Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover
Preview Colorado
Take a peek at the University of Colorado’s media guide. The cover captures a mountain in the background as you look into their football stadium. Then you see former coaches Eddie Crowder, Bill McCartney, and current coach Dan Hawkins standing in the bleachers. I shouldn’t say it, but you couldn’t find three less photogenic people to put on that cover. It made me believe that if this is what they are churning out for PR, then their recruiting difficulties are probably far from over.
But flip the pages to Dan Hawkins coaching resume and you get a much more flattering picture. In five seasons as head coach at Boise State, Hawkins went 53-11 and finished first in the conference in each of his last four seasons. You could seek to detract from his achievements by pointing to the level of competition he faced, his less impressive 16-8 out of conference record or his 2-5 record against ranked teams. You could even point out the similarities to coach Pinkel at Missouri. But the fact remains when facing teams with similar talent, Hawkins usually won.
Unfortunately for Hawkins, recruiting at CU has been sub-par for the last few seasons so he will often be at a disadvantage talent-wise over the next few years. The good news for the Buffaloes is that many players still remain from the 2002 and 2003 classes which were good classes by conference standards.
Looking only at this season, and the match-up with the Huskers in particular, the Buffaloes will be well along their way to learning a new system and by then their new quarterback will be somewhat seasoned. With a veteran defense and a good offensive line, it would not be at all surprising to see the Buffaloes continue the trend in the NU-CU series of road team victories. I don’t see CU as the favorite, but neither can the Huskers simply think it will be a cakewalk over a team they beat handily on the road a season ago. The Buffaloes will not beat themselves and so the Huskers are likely going to have to earn the victory by playing good sound physical football. As the last regular season game for both teams it may be a high stakes winner-take-all affair or simply a grudge match between two teams that don’t like each other. In any case, the Huskers need to look beyond the 27-point victory from 2005 and recognize that this CU team may be more than meets the eye.
More 2006 Previews: Louisiana Tech, Nicholls State, USC, Troy, Kansas, Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Texas A&M, Colorado
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