Middle Tennessee, Northern Illinois and Central Michigan are among the unlikely schools playing in bowl games this month. Tiny Wake Forest and Western Athletic Conference champ Boise State will be playing big-money Bowl Championship Series games come January.
Along the Front Range, fans can only watch the fun from afar. For the first time in 25 years, Colorado, Colorado State and Air Force are all sitting out bowl season. An erosion within all three programs in recent years reached a low point this season when the trio combined for 10 total victories, including two in games against each other.
First-year CU coach Dan Hawkins graded his season as an F-minus, adding, “I think the critical thing is knowing why you’re 2-10 and how not to be 2-10.”
They’re trying to figure out similar answers at Air Force and CSU, where legendary coaches Fisher DeBerry and Sonny Lubick, respectively, built powerhouse programs that have fallen on hard times and led to uncertain futures. Neither DeBerry, 68, nor Lubick, 69, have stated whether they will return or retire, though both are believed to be leaning toward coming back.
The most common reasons cited for the decline by those familiar with the programs are: toughened competition within their own conferences, attrition from uneven recruiting classes and a constant struggle for funding, particularly at CU and CSU, that affects not only facility upgrades but retaining assistant coaches. CU, unquestionably, also reeled from negative publicity following multiple investigations into the recruiting practices of former coach Gary Barnett and his staff over a two-year period.
Fans looking for hope need only glance back to 1981. That was before John Elway tried on his first Broncos jersey, the Colorado Rockies were a hockey team in their final futile NHL season in Denver and the Triple-A Denver Bears provided the local baseball menu. And the Buffs, Rams and Falcons won a combined seven games.
In the intervening years, the three schools accounted for 41 bowl game appearances and one co-national title. Dynamic coaches built long-lasting success, filled seats and won titles.
Switches change landscape
In the preseason, the confidence on the CU and CSU message boards was palpable. By year’s end, the trash talk had evaporated into derision, with Rams fans telling Buffs fans, “You were even worse than us.”
CSU appeared in the best shape to break out among the three Front Range schools. The Rams bolted to a 4-1 start, including a victory over CU, before a season-ending seven-game losing streak that began when they blew a 21-3 halftime lead at Air Force.
Lubick was an AFA assistant on Leon Fuller’s first staff in 1982, when a 9-6 victory over Wyoming ended a 14-game losing streak that spanned three seasons.
“The place was wild,” Lubick recalled. “Everyone thought that was the greatest thing that ever happened. If you won three, four, five games, that’s all you had to do. Times change. Things change.”
Lubick believes winning and losing are cyclical. He points to the tumble of Miami and Florida State, two programs in the top 10 for more than a decade.
“The days of CSU winning a championship are more difficult because of the competition,” Lubick said. “It’s harder now than it was 10 years ago.”
A decade ago, CSU was in the weaker WAC. The Mountain West Conference was formed in 1999, with CSU and Air Force among those moving from the WAC. The Rams won three of the first four MWC crowns, but since that time Utah has fielded an undefeated champion that went on to a BCS game, BYU has revived its program and TCU won a title in its first season, 2005.
“The league is different,” Lubick said. “We’re not in the same (financial) league with BYU, we’re not in the same league with TCU when it comes to resources, and then there’s Utah.”
A year ago, CSU’s athletic budget was about $18 million, with $6.5 million spent on football, compared to BYU’s budget of $30 million, with $8.5 million for football.
Air Force has faced the same battle of tougher competition. AFA usually starts strong before fading, a sign of a team that lacks depth. Its three consecutive losing seasons are a first under DeBerry.
Some suggest the Falcons’ triple-option attack that used to dazzle in the WAC has been deciphered by MWC coaches after several meetings. Even current quarterback Shaun Carney said during the season, “When we are playing teams that have played it before, that advantage is gone altogether.”
AFA faces difficulty matching up talent with its high entrance requirements and academic and military demands.
“The standards keep going up,” said Mike Thiessen, former Falcons quarterback and now offensive coordinator at the AFA Prep School. “Things here at the academy keep getting harder. The talent pool is a lot smaller than for anyone.”
Buffs face new battle
CU faces special challenges against the powers of the Big 12 Conference, particularly those in the South. Of the top six football budgets in the conference in recent years, five have typically been from the South, with Nebraska the lone North school in the same financial ballpark.
A year ago, CU’s athletic budget was about $26 million, with $7.5 million spent on football. By comparison, national champion Texas had an $82 million athletic budget, with $18.4 million spent on football.
CU also has among the lowest-paid assistant coaching staffs in the Big 12, a factor that had Barnett railing about losing assistants to other BCS schools able to offer longer contracts and higher pay. CSU, too, has lost key assistants in recent years because of an inability to compete financially. Turnover among assistants affects not only coaching but often recruiting.
“We’re finally starting to see the attrition among the coaches (have an effect),” said former CSU wide receiver Pete Rebstock, now a color man on the Rams’ radio broadcasts. “It’s not to downplay the coaches now, but there was an edge some had in the recruiting process with a good feel for what kind of player would fit the (CSU) mold.”
At CU, former coach Bill McCartney circled Nebraska in red on the schedule when he took over in 1982. If the Buffs could beat Nebraska, he felt, they could probably compete for the Big Eight title. CU’s competition got much tougher in 1996 when the old Big Eight folded and in came Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Baylor from the dissolved Southwest Conference. The South has won seven of the 11 Big 12 football titles and run roughshod over the North in recent years, including Texas’ 70-3 embarrassment of CU in the Big 12 title game a year ago, Barnett’s last game.
Facilities, or a lack of them, are always an issue at CU. Hawkins left an indoor facility at Boise State to run spring practice in Boulder in March snowstorms. A bubble facility is in the planning stages at CU. CSU received design approval from its board of trustees last week, but no funding is in sight.
Meanwhile, New Mexico, Utah, BYU and Wyoming either have or are in the process of building indoor facilities. The states of Wyoming and New Mexico have tossed upward of a combined $40 million at their Mountain West schools in recent years. In Colorado, the legislature does not lend a dime to athletics.
From a recruiting standpoint, the Big 12 South schools have easy access to the most fertile state in the country for players: Texas.
Barnett’s teams held their own on the recruiting front until various scandals created adverse publicity. The Buffs had the 10th-ranked class nationally in 2002 on the strength of seven four-star picks, the best of whom, running back Brian Calhoun, transferred to Wisconsin. Several other players from that class either transferred or didn’t pan out, and recruiting in Barnett’s final three years became more suspect, leaving Hawkins with few proven players.
Hope from history
Area fans looking for hope need only look back to 1981, when the future appeared much bleaker than today. CU went 3-8 under Chuck Fairbanks, who was blamed for everything from changing to blue uniforms to gutting the non-revenue sports. CSU went winless and fired Sark Arslanian after six games. Air Force went 4-7.
The Falcons were the first to dig out, thanks to the introduction of the wishbone offense under Ken Hatfield and the promotion of DeBerry to head coach in 1984. Joining the WAC in 1980 after years as an independent also played a role. The turnaround actually began in 1981 with a victory at Oregon.
“It was a start, beating the Pac-10 on the road. We thought ‘Maybe this offense isn’t so bad,”‘ said former AFA quarterback Marty Louthan, now an instructor and pilot for United Airlines. A year later, the Falcons shocked Steve Young-led BYU and broke a 12-year bowl drought.
CU’s turnaround began when McCartney replaced Fairbanks in 1982. He inherited only 73 scholarship players in an era when you could have 95.
In time, McCartney got support from the university to improve facilities and began getting stars out of Texas and California, who formed the base of his Orange Bowl teams in 1989 and 1990, the latter of which shared the national championship.
There were few expectations back then at CSU.
“It was the bottom of the barrel in terms of support and funding,” said CSU football operations director Tom Ehlers, an offensive lineman in the early ’80s. “Our weight room wasn’t as big as our meeting room is now.”
CSU’s turnaround began when Lubick took over for Earle Bruce in 1993. In his second season, CSU won the WAC and went to the Holiday Bowl.
In Boulder, Hawkins’ boundless energy and a nearly full recruiting class already gaining mention as among the nation’s best are signs the worst might be over. The state’s top prospect, Columbine’s massive Ryan Miller, has given an oral commitment to CU.
“As an adult, I don’t know how a kid can tell Notre Dame ‘no”‘ Columbine coach Andy Lowry said of Miller’s decision. “He and coach Hawkins hit it off really well.”
Hawkins doesn’t spell out immediate fixes for a turnaround. He said he has more than two dozen pages of notes on what needs to be corrected.
“I think a lot of that is behind- the-doors kind of things,” Hawkins said. “There are a lot of small things that you have to come to grips with.”
DeBerry maintains Air Force isn’t that far away from getting back to bowl games. He cites numerous last-minute losses the past two seasons as evidence the Falcons are close.
At CSU, athletic director Paul Kowalczyk said the school’s board of trustees recently laid out long-term goals to regularly be in contention for a BCS berth.
“Our challenge is to find the supporters and find that money,” he said.
In the coming days, Kowalczyk expects to sit down with Lubick to talk about what the coach needs to turn it around.
“I’m supportive of him,” Kowalczyk said. “The process can’t be magic. We can’t just add $300,000 to pay assistant coaches.”
Lubick said he and his staff must coach better. If he and DeBerry do return for 2007, it’s clear they won’t be coaching too many more years. Their replacements face the unenviable task of succeeding legends.
Unlike the dark days of a quarter-century ago, expectations won’t disappear.
Staff writers Irv Moss and Chris Dempsey contributed to this report.
Staff writer Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
A hard sell for recruits
A look at recent recruiting rankings might explain why the Rams and Buffaloes are having trouble:
Season CU CSU
2002 10 61
2003 19 71
2004 49 83
2005 43 101
2006 48 87 (tie)
Note: Air Force does not announce its recruiting classes
Source: Rivals.com
Top of the conference
A look at how many first- and second- team all-conference players CU, CSU and AFA have had in the past five years:
Season CU CSU AFA
2002 4, 2 6, 6 2, 2
2003 0, 3 6, 2 1, 2
2004 1, 4 2, 2 0, 1
2005 4, 3 1, 4 0, 1
2006 2, 3 0, 2 1, 2
Looking back to ’81
CONFERENCE AFFILIATION
CU: Big Eight
CSU: Western Athletic
AFA: Western Athletic
BIGGEST VICTORY
CU: Oklahoma State, 11-10
CSU: None. Rams were 0-12
AFA: at Oregon, 20-10
WORST LOSS
CU: at Nebraska, 59-0
CSU: at Wyoming, 55-21
AFA: at Navy, 30-13
COACHES’ SALARIES
CU: Chuck Fairbanks, $52,000 base (est.)
CSU: Sark Arslanian, $36,400 base
AFA: Ken Hatfield, $50,000 base (est.)
TEAM MVP
CU: Pete Perry, defensive tackle
CSU: Terry Nugent, quarterback
AFA: Johnny Jackson, safety
