Athletic director Rick George staunchly defends the performance of football coach Mike MacIntyre, saying the Colorado Buffaloes are making measurable improvement though the won-lost record doesn’t necessarily show it.
Utah defeated CU 20-14 in Salt Lake City on Saturday, the Buffs finishing their 10th consecutive losing season with a 4-9 overall record and 1-8 Pac-12 mark. In MacIntrye’s three seasons as CU’s coach, he is 10-27 overall and 2-25 in the Pac-12, but George said MacIntrye’s job is secure.
In the Buffs’ five years in the Pac-12, they are 5-40 in conference play.
“When I came here, CU was the worst power five conference team in America,” MacIntrye said. “I wish I could wave a magic wand. It takes a while to change things. We’re going in the right direction. We’ll get there.”
Those close to the program, past and present, have varying views on how close CU is to turning things around. Optimism stems from CU coming close in a long series of heartbreaking losses the past two years that show the Buffs can compete, but have yet to figure out how to win. In the second half of this season CU led at UCLA in the fourth quarter before losing 35-31 and led USC by double digits after halftime before falling 27-24 at Folsom Field.
“A Pac-12 coach told me that in his opinion Colorado was the most improved team in the league, hands down,” said former CU quarterback Joel Klatt, now a lead national analyst for the Fox Sports Network. “He thought the program was headed in the right direction.”
Gary Barnett, the last CU football coach to have a winning record, sees progress but wants to see a lot more.
“They’re getting better, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” said Barnett, a guest radio analyst on some CU games this fall.
Barnett coached CU from 1999-2005, finishing 49-39. After he was fired the program soon after fell into disrepair, with Dan Hawkins (19-39) lasting five years as coach, followed by Jon Embree (4-21) and then MacIntyre.
“Losing records are the No. 1 reason for the talent level on a team to drop,” Barnett said. “Lack of bowl games and national respect go right along with the losing.”
He applauds CU recently completing a major facilities renovation, but said that alone won’t attract top talent.
“The new facilities were needed in that every recruit makes a list of positives and negatives about a place,” Barnett said. “I don’t know of any recruit that picked a place just on the facilities. But you better be on the positive list.”
Charles Johnson, a quarterback on the Buffs’ national championship team in 1990, provided sideline commentary at some CU’s home games this season. Like Barnett, he is taking more of a wait-and-prove-it approach.
“No, not necessarily,” Johnson said when asked if he thought CU had shown improvement. “In this business, success is measured in wins and losses. Suggesting improvement by any other measure is fool’s gold.”
Klatt said a decade of losing has severely damaged CU’s ability to compete for talent.
“The 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds of today were 5 and 6 when CU was having success in football,” Klatt said. “CU’s success has been too far removed.”
If there is a model for turning around a program, CU has it in what Bill McCartney did. He took over an ailing Buffs program in 1982 that had compiled a 7-26 overall record in three years under Chuck Fairbanks.
“The program was on hard times,” McCartney said. “I think we were left with only 74 players.”
McCartney had only a 7-25-1 record in his first three years with the Buffs, but the administration showed patience. CU then reeled off nine winning seasons in 10 years, including a national championship in 1990.
“We turned the program around by putting in the wishbone offense to toughen up our defense so we could compete against Nebraska and Oklahoma,” McCartney said. “It made the defense tougher because it had to practice against our offense all week.”
McCartney follows the CU program closely, and his grandson is on the team. Despite the struggles, he does not believe CU made a mistake leaving the Big 12 Conference to join the Pac-12.
“California and Texas produce more college players than any other areas. When you take your team into California to play games, it gives you a much better chance to recruit players from California,” McCartney said.
Larry Zimmer, longtime radio voice of the Buffs, also backs the move to the Pac-12 but said CU entered the conference at a vulnerable time.
“CU didn’t start at the same place in its development,” Zimmer said. “It wasn’t the right time for CU.”
Zimmer looks back at the past decade and points to the firing of Barnett as a turning point. “Firing Gary was a huge mistake in my estimation,” he said.
Among CU’s many issues in the past decade has been poor quarterback play. Barnett noted that Hawkins made a mistake by playing his son, Cody, at quarterback, which made it difficult to attract a standout recruit at that position.
“You can’t stockpile quarterbacks,” Barnett said. “A quality quarterback doesn’t want to be a backup for two or three years. Every college program that has gone downhill, it has happened because it didn’t have a quality quarterback.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296, imoss@denverpost.com or @irvmoss
