When it was first and officially announced that Dan Hawkins was out at Colorado, Mike Leach and Mark Mangino were among the multitude of candidates speculated on as potential replacements.
Based on one report, though, that’s not going to happen.
According to the Denver Post‘s Woody Paige, Leach and Mangino, as well as Mike Price, have been ruled out as candidates by CU because of past controversies that led to their “departures” from their former schools last year.
Leach, of course, was brought down at Texas Tech in part because of a helicopter dad that used his television “power” to push for his ouster, while Mangino’s then-boss Lew Perkins used a poke in the chest of a player to undermine the coach and launch an investigation that ultimately led to his demise as Kansas’ coach.
Far be it from me to tell Colorado what to do, but it’s very shortsighted and, quite frankly, absurdly asinine to eliminate two more-than-qualified candidates because of incidents at their last stops that had more to do with university politics and an ego-driven game of “mine’s bigger than yours” than the “official” incidents that led to their respective ousters. CU is in bad shape and in desperate need of a proven leader to turn around a moribund program. To eliminate two of the most qualified candidates out of hand -- while at the same time considering a 70-year-old who’s been out of the game for 16 years and a current NFL assistant who’s never been a coordinator at any level let alone a head coach -- shows the foresight that was lacking with their previous hire is still firmly in place.
I don’t know that Leach or Mangino would be the right person for the position, but I do know that the university is doing a disservice to their fans and alumni by removing them from consideration completely.