Boulder – Colorado’s Dan Hawkins and Kansas State’s Ron Prince walked into nearly identical situations.
Winning had slipped in the program each coach took over. Recruiting had slipped. Apathy had grown, though Kansas State fans still loved and respected Bill Snyder, the Wildcats’ longtime coach who brought K-State from nowhere into one of the nation’s most recognizable and winningest teams.
Still.
Time came for change. Snyder retired after last season and CU’s Gary Barnett was let go. Both programs went after young coaches, CU convincing Hawkins to leave Boise State and Kansas State hiring a native son in Prince, part of a coaching staff at Virginia that has a recent claim to fame of recruiting top talent.
Nine games into Hawkins’ and Prince’s first seasons as Big 12 coaches, the teams that meet Saturday at Folsom Field are headed in different directions. Kansas State is 5-4 with a chance to advance to its first bowl game since the 2003 season. Colorado, meanwhile, is 1-8 and sloshing toward the finish line.
“Our expectation was to come in and compete and have a chance to compete for championships every year,” Prince said. “We want to find ourselves in the Big 12 title game representing the North. That’s our goal. That’s really the only thing we’ve talked about and thought about.
“We’d like to have won more games this year, but we have something we can do about this one by going out and practicing well. We’ll look back at the end of the season and really in earnest try to evaluate what’s happened.”
Why has Kansas State found some first- year success, and why hasn’t Colorado? Scheduling and quarterback play are two of the biggest reasons.
For a team trying to get its legs together, CU’s schedule has been difficult, particularly at the start. After their stunning loss to Division I-AA Montana State, the Buffaloes played Colorado State, Arizona State and Georgia. Kansas State, meanwhile, played Division I-AA Illinois State, then Florida Atlantic, Marshall and Louisville, now ranked No. 5, in nonconference games, with the Wildcats’ only loss to Louisville.
K-State’s schedule allowed the Wildcats to ease into the season while learning Prince’s offensive and defensive philosophies. CU’s schedule forced the Buffs to learn on the fly against an in-state rival, then against a preseason top-25 team and a preseason top-10 team.
The Wildcats and Buffs have had rough seasons overall at quarterback. But Kansas State survived a summer of transfers and uncertainty. Josh Freeman has thrown for 869 yards in the Wildcats’ the past five games and is on pace to break the school’s freshman passing record. In K-State’s two Big 12 victories, Freeman has completed 24-of-35 passes for 338 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
In his first full year of being a quarterback at the collegiate level, CU junior Bernard Jackson improved in his first three starts but tailed off in recent weeks. A bad performance at Oklahoma prompted CU coaches to try a two-quarterback rotation last Saturday at Kansas, and that didn’t work. With senior James Cox injured in that game, Jackson is back to being the full-time starter.
Hawkins said he understood that his first year with the Buffs could be a trying season.
“I think you have a relative awareness of what your team is about and what they are capable of doing,” Hawkins said. “You sort of come into it understanding that all spectrums are possible.”
Prince agrees.
“I understand the circumstances of coming in, being a new coach, being a part of a program that’s new. I did that at several places,” he said. “With all of those things, I had a pretty good sense of what might happen and how it all might go down.”
Footnotes
Hawkins expects safety J.J. Billingsley (knee) to be available for Saturday’s game against K-State. The jury is still out on center Mark Fenton (fibula), who is scheduled to go through contact drills this week. … Hawkins allowed his coaches with young children to leave early Tuesday to go trick- or-treating on Halloween night.
Staff writer Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
