The cover of the 1999 Colorado football media guide features a photo of Gary Barnett, grinning and sockless, posed on a rocky outcropping in the midst of a breathtaking mountain range.
The concept was obvious: The former assistant to Buffaloes legend Bill McCartney would lift CU back to the heights of college football. But reality set in quickly in a 41-14 loss Saturday night to intrastate rival Colorado State in Denver.
Barnett likes to invent motivational slogans, and when he arrived at Boulder he came up with “RTD: Return To Dominance.” But Saturday it appeared that RTD meant Return To Durango, where Barnett went 8-11-1 in two seasons at NAIA Ft. Lewis (Colo.)
“I know it’s probably commonplace for us to stand here and say we’ll move on to the next game, but it won’t be that easy,” the former Northwestern coach said. “We have to find out why this happened. This is going to hurt.”
Barnett blamed his players for committing six turnovers and himself for failing to convince them that Colorado State posed a serious upset threat. Colorado recruiters snubbed many Rams, and they tend to play well against the Buffaloes.
“I should have played off that and I really didn’t,” Barnett said. “I probably should have spent more time convincing our players from Texas and California what a big deal this rivalry is.”
The loss means Barnett’s home opener Saturday against San Jose State becomes critical. The Buffs haven’t dropped their first two games since 1986. CU fans aren’t likely to be as patient, or as forgiving, as those who supported Barnett’s NU Wildcats.
“We have to play more emotionally,” Barnett said. “We need to quit reading the papers now and get back to work.”
Meanwhile, in Seattle: Barnett still might be in Evanston if Rick Neuheisel had not ditched Colorado last winter to take a $1 million-per-year contract offer from Washington. Like Barnett, he faces a tough opener against a motivated non-conference opponent–Brigham Young on Thursday night in Provo.
Neuheisel probably knows a number of his peers hope he falls flat on his face. Barnett accused him of trying to steal players from Boulder, and then a couple of Pac-10 rivals complained about his recruiting practices.
“When you get the opportunity that I’ve been provided at 33 years old, a lot of coaches will say, `Why the hell did he get that?’ and in all fairness, they’re right,” Neuheisel said. “But this business is not about fairness. When I made the move to Washington and the contract made the news, I looked at it rationally. It helps all coaches.”
Neuheisel said he tried to clear the air with his conference rivals at a meeting last spring.
“We’re all trying to win the conference, but if we take the competition off the field to the media and sling arrows in the newspapers, the 10 of us will not be coaching in five years,” Neuheisel said. “None of us will survive that. There should be enough honor in our profession that we can settle our differences ourselves.”
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Rain, rain, go away: Lou Holtz’s South Carolina debut was almost as disappointing as Barnett’s opener at Colorado. Holtz, the former Notre Dame coach, spent Saturday night watching the Gamecocks lose to North Carolina State 10-0 in a downpour resulting from Hurricane Dennis.
It wasn’t the first time Holtz was deluged by a Hurricane named Dennis. In 1989, Dennis Erickson’s Miami Hurricanes whipped Holtz and top-ranked Notre Dame 27-10.
Nits and Pitt: Pittsburgh and Penn State meet for the 95th time Saturday in Happy Valley. They’ll play once more next year and then one of the great rivalries in college football will be history. Or at least that’s how it appears. The Nittany Lions apparently have no interest in extending the series beyond the 2000 season.
“To see this great rivalry go down the drain–all the color, the great fans, the amazing games–it’s just a real shame,” former Pitt coach Johnny Majors said Tuesday.
The rivalry has waned somewhat since Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993–a move that occurred after Pitt reportedly rejected a proposal to form a conference with such Eastern powers as Syracuse and West Virginia.
“I had tried to get Pitt to go with us years ago to an Eastern conference,” Penn State coach Joe Paterno said. “But they wanted to go their way.”
While Penn State flourished in the Big Ten, Pitt has floundered in the weaker Big East. And Pitt has been losing recruiting battles for such local stars as LaVar Arrington and Brandon Short.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Pitt series,” Paterno said Tuesday. “That’s not my call anyway.”
Paterno’s suggestion that he’s not responsible for Penn State’s schedule probably prompted a few off-the-record chuckles in State College. He long has been known as a control freak who oversees the key aspects of the Penn State program, and few aspects are as important as scheduling.
“It proves that at Penn State, the football coach has more power than the president,” said ESPN analyst Beano Cook, a 1954 Pitt alumnus. “If a football coach at Notre Dame went into the president’s office and said, `I don’t want to play USC,’ they’d say, `That’s nice. You coach the football team and we’ll make the schedules.’ “
It’s hard to understand why Paterno wouldn’t want to extend the series into the next millennium. He has 22 victories against Pitt; the only school he has defeated more often is Maryland (24).
Redmond on the red-eye: One of the problems facing Heisman Trophy candidates from the western time zones is a lack of prime-time television exposure in the Midwest and East.
A case in point came Monday night when Arizona State tailback J.R. Redmond launched his Heisman campaign in the 25th-ranked Sun Devils’ 31-13 rout of Texas Tech in Tempe. Redmond, a senior from Carson, Calif., ran for 157 yards and two touchdowns. His highlight moment came on a 56-yard burst that tied the game 7-7 in the first quarter.
“One of the best runs I’ve ever seen,” Tech coach Spike Dykes said.
Much of the nation saw the game live on the Fox sports cable network. But in Chicago it was aired at midnight Tuesday because Fox showed the critical White Sox-Texas double-header in all its live glory.
While Redmond had a quick start, Tech’s Heisman hopeful, Ricky Williams, left the game with a sprained knee. Williams was to undergo an MRI on Tuesday.
Big Red Machine: Eric Crouch has changed his mind. He’s still not happy about being relegated to second-string quarterback at Nebraska. But after helping lead the No. 5 Cornhuskers to a 42-7 victory Saturday at Iowa, he’s not making plans to transfer.
“Some of the things that have been going on the last week, rumors and stuff, not really feeling like I was able to get on the field the way I should–you know, I’m feeling pretty good right now,” Crouch told the Lincoln Journal Star. “The thing that I’ve been thinking about lately is just the season here and it’s time to play football.”
Saturday, head coach Frank Solich sent in Crouch after starter Bobby Newcombe failed to produce points in his first four series. On Crouch’s first series, he darted for a 28-yard touchdown. Crouch finished with three touchdown runs, while Newcombe scored twice and threw for a TD. Solich said Newcombe would remain the starter but that Crouch would continue to see substantial action.
“I don’t feel like I’ve got any headaches with the quarterback situation right now,” Solich said. “It’s always a tough situation for the guy who’s not first to work his way through that. I had no doubts that Eric was going to be able to handle that.”