Since Colorado fired Karl Dorrell on Oct. 2, one question hung over the Buffs, even as they played out the rest of their 2022 schedule – who would they turn to next to lead their program?
A slew of candidates have been suggested by any number of media outlets, satiating an unquenchable thirst that exists for the intrigue of the coaching carousel. We’ve done it ourselves, with two coaching hot boards that included roughly two dozen different possibilities between them.
With Colorado’s season now over and the search seemingly nearing its end, especially as other schools with vacancies have made hires, it’s time to move past some of the peripheral options and take a more thorough look at some of the biggest, most viable contenders for the position.
We’ve previously broken down the candidacies of Deion Sanders and Bronco Mendenhall. Now, it’s time to turn to one of Colorado’s own: Ryan Walters.
The resume
Current position: Illinois defensive coordinator
Age: 36
Years of head-coaching experience: 0
Career record: N/A
Accomplishments of note: 2022 Broyles Award finalist (top assistant coach in college football), 2021 Broyles Award nominee, one of 12 coaching participants in the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches’ inaugural Coalition Academy, 2008 honorable mention all-Big 12, 2008 Colorado team MVP
Why it makes sense
Walters isn’t just a Colorado alum, but one who has found noteworthy success in the coaching profession at a young age.
At just 36 years old, Walters is already in his seventh season as a Power Five defensive coordinator, the last five of which were spent as his team’s sole defensive coordinator (for the first two, he was a co-defensive coordinator at Missouri).
Currently, he oversees an Illinois defense that has been a crucial, and likely the most important, factor in the Illini winning eight games this season, its most in a single campaign in 15 years. Under Walters’ watch, Illinois finished the regular season second nationally in scoring defense (12.3 points allowed per game) and third in total defense (263.8 yards allowed per game). In five of its 12 games, the Illini allowed six points or fewer. Perhaps its most impressive showing came when it gave up only 19 points on the road against a Michigan team that is averaging nearly 40 points per game.
It hasn’t just been this season, either. In 2021, his first season at Illinois, the Illini’s defense improved from 97th to 31st. Additionally, its third-down defense went from 89th to 31st and its total defense jumped from 114th to 52nd. In 2019, his second-to-last season at Missouri, the Tigers finished 14th in total defense and 17th in scoring defense. The season before his arrival in 2017, Missouri was 89th in scoring defense and 118th in total defense.
Of course, his candidacy can’t be completely detached from his connections to Colorado.
An Aurora native, Walters literally grew up around the Buffs. His father, Marc, was a quarterback at the school from 1986-89. During that time, one of Walters’ babysitters was former Colorado all-American and current Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. Walters went on to play for the Buffs himself, earning all-Big 12 honors as a senior in 2008, a season in which he was a team captain. His coaching career began in Boulder, as well, as he spent one season as a graduate assistant in 2009.
Should Walters ultimately be Rick George’s pick as head coach, it will follow what can be a familiar theme in the world of coaching hires – the opposite theory. George’s first football coaching hire at the school, Mel Tucker, had a defensive background. After Tucker bolted for Michigan State after one season, the Colorado athletic director turned to Dorrell, whose time in coaching was entirely on the offensive side of the ball. With Walters, there’s no question where his expertise resides.
Walters’ ties to the school aren’t gratuitous, either. Being a native of the state and a graduate of the school gives him a level of insight into the nuances of the program and, yes, many of the challenges it faces while trying to gain consistent national relevance for the first time in two decades. You don’t always hire an alum simply to feel good about bringing one of your own back home. It’s because coaching hires in 2022 can be just as much about fit as aptitude. These are not only people who understand the program, but who take a measure of personal pride in its success that others with no affiliation to the school might not.
Colorado tried that with Jon Embree, who was fired after going 4-21 over two seasons, but Embree had never been more than a position coach and had been out of college football for six years when he was hired by the Buffs. Walters has been in the sport as a coach for the past 13 years and is currently in one of the most important roles for one of the country’s most improved teams. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Why it doesn’t
The case against hiring Walters is relatively straightforward – he has never been a head coach before and at 36, he doesn’t have the extensive experience in the game to make up for that gap in his resume.
Hiring an accomplished coordinator is inherently risky, especially when it’s happening at a Power Five program. There are success stories, of course. Look no further than Kirby Smart, who has transformed Georgia into a juggernaut that it long had the potential to be but too infrequently was. However, there are just as many examples, if not more, of such a bet failing to pay off – over the past decade alone, you have Jimmy Lake, Jeremy Pruitt, Will Muschamp, Chris Ash and Barry Odom, among others.
Excelling at coaching one side of the ball can be a predictor of head-coaching success, but it’s far from a guarantee. The jobs require different skills, commitments and character traits, especially when it’s under the bright lights of a major-conference program. It’s very much on-the-job training that sometimes doesn’t work out.
“Was I ready before I got here to be a head coach? I probably thought I was. Now, being with Coach B in Year Two, there’s no way I was ready,” Walters told reporters in early October, days after Dorrell was fired and his name started getting connected to the Colorado job. “I’m learning a ton just about how to manage a locker room, how to set up a calendar and what kind of things to be paying attention to and how to win games by first stop from losing games. All those lessons are things I’ll take forever, and I’m still learning, still growing and very appreciative of his tutelage in my career.”
As an Illinois graduate and former Illini football player, George could theoretically have insight into whether Walters is ready for that kind of leap depending on who within that program he still knows. Walters may very well be ready to become a head coach, but the question is whether he’d be better off starting at a lower level rather than a major-conference program in desperate shape.
For Colorado, this is a particularly critical hire. The last time the Buffs finished a season ranked in the top 10 was 2001, several years before members of the 2023 recruiting class were even born. The program’s glory days aren’t even a distant memory for the players Colorado hopes will guide its triumphs over the next several years. For teenage recruits, those feats may as well be in a dusty history book. Should this next coach fail, that obstacle will only be more difficult to overcome with each passing year.
There’s a lot riding on this hire for George, as well. While Tucker’s extraordinarily early exit could be written off as bad luck, Dorrell was a puzzling hire at the time it was made and only became more confounding with time. Not many athletic directors in a Power Five conference survive multiple coaching flops in the major-revenue sports. George’s fate may very well be tied to the man he ends up hiring to lead the school’s marquee program. Is he willing to risk that over someone with no track record as a head coach?
Final verdict
Ideally, Walters is a fall-back option if higher-profile, more seasoned candidates like Sanders, Mendenhall, Gary Patterson or others whose names have been suggested for the Colorado job ultimately don’t end up biting. Given the state of the program, someone with head-coaching experience – and with consistent success in those roles – should be prioritized.
But if George is willing to go all in on a promising coordinator, Walters may very well be his best choice, given his history with the school and the stellar work of his defenses.
