Losing his last three games by a score of 130-22, including Saturday’s embarrassing 70-3 rout by Texas, may have been the trigger needed to buy out Colorado football Coach Gary Barnett’s contract, but he probably could have been let go long ago for what he didn’t do.
His pledge to bring a rigid, more disciplined program to CU was empty. Instead, he turned a blind eye to his athletes’ off-field antics, perhaps hoping they would be overshadowed by their on-field actions.
It almost worked. His team won another Big 12 North Division title this year, but the weakness of the division – and his 1999 promise to return the program to “dominance” – was exposed in the past three weeks. Of Colorado’s seven wins this year, only three came against teams with winning records, and all of them finished the season a mediocre 6-5.
While he certainly stuffed his cleats in his mouth more than once as scandal embroiled the school, Barnett shouldn’t be bought out for being a lousy spokesman. He’s paid to mold young lives and win games. And if the university, with its new president and athletic director, doesn’t think he’s the man to right this ship and enforce new rules and expectations, it needs to find someone else.
Next week, the state will release its audit of Barnett’s summer camps, which a state grand jury found to be poorly managed and sometimes misused as a “slush fund.” Some are nervous about what the audit may show.
In order for CU to truly shed the baggage of scandals past, and create the type of program that makes Coloradans proud off the field as well as on, it’s time for a fresh start at Folsom Field.
