You’re excused if you think that perhaps outgoing University of Colorado Athletic Director Rick George is getting out while the gettin’s good.
George announced in mid-November that he would retire at the end of the current school year, and stay on as a Special Advisor at CU. He’s been in charge of the Colorado Athletic Department since 2013, and has overseen the move back to the Big 12 that has proven very successful for the school. And of course, he famously hired current CU football coach Deion Sanders.
The two men forged a very solid working relationship, and helped build CU into one of the most visible, if not successful, college football programs in America. Who’d have thought that just one year after going 1-11, that Colorado would be hosting College GameDay and other national media football programs? But it happened.
Overall, the results on the field have been mediocre, with Deion’s record at CU sitting at 16-21 after three seasons. That’s not a reason to panic of course, but the trend isn’t what you’d like it to be. Colorado – like most universities – depends on football to drive revenue for the rest of the athletic department.
About that…
Published projections are out for the next fiscal year, and they show Colorado’s athletic department losing $27 million by the end of next school year. That’s not great…especially when you’re paying your football coach north of $10 mil per season.
So perhaps George did pick a convenient time to step down.
Not that it’s not all good with his replacement, former New Mexico AD Fernando Lovo. Lovo has eagerly jumped into his gig, having already promised to embrace everything that’s going on in his football coach’s orbit, while also promising that his department was going to make a stronger commitment to the local high school programs.
What that means isn’t exactly clear, but it would indicate that perhaps Lovo wants to shift at least some of Coach Sanders’ recruiting emphasis from its current laser focus on the transfer portal, where Deion looks to acquire older, more experienced, “win now” sort of players, rather than loading up the roster with younger players out of high school who: a) aren’t ready yet and have to be developed and b) could very easily, if successful, use CU as a stepping stone to a bigger (deeper pockets) program in a year or two, leaving the Buffs high and dry. It’s happened before – and it may happen again, as star offensive lineman Jordan Seaton entered the portal this week with an expectation of getting more than $2.5 million this season from his next university.
So far, Deion’s method hasn’t produced anything good outside of one year that included a Heisman Trophy winner, Travis Hunter, whom he brought in as a transfer. And don’t forget his son Shedeur, now of the Cleveland Browns, of course. Those were the days.
Flashing forward, would more emphasis on recruiting local high school prospect produce better results? One of Colorado’s nine board members, Frank McNulty, seems to think so. In a recent article on Buffaloes Wire, he said that he was strongly in favor of forming “relationships within the state of Colorado and particularly with our high school coaches, not just for football and basketball, but for all of our student-athletes in the state of Colorado.”
McNulty went on to say that Lovo shared his feelings, and that they want “CU athletic programs being a viable option for coaches and student athletes in Colorado high schools. It is our responsibility and our opportunity as the state’s flagship university. Recruiting visits are certainly a part of it.”
How this meshes with Deion’s plans is most certainly TBD. At the moment, Sanders and his coaches are busy trying to replace more than half of last season’s roster with transfers, the majority of whom are coming from smaller college programs where they’ve gained playing experience and aren’t arriving in Boulder waiting for their palms to get greased before they play their first snap.
Lovo says he wants to follow Deion out of the tunnel when the Buffs take the field for the first time next September. Time will tell if Deion will feel the same way.
