KISZLA «FROM 1B
And how much faith can even die-hard Rammies have that Parker will make a better decision now than he did two years ago when CSU hired a retread from the college football scrap heap because Addazio was Urban Meyer’s buddy?
“We’ve got a desire to play at the highest level of college football,” Parker said Thursday.
The Rams still cling to the crazy dream that they will be invited to the big boys’ table where the price of chasing a national championship is Louisiana State waving nearly $100 million under the nose of coach Brian Kelly to lure him away from Notre Dame.
Well, good luck with all that. Ten years down the road, CSU football might figure out it’s more fun (not to mention more economically feasible) to battle Montana for supremacy in the Big Sky Conference than beg for the privilege of finishing last in the Big 12.
Parker reluctantly fired Addazio, not because his tirade at the refs got him tossed from a home game in a largely empty stadium on Thanksgiving weekend, but because the embarrassing 52-10 loss to Nevada dropped the record of Dizzy Daz to 4-12 after two seasons.
“We didn’t give (fans) a lot of experiences during the last two seasons that gave them belief,” Parker said.
When the Rams announced the hiring of Addazio on Dec. 12, 2019, fewer than two weeks after he was dismissed by Boston College, I wrote: Please tell me Colorado State is kidding.
Well, the joke’s on Parker now. And his job should be on the line.
Let every empty seat late in the season at Canvas Stadium serve as a reminder of why he can’t afford to be so wrong again when selecting a football coach.
Where to start the search? A good, hard look in the mirror.
The No. 1 problem with CSU is the stubborn refusal to accept the Rams’ place on the fringes of the college football map.
With feelings still hurt from Jim Mcelwain bolting for big bucks and a gig in the Southeastern Conference seven long years ago, the Rams don’t want to be anybody’s stepping stone. “It takes probably a very unique person in the space of college football to come to a place like this, even though it is amazing and well-resourced for our peer group,” Parker said.
When he met with the team after Addazio’s dismissal, Colorado State players told Parker “they don’t want to cycle through coaches. They’d love to see someone come in and stay and invest in their lives.”
But wouldn’t it be better for CSU to lose a young, ambitious and successful coach to a marquee program every five years than continue to get stuck in the same revolving door that has spit out Mike Bobo and Addazio?
At age 53, former Colorado State running back Tony Alford isn’t a kid anymore.
Alford, currently the assistant head coach at Ohio State and still lauded for his prowess as a recruiter when he worked at Notre Dame, should have been the hire instead of Bobo or Addazio.
Is it too late now for the Rams to tell Alford they are sorry? Perhaps. Or maybe the third time’s the charm.
The thing with Alford is he’s never run his own program. If Parker still has a preference for a time-tested head coach who has already dealt with “every decision that comes across his desk,” then at least hire a coach with credentials far superior to the 44-44 record that got Addazio fired from Boston College.
Gary Patterson, recently pushed out at Texas Christian at age 61, is the no-guff-allowed, successful coach Addazio can only dream of ever becoming.
During 22 seasons with the Horned Frogs, he not only led the program to 181 victories, appearances in the New Year’s Day bowls and a top-10 ranking in the final Associated Press poll six times, Patterson lifted a program that had languished as an afterthought in football-crazy Texas back to glory that earned TCU an invitation to join the Big 12 in 2012.
If the next football coach at CSU isn’t Alford or Patterson, the Rams are doing it wrong. Again.