When the rumor of Mike Bellotti potentially being a candidate to replace Dan Hawkins in Colorado first surfaced, we scoffed in its general direction and basically labeled it as nothing more than a pipe dream for the football program.
Apparently, we were guilty of premature scoffulation.
In a telephone conversation with the Denver Post, the former Oregon head coach/athletic director and current ABC broadcaster acknowledged that he has spoken to Colorado about the opening. However, Bellotti stressed that the conversations are in the very early stages and nothing is remotely imminent.
“We had some initial talks, nothing more than that,” Bellotti told the Post. “As this thing goes on, we’ll see. That’s the only way I can characterize it.”
CU has publicly stated that they are not a $4 million a year school, meaning their budget wouldn’t allow for that type of money to be given to their new head coach; rather, a new coach can expect an annual salary of somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million. On that basis, we labeled the notion of Bellotti heading to Boulder as nothing but wishful thinking on their part.
Bellotti, though, still has the itch to coach. Would $2 million annually -- maybe a little bit more as we’ve noted previously -- be enough to make him scratch it?
“I’m interested in getting back in coaching,” he said. “But it would have to be the right situation. I’ll have to do some research and get a better feel.”
One other interesting note from the Post‘s piece: Bellotti claims that he has been in contact with other schools, including those who still have coaches in place. He was linked to the Minnesota vacancy less than a week after Tim Brewster was canned. If it comes down to a bidding war for Bellotti’s services, though, there’s a fairly decent chance that CU and their budget crunch would come out on the losing end.