Hawkins' Press Luncheon Recap
BOULDER ? University of Colorado head football coach Dan Hawkins held his end of the season press luncheon Monday at the Dal Ward Athletic Center, reviewing the 2008 season and previewing the upcoming offseason. The following are quotes from the session:
Head Coach Dan Hawkins
ON TAKING POSITIVES AWAY FROM THE LOSS TO NEBRASKA?“Well you always balance two things, one the reality is that we lost and we’re out of a bowl game and you lost to your rival and that’s the cold hard facts. The other side of it is that I think our guys played their fannies off but you have to be able to carry the hope of what could have been as well as the disappointment that was and the pain that was and use that in the offseason, in recruiting and r and d and lifting and conditioning and get yourself ready to go.”
ON NOT SEEING A BETTER WIN LOSS RECORD?“I think it always dents it a little bit, I mean there is no denying that. But I do think there are enough people that know us and know we have a proven product. The coaches know what we’re about and what we’re doing?I think we’ll be okay.”
ON THE REBUILDING PROCESS TAKING LONGER THAN EXPECTED?“Well I said when I first came here that I’d be shocked if we weren’t right back in it, because I’m just used to that. I’m used to being right there. So is it taking longer? Yeah, it is but again I don’t think you ever truly know (how long it will take). You throw a rock on the gas pedal and shoot for the moon and that is where you start climbing. Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper and start climbing up. It wasn’t fun in ’06 and it’s never as fast as you want it.”
ON WHEN SPRING FOOTBALL WILL START?“Yeah, we’re actually debating pushing back spring a little bit this year, to try and get them some portion of work in there. We did a little three day thing of practice in March last year, and we’re kind of contemplating just pushing it all back until April.”
ON HOW MUCH THE INJURED GUYS WILL BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE?“There will be varying degrees of what guys can do, you’re not going to put somebody at risk by putting them in a full speed deal when they’re not totally ready. But, they might be able to go run around out there and do some other things without going full contact.”
ON OG BLAKE BEHRENS’ INJURY AGAINST NEBRASKA?“Sprained his MCL, and it was a pretty gutty effort by him he sprained it pretty good. It wasn’t necessarily a surgery type of thing but it was a second degree sprain and usually when guys get a first degree sprain they’re at least sitting out that game. So it was a pretty gutty performance by him.”
ON IF SOME GUYS WILL HAVE OFFSEASON SURGERY?“Oh yeah, there is a pretty long list there. Coach (Dr. Eric) McCarty’s run will continue here. Well (the list) is too long to take off the top of my head, we’ll have to give it to you later with David (Plati) but there are about five or six guys lined up to get a little something done here or there?Jameson (Davis) is on that list.”
ON CRITICISM?“No it doesn’t tick me off, I understand that is the nature of it. I’ve always said at the end of the day that it is big boy football and there is a faction of people who are going to look at that one thing. How many picks do you have on the left hand side and how many picks do you have on the right hand side. You know you understand that, its part of the business. That being said as you look at things you say ?that’s alright, that’s a certain phase of it’ but as you try to improve things, as you try to get better you can’t just look at that you have to look at all the info structure things that are helping you get to improve those numbers.”
ON BUILDING THE PROGRAM?“Yeah, you can, but as I’ve told these guys who have been around here a little while you have to push a lot of beans to the table because you can’t just take your money and make an end run and get instant gratification, that’s not going to happen. So you have to close in a lot of categories and close in a lot of gates and make sure you have more i’s dotted. That’s the thing we’ve talked with our team about this year, the margin of error being less. So that’s the thing, you have to make sure you get all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed and get a more cohesive organization going so that you have that foundation that allows you to be in the hunt.”
ON WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING TO IMPROVE?“There is no top two or three, we always send our guys out every year. They do a great job every year of r and d and we did some good things last year and are trying to get some of those things in, like doing the no huddle and stuff. That was not plausible after a while, but when you have a season like this there is nothing that is no open for discussion. Nothing. Really quite frankly it doesn’t matter if you’re 10-0 or 0-10 you have to have that zeal to start back and ground zero and go okay, what in the heck are we doing and how can we get better. I think that has always been at the heart of what we’ve done. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s always open for r and d.
“Again, there is nothing that is foremost. You are looking at offseason stuff, you’re looking at academic stuff, you’re looking at recruiting stuff, you’re looking at what the best teams in the conference are doing...what are the schemes they are using and what are they most effective at. What are the schemes working best against certain defenses, you are going to turn all of those stones over. There aren’t any top three things.”
ON WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO FOCUS ON IN RECRUITING?“We’ve talked about this before but we’re trying to establish some growth across the board and continue to have players coming in every year. We’re always trying to spread it across the board and I think it’s a big mistake to say we’re going to go way over here or way over here. Clearly, I think it always starts with the O and D-Line, that’s where it starts. I think probably outside of it, in terms of numbers the area that probably needs to grow the most is wide receiver.”
ON THE QUARTERBACK POSITION?“That’s an understatement. I think you always ebb and flow to whatever your talent is, whatever it is that they do best to some degree. That being said, let’s just say that Tyler (Hansen) is the guy, I’ve always said this that you always want a quarterback who can run but you don’t want to make him your primary runner. The only reason I say that is you’re talking about losing somebody over the course of the year, generally speaking. That usually bears itself out, but you can certainly cater to that stuff more but I think it can all fit within the system anyway, it’s just a case of what you want to cater to.”
ON HAVING SO MANY INJURIES TO KEY GUYS THIS YEAR?“Well it doesn’t help, but you have several different schools of thought. Hey, for the guy who says you won five games, I’m good with that. But when you sit down and start evaluating how you move to that next juncture you start to look at what’s there. That is certainly one of them. Losing a lot of players, losing your best players doesn’t help, it doesn’t.”
ON GETTING COMFORTABLE IN COLORADO?“I think in terms of wins and losses we aren’t anywhere near where we want to be and that is upsetting to me and I don’t like it and it makes me lose sleep and a little grumpy around the house and in the office. At the same time I do think that we have been able to get the core of issues and predicaments and situations and processes and all that. People have asked me, particularly in the last year ?how do you like Colorado, how do you like Boulder, are you comfortable there?’ And you’re not, you barely know how to get your dentist and you barely know where the ear doctor is and sometimes you don’t even know where the eye doctor is but I think there is a time there for you to discover all the things that you need to discover. From that standpoint I think yeah, I think we’re down to it. I think being able to get all that stuff flushed out and visible is important.”
ON SOME IMPROVEMENTS MADE SO FAR?“Academically, when I got here we had one person helping us in academics and now we have three. That is going to pay huge dividends. We’ve been able to institute a better tracking program, a better class checking program, a better mentoring program, study hall on the road...all that stuff. I said this when I first came here, when we first started recruiting we had a couple of faculty people helping us, a couple. Now we have a list of about 100. So, I think our advisors are much more tapped into campus and their relationship with us and our relationship with them is much better and we’re able to get a better handle on where guys are and what they’re doing and what’s happening with them. To me that’s everything, and that helps you in recruiting and retention and with the guys who are here. That process right there is eight miles away better than what it was when I first came here.”
ON WHETHER OR NOT HIS ENTIRE COACHING STAFF WILL RETURN NEXT YEAR?“I hope so, I hope so. You never know what’s going to happen and a lot of things fall. I really love our guys, I do?and they are really good coaches. Again, you can sit back and say this is where we are objectively but you’re talking about some guys who have come from some of the greatest programs in college football and been very productive. You’re talking about guys who have to come in here and work without a contract, guys who aren’t paid what everybody else is paid in the conference at the most expensive place to live in the conference and I respect our guys a lot. They’re awesome, they’re great guys, they are great fathers, great husbands and they care about our guys off the field as people and they set great expectations for our guys and they are great football coaches. That is why, even in recruiting if you sat down in a house with one of our guys you couldn’t help but come away being impressed. So, you have to look at all the factors combined of what had gone on at this place before I got here and what is going on now and what is going on with the conference and where we’re going and you put all of that together and I’ll take my guys any day of the week. Any day of the week.”
ON WHAT HE’D LIKE TO SEE FOR HIS ASSISTANT COACHES?“Well, you look around the league and around the conference and it is not unusual for coordinators to make $400,000 and get a three year contract. Now, am I saying that we’re up there well maybe not but again I’ve said this many, many times when you look at the ebbs and flows and the waves of some of the teams and I go back to Missouri again they wanted to run him out after five or six years, get rid of him, they can’t do it, they can’t get over the hump. But, those nine guys sticking together looking at the issues, solving the problems, now where are they. We all understand that, that’s not the end game, that’s not what they’re all about and quite frankly that is why they’re here. I said that before, when I took this job and when I came here guys were saying ?huh, what? Where?’ but they came, in big reason, because of me and they knew what I’m about and knew my track record. We’ll keep slugging it out and getting it done and at some point if that is the thing that drives the denominator they will end up in that form of contract. Again when you look around the nation guys get contracts and I think when you look here in a couple years most every assistant will have a multiyear contract. Our guys don’t even have a year contract, you want to talk about info structure that is some of the stuff that shows their ultimate belief and confidence in me and those are things that we need to work on in the offseason.”
ON WYOMING HIRING MISSOURI’S OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR AS THEIR NEW HEAD COACH?“I’m sure it’ll be very similar to what they’ve done at Missouri, I’m not real familiar with their personnel and what they have a Wyoming. Obviously what he did at Missouri speaks for itself. They did a nice job there, did a nice job of developing that package and their whole system so I’m sure he’ll do a nice job.”
ON NEXT YEAR’S SENIOR CLASS?“Again, we’re still not really in that position. Name the seniors on the team next year...there you go. Do you know what I’m saying? We’re not going to be a senior laden team next year either so we’re doing everything we can to get our younger guys ready. Our freshman who played right away will be needed to be strong holds in the program. But clearly those type of people, the Cha’pelle’s (Brown) the Jeff Smart’s those guys who have been in the trenches and grown with the program, those are guys who you look to for leadership but we’ve never put it solely on those guys because we need the rest of the posse to be involved in that.”
ON WHEN THEY START OFFSEASON LIFTING AND CONDITIONING?“They started today. They get one week this week and they’ll be off next week. You only get a set amount of time with them, but they started today.”
ON CHANGES IN THE LIFTING AND CONDITIONING?“Oh yes, it always gets harder, it always gets harder.”
ON UNDERESTIMATING THE REBUILDING JOB?“Well again, I’ve said this many, many times there is no way you can know everything. Did I know there were going to be issues, yeah I did. I knew that. What they were? I didn’t necessarily know what they were but I came here with the mindset that there are going to be issue and landmines there are going to be closet doors and things that you don’t know about but you just have to rally and solve them. So, there is no way that anybody could go line by line and fully impact you of the total scope of any job regardless if it is here in a short amount of time, but you know because of the issues that went on here that there is going to be foundational things that you’re going to have to replace.”
ON HAVING SUPPORT?“Without question, one because we have great people in place and I think most people are totally committed to doing the right both athletically and as an academic institution. Mike (Bohn) has been incredibly supportive Bud (Peterson) has been tremendously supportive, Hank (Brown) was very supportive before and we’re good now too. To me, that’s it. As long as you have everybody on the same page and everyone marching to the same drummer you’ll be okay. A lot of it is just getting everybody on the same page. I’ve said this before if you put three offensive coordinators in a room together and one is a wishbone guy and one was a run-and-shoot guy and one was a west coast guy they’d fight to the death about which way is the best way to move the football. Well, the best way is when everyone is on the same page and are saying this is the way we’re going to do it, that is the most important thing.”
ON TAKING CRITICISM OF HIM AND QB CODY HAWKINS PERSONAL?“No, I think just because I know it and he knows it. Again, I’ve said this many, many times the quarterback and the head coach always get way more credit and way more garbage than you deserve. That’s just how it is. So, whether it’s the second half of the Iowa State game of one of the games he didn’t play very well it’s neither one of those, it’s somewhere in between. But I don’t think I take it personal because I’ve always with everyone of our quarterbacks tried to do a good job of leveling things off and understanding the specific nature of who they are, and their relationship to the team and media and community and all that. Again, it’s just staying off the mountain and staying out of the valley, it’s never as bad as it looks and it’s never as good as it looks. You have to stay true to the process and get those kids to improve everyday and understand what that is and not sitting back saying ?I didn’t throw for this many yards so I’m not very good’ or ?I threw for a lot of yards so I’m pretty good’ it’s neither one of those.”
ON IF NOT MAKING A BOWL WILL BE MOTIVATION FOR THE TEAM?“I think to some degree it provided a little edge in ’07 and I know in the past given the right chemistry it’s been huge. Before, when we should have been in a bowl game in ’01 at Boise and we were not our guys game out with sledge hammers in 2002 and came out with a sense of purpose. I tell our guys all the time, a guy with a sense of purpose is a dangerous guy. So you have to look at it like that, you have to look at it not as ?hey, I’m down in the dumps but hey we’ve got to make this work.”
ON COACH AND PLAYER EVALUATIONS?“Well it’s very hard, our staff is doing the evaluation of the players right now when they’re in?and all of those guys are not in. When they get in they’ll do evaluations. For me, I catch guys along the way once we get through with recruiting. I do a little bit more thorough evaluation with those guys and I do the same thing with the staff along the way when we can because you don’t have a lot of down time?you’re rolling.”
ON IF HE HAS AN EVALUATION WITH AD MIKE BOHN?“I sit down with Mike several times during the season, we got away from that a little bit towards the end of the season but we’ll sit down and meet before the next semester starts.”
ON THE PROGRESS OF THIS YEAR’S RECRUITING CLASS?“Yeah, we’re slugging it out. We’re slugging it out with a bunch of really good players and a lot of really good teams. I think the benefit for us is the more the players and parents are around our coaches, our people and our staff the better they feel about that.
“I’d say we’re probably in the neighborhood of 20-22ish (scholarships) maybe.”
ON THE GROWING REPUTATION OF COLORADO IN RECRUITING?“Yeah, from instate kids too. I think they’re much more positive about it, I think we have a real good reputation around the country. I think that people like what we stand for; I think people know about us so all of that is very, very positive. Again, there was two years of detonation and that was tough on us.”
ON WHAT THEY LOOK FOR IN A RECRUIT?“Again, we’re looking for the guy who wants the combination of all that stuff so we seek guys out who are looking for that. We have some unique living situations here, academic situations and football situations here and we’re looking for the kid that fits that. It’s not so much that you’re trying to be another institution because we’re not. I think in our own right we separate ourselves very well given the niche that we try to recruit to, and that is a good student who wants to live in a good place that wants to be at a place that has won a national championship and aspires to win one again. We’re looking for that guy.”
ON IF ANY WALKONS WILL GET SCHOLARSHIPS THIS YEAR?“We’ll see, we haven’t made any determinations on that yet.”
ON POTENTIALLY WANTING A PLAYOFF IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL?“It’s just so dog gone tough. We always say life’s not fair and neither is football. It’s never more evident than with what is going on there. You’d hope that it’d add a little bit of emphasis on getting into a playoff mode and being able to take the top 8, 10 or 12 teams and let them go out and I’ve said many times before I don’t think it’ll ever be decided on the field because you have kids that get hurt and you might lose a quarterback in the semis that will affect the national championship game but at least you’ll be able to say we had a chance. I’ve said this many times that I really feel for the high school programs that end in a three way tie and the coaches get together and they flip a coin. Imagine going back and telling your kids, ?we chose heads and it was tails, sorry’ and after all that work we lost on a coin toss and that is hard.”
ON THE BIG 12?“I don’t really know enough about the history and all the details of that. I’m sure that is always going to be open for discussion. You’re going to get into a line 17 or 18, it was a day game, it was a night game, the weather was bad, I don’t know how many different scenarios you can put out there. It’s just that we have a lot of great teams in our league. You look at the rankings in general and I’m looking at Texas Tech who beat Okie State and beat Texas and they had a tough night against Oklahoma?but they had a tough night against that team and you’re all the way down below. That is kind of amazing, you look at some of the teams and again Oklahoma State is a great example of a team that has played (some great teams). I think it’s a little ironic, you look at our team?who’s the one team that has played the top three BCS teams in the last year? Colorado. We had our chances against Alabama, we beat the No. 2 team (Oklahoma) and we battled against the No. 3 team (Texas). And you’re kind of lamenting the 5-7 season and hey, I’m with ya we’re in with the big boys, let’s go, let’s duke it out. But, we’re not playing chopped liver now. I’m laughing when I’m on the All-American committee and we’re going down voting for everybody and you could put the All-Big 12 team out there and have a pretty good representation in the All-American committee. It’s tough, we’re in a great conference with a lot of great coaches, with programs that have traditionally been awesome and you’re seeing that and the magnetism of pulling those other teams up with them because they’re forced to and we have to get out and run with the bulls a little bit.”
ON WHICH CONFERENCE IS BETTER THE SEC OR THE BIG 12?“People have asked me that and the sad thing is that I haven’t seen a lot of SEC football this year. I’ve played against SEC teams and I know what kind of talent they have and where they are so I’m just saying on the Big 12’s behalf that I don’t think we need to take a backseat to anyone else. Now are we sharing that seat with somebody? Maybe, but I don’t think we have to sit in the backseat by any means. Look at the players and look at what they’ve done.”
ON THE BCS VS A PLAYOFF?“Well that and last year you look at a team like Georgia or this year you look at a team like SC (Southern Cal) that is really trying to make a case for getting in on the hunt. At the time I think people thought they lost to a not very good Oregon State team, you should be totally eliminated out of it but now people see that Oregon State is not that bad and Oregon is not that bad. There is so much that goes in to this thing that there should be some form or fashion that these teams can matriculate to that spot without having to think about ?well the voting component’ which I think is very hard. I think using a variety of methods is good but hopefully at some point they’ll move in that direction and I think they have to, you just can’t sit around every year and go ?here we are again, here we are again.”
ON ALWAYS WANTING TO IMPROVE?“I’m always that way, I really am. We’ve talked before about motivation in the past and I’m just not the kind of guy who gets motivated by saying let’s sit around for a while and if things get bad then we’ll get really fired up to fix it or let’s sit around and play really average and then we play team x so let’s get fired up and do a really good job against those guys. I just wasn’t raised that way and I don’t think that way. You always have a desire to get better and to improve.”
ON IF HE THINKS CU IS READY TO MAKE STRIDES NEXT YEAR?“I definitely think we’re ready to make some strides. Again, just because you’re going to have some older guys and have some depth in there, have some guys with a little bit more experience and clearly the d-line loses three pretty good seniors and we’ll have to fix that and we need to fix the kicking game and sort out the quarterback situation, but you’ve got to feel with the kids that we have coming back with a little bit of experience and a little bit of a chip on their shoulder that those guys will take another step.”
ON WANTING TO SETTLE THE QB SITUATION IN THE SPRING?“I think you want to, but like this year you don’t always get it like you want it. I’ve always said that I don’t want to have a team where a guy is the returning starter. I don’t like that, I don’t like the incumbent system, I don’t think that’s healthy. So we’ll go and see where we’re at and see if we can make a determination at that time and if we can’t then we’ll roll into fall and see where we are there.”
ON CU’S QUARTERBACKS?“I like them a lot. I think the culture of being a leader and the culture of work ethic and the culture of being a film room junkie and being an offseason workout junkie and playing football in the offseason. I think all of that is really good. So, now we just have to translate that, along with the rest of the offense into better performance and more wins and more production.”
ON DEFENSIVE CHANGES FOR 2009?“We’ll always look at that. Like I said we typically look at what the best teams in our league are doing, you look nationally, it’s funny with how it’s gone and I looked the other day but I haven’t checked for a few days but total offense in ’05 and Texas was in the top-five and I think they were the only team in the top-15 and I think this year there were eight teams in the top-15 in the Big 12 this year. So, it’s not so much you’re looking at what they’re doing in other conferences you’re looking and saying we have all the best teams in our league let’s just look at what they’re doing. We’ll always tweak a little bit. I do think that continuity has helped us on defense, our numbers have gotten progressively better there and stats are part of it but they aren’t all of it. Continuity is part of it so you don’t want to get into situations where you’re throwing away the whole deal but you want to be able to add more buttons and take more buttons off and work within the scheme and we’re starting to get some comfort with that and we’re starting to see some improvement there as they go along.”
ON POTENTIALLY MOVING SOME LBS TO DL?“We’ll see what Dr. Pitman gets done in the weight room this spring. Again you’re always trying to put the best 11 on the field and I think that Ron (Collins) did a nice job of that. We played Brad (Jones) down a lot and that helped us and B.J. (Beatty) is very much in that same mode.”
ON THE RUNNING GAME?“Well I do always think that it starts with the running game, I really do. I think that is where your play action and keeping people honest and being able to do some other things, I think that is where it all starts. That being said, I think that despite some of the injuries I thought Coach Grimes did a nice job of coming up with some schemes and little wrinkles to help our guys out and move the football a little bit. That’s where it starts to me.”