The final score Saturday showed Arizona 43, Colorado 20, and Buffaloes athletic director Rick George called Chancellor Philip DiStefano after the game to inform him that head coach Karl Dorrell was done.
Going into the office this morning, former offensive coordinator Mike Sanford received job-changing news and had 11 minutes to prepare for his team meeting to inform the Buffs that he would be taking over as interim head coach.
In the program’s best interests Sunday, George formally announced the dismissal of Karl Dorrell and defensive coordinator Chris Wilson following an 0-5 start to the season.
“The on the field performance, that fell short of our expectations. I know that starts with me,” George said Sunday night in news conference to address the decision and the ensuing coaching search.
"I hired Karl and it didn't work out the way any of us wanted to. There's no excuses and I own my part in where we are today. I have to do what's best for our student-athletes, and I felt that a change in leadership was needed at this time. I also made the decision to relieve our defensive coordinator, Chris Wilson, of his duties. Our defensive performance also did not meet our expectations on where we needed to be. I've asked Mike Sanford to serve as our interim head coach for the rest of our season.”
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Starting Monday, the program begins on something of a clean slate with Sanford in charge, defensive line coach Gerald Chatman elevated to interim defensive coordinator and tight ends coach Clay Patterson now working up in the box as the interim offensive coordinator.
Meanwhile, George is commencing his search for a new head coach, which he plans to announce at the end of the season. He assembled a search committee including former Buffs and a network of knowledgeable football advisors, he said.
“I'll be working and consulting with football people that are knowledgeable, that are former Buffs, that have agreed to help advise me during this process,” George said. “In addition to the national network of great football minds that we have access to. These individuals care deeply about this program and I'll utilize them throughout this process.”
In George’s tenure, he has now chosen or had to replace three head football coaches and appointed two interims (Sanford being the second). He inherited Mike MacIntyre, who went 30-44 over six years at Colorado with one winning season (10-4 in 2016) and fired him after the 2018 season. Next was Mel Tucker, who went 5-7 in his lone season with the Buffs in 2019 before being lured away to Michigan State (where he is 15-10 through 2-plus seasons).
Tucker didn't take the Spartans job until Feb. 12 of that offseason, though, well beyond the normal parameters of the annual coaching carousel, leaving little time to get a staff in place before spring practice.
Dorrell was an outside-the-box hire as he had spent the past five years as an NFL wide receivers coach and had coached just one year of college football (as the offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt in 2014) since he was fired as UCLA's head coach after the 2007 season. But he already owned a home just outside of Boulder, in Lafayette. After Tucker left abruptly, part of the appeal of Dorrell was that he'd want to remain in the job.
In the end, that wasn't his choice.
With an early start on the hiring process this time, George said he is looking to find “the very best coach that we can. Great leaders, great motivators and that’ll provide energy for this program." He also emphasized stability.
“We wanted to see stability when we hired Karl. … That's really important to us, that we have the coaches that want to be here that can energize this program," George said. "We've gotta look to the stars. I mean, we've gotta look at, ‘How do we get this program back to greatness like it was?’ And we have all of the elements for that, and there's no excuse why we're not there.”
Chancellor Philip DiStefano emphasized that Dorrell’s buyout, $8.7 million, will solely come from the athletics department budget.
On the recruiting front, George admits that the department needs to improve its NIL efforts and is looking into every avenue to expand and invest into its student-athletes.
In the meantime, this will be Sanford’s second time holding a head coaching position as he was the head coach at Western Kentucky in 2017-18, going 9-16.
Sanford is directing all of his efforts toward his players this bye week. On Monday, he plans to meet with every player to check-in and hear their thoughts.
“The first and foremost thing that I need to do with this football program today, and what lies six inches in front of my face is that I need to love these kids,” Sanford said.
Looking forward, Sanford will still be intimately involved in offensive operations, play-calling, developing freshman quarterback Owen McCown and the other QBs while working in tandem with Patterson.
Chatman, meanwhile, was the choice at defensive coordinator due to his abilities to instruct the defense to fast, sound and simple football, according to Sanford.
The Buffs faced quite a tumultuous season so far and have a long way to go in it still. They'll hope Sanford can press some of the right buttons that Dorrell couldn't find, but ultimately the focus for Colorado fans is on the coaching search and the future.
“Change is difficult. Change is inevitable,” Sanford said. “But change, like I said, is also an opportunity. We believe that this is an opportunity to have eight games moving forward and we're looking at it from the perspective of each game that we play is in our mission to get an eighth game [by qualifying for a bowl].”
