Boulder – Hope was in large quantity Wednesday at the Dal Ward Athletic Center.
For football players and coaches waiting, but not necessarily wanting, to hear official word on the fate of football coach Gary Barnett, it was all they had to cling to.
“Nothing has really been said,” said junior linebacker Thaddaeus Washington. “When I hear it from the horse’s mouth, then I’ll go by that.”
Said center Mark Fenton: “I haven’t heard anything concrete yet. I don’t have anything to say about it until I know what’s concrete and what’s not.”
A source close to the contract negotiations between Barnett and the university indicated to The Denver Post on Tuesday that Barnett would not be retained, although no timetable for his dismissal had been set. Athletic director Mike Bohn returned Wednesday from meetings in New York and met with Barnett Wednesday evening, according to athletic department officials with knowledge of the situation.
It’s Bohn’s call on whether to fire Barnett.
Neither Bohn nor Barnett could be reached for comment. Barnett was in his offices at Dal Ward throughout the day but did not address the media. Early Wednesday, he told radio station KKFN 950-AM that “nobody’s said anything to me” about his dismissal.
CU president Hank Brown said, “At this point, it’s in the hands of the athletic director.” Brown said Bohn does not need his approval, nor that of the board of regents, to fire Barnett but simply the approval of CU-Boulder chancellor Phil DiStefano.
If Barnett is fired, CU owes him about $1.8 million, a total that includes $1.6 million of a $2 million retention bonus in his contract and a year’s base salary of $185,500. His contract expires in June 2007.
At a regularly scheduled regents meeting Wednesday, Brown said evaluation of Barnett has centered not only on the team’s on-field performance but off-field factors as well, including a state audit due to be released Monday concerning the coach’s summer football camp. State auditors investigating the football program are concerned about large cash advances for staff and courtesy-car agreements for coaches, according to a CU document.
Regents said Wednesday that they are letting Bohn handle the decision and aren’t in the loop.
“We have a great athletic director,” Regent Tom Lucero said. “I fully intend to stand behind Mike Bohn because he’s the right guy to lead our athletic department.”
At Dal Ward, players and assistant coaches went about their daily routines. Players are going through voluntary weightlifting sessions before practice resumes for the Champs Sports Bowl against Clemson on Dec. 27. Many of CU’s coaches are out recruiting. Those in their offices weren’t in a talking mood.
“I don’t have anything to say,” offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said. Players defended their coach, saying the Buffs’ late-season collapse was not Barnett’s fault. Colorado lost its last three games of the season – to Iowa State, Nebraska and, in the Big 12 championship game, Texas – by a combined score of 130-22. The last was a 70-3 drubbing.
“When you lose the last three, you can’t look at the coach, you’ve got to look at the players,” linebacker Jordon Dizon said. “You can’t start pointing fingers; you’ve got to look deep inside yourself. You can’t put everything on the head coach. The head coach doesn’t play.”
Added tight end Joe Klopfenstein: “I think very little of it is on his shoulders. Players, the way we were practicing, our mentality going into games, just wasn’t right. He did everything he could to get us ready.”
None, however, expressed surprise that Barnett might get fired.
“It’s got to fall on somebody’s shoulders,” safety Dominique Brooks said. “It’s a business. They are going to do what they’ve got to do.”
Said Fenton: “It’s sad, but they are going to pick out one person to put this on, and he’s the head coach. That’s just who it’s going to fall on.”
Barnett appeared close to getting a contract extension prior to the final three games. “I felt like it was a done deal,” Barnett told The Post on Monday. “Since then, the climate has changed.”
Klopfenstein said Barnett should be applauded for having his team win four of the past five Big 12 North titles although the talent level at CU has dropped and the facilities are sub-par.
“We have the worst facilities in the Big 12,” he said. “If you can choose to go somewhere else that has more money coming in, that has donors that actually give money to the school – that weighs a lot on people’s decisions. Our coaches do the best they can with what we’ve got. That’s about all you can do.”
Asked what, if anything, could be done to convince those who say otherwise, Klopfenstein said, “There’s not much to say. To compete with the best schools, you have to compete with them in every aspect, including the facilities, the money that’s coming in and the talent level.”
Former CU Regent Jim Martin, who in his tenure was a leading critic of the athletic department, said he wouldn’t be sorry to see Barnett go but that the university would be displaying the wrong values by firing him for losing football games and not in reaction to allegations that his team’s recruiting weekends had been out of control.
“If his level of behavior was unbecoming of a coach 18 months ago, what’s changed in the meantime?” he said. “Well, what’s changed in the meantime – before the (audit) report has been made public – is three losing games.”
Martin – the only regent to vote against Barnett’s contract, which includes a $2 million retention bonus – said CU appears to be getting ready to pay the price for failing in its earlier negotiations. “The regents were hoodwinked into approving a contract that was back- end loaded,” he said.
Staff writers Jennifer Brown and Jim Hughes contributed to this report.
Staff writer Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-820-5455 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
