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Its not their fault. It made perfect sense at the time to hire the outgoing, likable coach of ascendant Boise State. Dan Hawkins brought a tough style and an innovative offense to Boulder and the right kind of energy to put the disappointment and scandal of Rick Neuheisel and Gary Barnett in the the past.But watching Colorado coach Dan Hawkins' face and body language Friday night as his Buffaloes fell to Toledo, 54-38, its clear Colorado's football failures have sucked the life out of its coach, which means it's also time for Colorado to try once more to find someone to right its sunken ship. Hawkins won't go down on his own, nor should he -- he's a professional and will gut this thing out, success or failure, but failure is the key word.
What has happened the last two weeks seems like the stuff a program doesn't come back from. Colorado embarrassed itself before rival Colorado State to open the season, falling behind 20-3 at halftime before a modest rally ended at 23-17.
Friday, things may have tipped.
Once again Colorado stared down a huge deficit before mounting a frivolous rally. Toledo took a 23-3 halftime lead and built it to 30-3 as quarterback Aaron Opelt passed and ran all over their defense, even adding a fourth-and-seven scramble for seven yards late in the first half that couldn't have been more embarrassing. A play later he wove through the demoralized Buffalo defense 27 yards for a touchdown.
Prominent among the program's woes has been an inability to find a quarterback other than Hawkins' own son Cody, who doesn't have the kind of big arm or running ability to transform that offense.
They've also seen two of their best players transfer to UCLA the past two seasons.
Hawkins' most famous moment -- the 'It's Division One Football!' rant -- was amusing, but also represents the problem with his tenure. The results simply aren't there at 13-26 over three plus seasons.
When you're in your fourth year at a program 18 years removed from its last national championship and losing by 16 points (30, really, before the garbage-time scores mounted) on the road to a MAC team whose own fans emptied the stadium early in the third quarter, something's gone horribly wrong.
Again, we point to Hawkins' look on the sidelines. It was bad stuff, as bad of body language as we've seen from a college football coach in the last couple years. It's college football, it's supposed to be fun. Challenging, but fun. He looked anguished, distant, vacant, tired. Old.
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