[NU Sports] Delaney beaten to the punch: Pac-10 has added Colorado

[Jonathan Hodges]

Indeed, Colorado has fallen, but I wouldn't entirely blame it on Barnett.

On the field, I would argue Barnett did a solid job.  In his 7 seasons, they
won the Big XII North 4 times, won the conference championship once, and
went to 5 bowl games (and won 2 of them).  He had a 49-38 overall record
over that span.

His biggest undoing was likely the lack of disciplinary control of the
recruiting (which had "non-complaint" practices in place before he arrived)
and his ill-advised off-the-cuff comment about Katie Hnida (the walk-on
female kicker).

When Colorado decided to can him and buy out his contract is when things
went really south.  Dan Hawkins, the former Boise State coach, came in and
things went way downhill over the past 4 seasons (his best season was his
second, when they went 6-7 with a bowl game loss).  Colorado got really
financially strapped due to the Barnett buyout and therefore could not buy
out Hawkins.

Actually the buyout and the financial situation likely was a contributing
factor to them joining the Pac 10, as they will potentially enjoy
significantly more TV revenue, especially after expansion is complete and a
new revenue sharing deal is in place.

Jonathan

On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 12:27 PM, <MHRJGScott at aol.com> wrote:

> I follow Colorado since my brother played football there sometime in the
> last century (he is 75 tomorrow).  The Orlando Sentinel is counting down
>  the
> top 120 college teams and ranked Colorado as 89th, a far cry from their
> glory days. It seems that GB ruined that program just a surely as he lifted
> ours.
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