests to devote the time truly needed toward a serious rebuild. That he could be hard to work for. That he had an ego.
Some ex-players lashed out. Before long, some of the guys he’d recruited as upgrades bailed, too.
“And I think, maybe it was something that had to happen,” the coach said at the time. “A lot of times it has to do with a lot more than me.”
The coach got frustrated. He circled the wagons.
“I believe that the type of players in our program are selfless and unselfish,” he continued. “We’ve had a normal year of football. They want to be here. And I’m more concerned with the guys that we have, and the guys we continue to add into our program.”
When people accused him of nepotism, especially if his QB1 struggled, he barked back at the haters.
“If it wasn’t for (my son), we would be getting obliterated,” the coach countered. “He gets us in the right place all the time. He had two perfectly thrown touchdown passes, that should have been touchdown passes. … we would have way more sacks if it wasn’t for him. He does a great job of getting the rid of the ball. When it’s not there, (he) takes monster hits when he has to. … If it wasn’t for him, it would be a lot worse.”
Now we’re not saying Deion Sanders is borrowing whole pages from Ed McCaffrey’s script. But we’ve seen scenes from this particular movie before, haven’t we?
“I’ve never played (or) coached (a) team that only won three (games) last year,” Ed, the ex-Broncos great and the coach from paragraphs 1-11, told me before his second star-crossed season up in Greeley. “But that was one more than the previous three years. So you’ve got to understand what we’re dealing with.”
We’re not dealing with a perfect parallel, granted. At least Ed knew some of his linemen by name.
And, yes, Coach Prime’s Buffs are faster and more talented than two years ago, even with a historic roster churn. Yes, Shedeur Sanders is an NFL quarterback, a first-round draft pick. Dylan McCaffrey, while a super dude, was neither.
But the superficial stuff? The circus stuff? It tracks.
Before The Prime Effect, there was The Eddie Effect. McCaffrey, a Front Range football legend, drew cameras, eyeballs and money that never would’ve sniffed Greeley otherwise. His name alone got enough moneybags on board to line up much-needed facilities upgrades, including fresh turf at Nottingham Field and plans for a new set of lights. Coach Prime, after 18 months on the job, has made CU a national brand. It’s largely his brand, but still.
McCaffrey hired his 28-year old son, who had no coaching experience, to be his offensive coordinator. This season, the Buffs will trot out an OC in Pat Shurmur whose only collegiate coordinating experience came halfway through last season, and who still hasn’t produced a game plan that’s won a game for CU. Sanders is debuting a defensive coordinator this fall who’s never been a college defensive play-caller — heck, a play-caller anywhere — in his career.
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Players came and went in droves at UNC two years ago, just as they are right now in Boulder. When depth wasn’t an issue, continuity and consistency were.
Swapping your malcontents for somebody else’s malcontents didn’t fix the chemistry much as long as the double standards for family, for the chosen ones, persisted. Names changed. Faces changed. Resentment remained.
Year 1 at UNC saw a bump from 2-9 before Ed arrived to 3-8 in 2021. Year 2: Another 3-8.
The crowds waned. The whispers hissed. There was no Year 3.
CU should be better. Lord help Ralphie if they aren’t, because this film usually doesn’t end on a happy note. At some point, all sizzle and no steak leaves everybody with an empty stomach.
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