What about Coach Chev? Another dream is denied
The math does not compute. Karl Dorrell was not a hot coaching candidate, or even the Colorado Buffaloes’ first choice to replace Mel Tucker.
But Dorrell was the first to say “Yes!” to athletic director Rick George, after Buff-for-life Eric Bieniemy told CU: Thanks, but no thanks.
“I’m happy to be home,” said Dorrell, who owns a house roughly 10 miles down the road from Folsom Field.
So why did Colorado feel compelled to give Dorrell a five-year, $18 million contract? Holy moly. A 3-point-6-million-dollar annual salary for a coach who hasn’t won a college football game since 2007, when Dorrell and his UCLA Bruins beat Oregon? Nice work, if you can get it.
What if this hire also costs Colorado the services of assistant coach and loyal alum Darrin Chiaverini, integral to the Buffs’ 2020 recruiting class, ranked No. 34 in the country and lauded by analysts as the program’s most talented group of incoming freshmen in at least a decade?
In the wake of losing out on a job he pursued with great vigor, Coach Chev has gone oddly quiet for a social-media animal who roars loudly and carries a big selfie stick. Named the interim coach as George searched for a permanent replacement, Chiaverini was absent from Dorrell’s introductory news conference.
When asked if Chiaverini would be retained on his coaching staff, Dorrell was uncertain if the two men could reach an agreement, despite a shared CU history that goes all the way back to the happy time when Dorrell served as offensive
“They think we can win now. Guess what. We’re going for it now.” Karl Dorrell, new CU football coach, on meeting with his players for the first time
coordinator and Chev played wide receiver for the Buffs during the 1990s.
“Hopefully we can go forward. I would love him to be part of the process of taking this program to the next level. … I’ve been very fond of Darrin. We’re very much in debt to what he has done,” Dorrell told me.
So what are the chances Dorrell retains Chiaverini, who served as assistant head coach to Tucker?
“I’m not sure,” Dorrell honestly replied. “During that lull time of his interview with CU and his talking to other teams, I think he has options. He’s weighing those things.”
Buff Nation got huffy about the lack of honesty shown by Tucker before he bolted for Michigan State, which is understandable but naive because the scruples of big-time college sports were sold to the devil long ago. Here’s the other side of that dirty coin: The Buffs showed very little loyalty to Chiaverini, whose history with the program goes back 25 years.
Any way you mop it, this coaching search was a wet spill on Aisle 4.
“It was forced upon us,” George said.
And the search seemed as frantic as a man late for church without a clue where he misplaced the car keys.
George cited the maturity, the integrity and the genuine passion for CU of Dorrell, praising both his new coach while taking not-so-subtle jabs at Tucker.
Even Dorrell couldn’t believe the intensity of interest shown by Colorado, which went from contacting the 56-year-old Miami Dolphins assistant Thursday to making him an offer he couldn’t refuse, all in 48 hours or less.
“Floored me,” admitted Dorrell after he was introduced as the 27th head coach in school history.
Do all those zeroes in the contract allow the Buffs to forget they’ve enjoyed one winning football season during the last 14 years? The lack of recent success had to give Bieniemy reason to pause after he was identified by Colorado as its No. 1 target to replace Tucker.
Dorrell sat patiently on the sideline last week, during negotiations between George and the celebrated running back from the CU program’s now-distant glory years.
“I sent him a text that ‘CU is a great opportunity.’ And (Bieniemy) texted me back that he was playing out all his options, coming off a Super Bowl,” Dorrell told me. “I knew the framework of interest early in this process was really him being involved in it. Considering the closeness between us, I wasn’t going to throw my name in.”
With the possibility of a future NFL team to call his own, Bieniemy decided to stay put as the offensive coordinator for Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes rather than heed the call of his alma mater.
So the Buffs placed a call to Dorrell, who fell madly in love with this state long ago, during stints as a CU assistant to Bill McCartney and as a member of Mike Shanahan’s staff with the Broncos.
“This is a dream come true,” Dorrell said.
And a dream denied for Chiaverini.
This time, after being burned by Midnight Mel, the Buffs kept the coaching job in the family. But what happens when you mix passion and money in any family business? Feelings can get hurt.