Hawkins' Tenure at Colorado Becoming an Embarrassment

Perhaps Colorado coach Dan Hawkins somewhere internally knew his tenure was in trouble when he made the infamous 10-win prediction prior to this season.

That's what desperate coaches do to soothe a restless fan base. Smart ones just shut up and coach.

But two games into Hawkins' fourth season in Boulder, we're finding out Boise State isn't exactly the cradle of coaches and that it's time for the Hawkins experiment to end. The Buffaloes' latest embarrassment, a 54-38 drubbing at the hands of middle of the pact Mid-American Conference foe Toledo on Friday night at the Glass Bowl.

The Rockets led 23-3 at halftime and 30-3 before their first punt in the third quarter before Colorado made it deceptively interesting between late in the third quarter and the fourth.

Fans may not have wanted Hawkins to board the plane early Saturday morning. They certainly don't want the unimpressive Hawkins coaching the Buffaloes any longer.

"It's the nature of the beast that (fans) want us to win," Hawkins said. "All I can do is all I can do. We're going to have some supporters, we're going to have some detractors.

"I can't control what people think, nor am I willing. I know inside our program we're doing things right ... we've just got to grow up a little, get our momentum to turn and it can be way different."

Chances of that are about as likely as former Buffs coaches Rick Neuheisel and Gary Barnett leading the way at Holy Cross. Hawkins' body of work at Colorado, a 13-26 record, has been way too shameful. His Buffaloes' start to their supposed 10-win season -- blowout losses to ... ummm, Colorado State and Toledo -- have been way too unforgivable.

If a quarterback like Aaron Opelt, who hasn't come close to distinguishing himself in the MAC, can blister the Buffaloes defense for 428 total yard and six touchdowns (four passing, two rushing), what is Heisman Trophy candidate Colt McCoy going to do when Colorado visits Texas on Oct. 10th? What about Todd Reesing and the Kansas Jayhawks on Oct. 17th or Blaine Gabbert and Missouri on Halloween or Zac Robinson and Oklahoma State's high-powered offense on Nov. 19th.

Can you say bombs away?

CU athletic director Mike Bohn fired Barnett after the Buffaloes were torched by the Longhorns, 70-3, in the 2005 Big 12 championship game. These first two losses this season to CSU and Toledo, in which the Buffaloes dug deep first-half holes for themselves, are worse.

The onus is now on Bohn, who plucked Hawkins from Boise State after a few successful seasons, to end the misery in Boulder. Bohn sounds like a man who knows what must be done and is now beginning the process of dotting the I's and crossing the T's.

"I know there's anger. How are we going to respond? Are we going to start knee-jerking?" Bohn said to the Denver Post following Friday night's fiasco in Toledo. "If we decided it was time to go the Johnny Next Coach route, what kind of message would that send?"

It would send the message Colorado is serious about winning and returning to its national championship contention ways. Doing nothing would set the program way too far back with Nebraska on a resurgence in the Big 12 North. Prized running back recruit Darrell Scott is probably already having second thoughts about choosing the Buffaloes over Texas after the first two games of his college career.

Hawkins is placing the blame everywhere but where it belongs and that's with him and the weak arm of his quarterback son Cody, who apparently suffered a mild concussion at the end of Friday night's game. Sure, the defense gave up 624 yards of total offense to the Rockets on Friday night, but the evidence of Cody's lack of growth in three years was much more glaring.

Due to another slow start, Cody was forced to throw 64 passes against Toledo. And he was often off the mark as he overthrew several receivers, while completing 30 of them for 356 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions.

Still, Hawkins seemed to place the greatest blame on the defensive side of the ball.

"Man ... we just have to look at (the defense)," Hawkins said on the school's website. "There were too many big plays, that's for sure. It's a little bit of a getting adjusted issue in the game."

That might make sense in the first year of a coaching staff. It's inexcusable in the fourth.

Certainly Bohn knows as much. He's just trying to buy some time as he wonders about the wisdom in extending Hawkins last year through 2012, but his rationalizations in the process seem a little odd.

"How many times did Texas and Oklahoma take to get the right coach? About four," Bohn said to the Post. "But we're not about to give up on Dan Hawkins."

Bohn will soon have no choice. Or the fans and boosters will give up on him, as well.