Buffs football needs its own Tad

If the check and canvas are blank, you’re trying to nail the gridiron equivalent of Tad Boyle.

The next football coach at CU should be someone who raises the floor, and significantly, all while keeping the ceiling higher, and consistently higher, than it’s been over the previous 15 years.

He needs to win with class. Class, physicality and defense. He needs to spot pro talent where others don’t. He needs to teach. He needs to bring the craft and the infrastructure to the table that can mold two-star profiles into four-star resumes. He needs to see the Buffs as the end, and not the means.

If Mel Tucker taught us anything, it’s that the last one’s a beast.

Even in basketball circles, Boyle is something of a unicorn. He wins enough to make CU men’s basketball nationally relevant, yet is still chasing his first berth in the Sweet 16.

The Buffs have racked up 19 victories or more in a season only 16 times in their hoops history, and Tad’s been at the helm for eight of those seasons. He’s also just 1-4 in the NCAA Tournament, lifetime, and hasn’t won a tilt in Bracketville since 2012.

But he’s local, someone who grew up seeing Pearl Street as aspirational instead of transactional.

When you’ve been to one bowl game in 12 seasons, that matters.

You see 1990. The outside world sees Rutgers West.

According to BestPlaces.Net, the cost of living is 45.3% cheaper in East Lansing, Mich., than Boulder. The median home price is 71.9% less.

You get to wake up next to those gorgeous Flatiron vistas,

yes, but your assistants gotta eat. So do their wives and kids.

Everybody’s got a theory. It’s a money thing. It’s a regents thing. It’s a culture thing. Boulder is a drinking town with a football problem, the rare college burg where they party hard and recycle harder. It’s not for everybody.

And not everybody who bleeds gold and black is necessarily an automatic. Eric Bieniemy’s closet has skeletons, especially here. Ditto Vance Joseph.

There are crazier paths than staying the course, and interim coach Darrin Chiaverini ticks some major boxes, right off: Former Buffs player, well-liked by fans, has the hearts and ears of both players and recruits, keeps fruitful recruiting pipelines in California and Texas intact.

Play-calling? Not so much.

In a perfect world, you could see pairing a young, driven figurehead such as Chiaverini with a couple of sage coordinators on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. Let Chev do the P.R. stuff, the media stuff, and offset his inexperience with some veteran chess masters on the headset.

The problem: Egos can chafe, and veteran chess masters tend to want to be well-compensated. Would CU do million-dollar coordinators? Jay Johnson reportedly made $550,625 last fall on the offensive side. His defensive contemporary, Tyson Summers, took home $500,625.

That’s $1.05 million, combined. Or $200,000 behind the $1.2 million South Carolina is now paying Mike Bobo just to run the Gamecocks’ offense.

If you win, the NFL, the SEC or the Big Ten is going swoop in and try to poach you. If you don’t win, and someone from the NFL, the SEC or the Big Ten gets desperate, they’re going to swoop in anyway.

Tucker taught us that, too. But know this: It’s awfully hard to rally around the flag when it feels as if someone new has to pick the blasted thing up every 18 months. When you’ve gone through five football coaches in 10 years, it’s not them, champ. It’s you.