What appeared to be one of Dan Hawkins’ finest hours at Colorado turned into a nightmare Saturday. And it ended up playing a role in his firing Monday as CU’s coach with three games left in the season.
After Rodney Stewart’s third touchdown gave Colorado a 45-17 lead early in the fourth quarter at Kansas, the Buffs called only four more running plays. Kansas scored 35 unanswered points and won 52-45, the biggest collapse in CU football history.
Had CU won, it would have been just two victories from a possible bowl game, and, with home games coming up with Iowa State and Kansas State, that appeared within reach.
Instead, the furor that developed from the meltdown led to CU athletic director Mike Bohn making the decision Monday to ax Hawkins with three games left. Associate head coach Brian Cabral will lead the team in the season’s final three games.
Hawkins drew fierce criticism for having his son Cody continue to throw the ball in the fourth quarter with a big lead.
“We’d thrown it so well,” Hawkins said on Monday’s Big 12 coaches conference call before he learned of his fate. “We didn’t want to totally get into a ground attack. We had success mixing it up. We had success running it and throwing it. We just didn’t want to be one-dimensional.”
True, Cody had picked apart a Kansas secondary that was the worst in the league. Entering the fourth quarter, Hawkins was 24-of-30 for 263 yards and three touchdowns. Also, with Kansas scoring two touchdowns sandwiched around an onside kick, Colorado’s lead had dropped to 45-31 by the time it got the ball again.
However, 9:20 remained in the game, and the Buffaloes all but abandoned a ground game in which Stewart had 175 yards and three touchdowns. Against what appeared to be a stiff wind, Hawkins hit only 5-of-14 for 59 yards and an interception in the fourth quarter.
Dan Hawkins was asked if the wind was a factor.
“A little bit,” Dan said. “We’d thrown it in both quarters going that way. I wouldn’t say it was a massive factor by any means, but there was a little bit of a breeze.”
Hawkins was vague on many other questions, particularly if he would have changed any strategy offensively or defensively in that final period.
“There’s always stuff you’d do differently,” he said. “You’d make different calls and use different defenses. You’d always do that. You can always change a lot of things. When you have that many points scored in that amount of time, there’s always different opportunities in every phase of the game to tweak it.”
Hawkins said he sent to the league office film of two controversial fourth-quarter calls. Colorado players said walk-on Buff Cameron Ham recovered the onside kick and that Paul Richardson indeed caught that 7-yard TD pass with two seconds left.
Footnotes. The Nov. 20 Kansas State at Colorado football game at Folsom Field was not selected for broadcast by the Big 12 TV partners. Kickoff has been set for 12:10 p.m.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
