Kordell Stewart recalls his recruitment, the '94 Buffs and Bill McCartney

Editor's Note: This is the first of a three-part series of interviews CUSportsNation will publish based on a recent interview with former Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart, who played with the Buffs from 1991-1994.

Stewart was the No. 60 pick in the 1995 NFL Draft by Pittsburgh and enjoyed a 11-year professional career with the Steelers (1995-2002), Chicago Bears (2003) and Baltimore Ravens (2004-2005).

In Part I below, Stewart recalls being recruited to Colorado, playing with the stacked 1994 Buffaloes and the ongoing influence of head coach Bill McCartney.

Kordell Stewart arrived in Boulder as the centerpiece recruit within Colorado's Class of 1991 at the most glorious time in CU football program history.

Of course, the year prior, the Buffs won a National Championship over Notre Dame in a rematch of the 1989 season's Orange Bowl, which the Fighting Irish won, 21-6.

Colorado had captured two Big Eight Conference titles in a row in 1989 and 1990 and would make it three by the end of Stewart's freshman campaign in 1991.

Before his CU days began, Stewart enjoyed a standout high school career at John Ehret in the New Orleans suburb of Marrero, where he earned the city's Player of the Year honors as a senior in 1990.

Syracuse and South Carolina — amongst many others — showed a lot of interest in him on the recruiting trail while Colorado was a bit late to the party.

"Colorado actually wasn’t in the running early on — they really weren’t," Stewart said. "Colorado didn’t come until going into my senior year, just to say hello. They’d already grabbed (QB) Vance Joseph the year prior out of New Orleans. Vance was a friend and a neighbor — like literally and figuratively he was. We played against each other in Little League and then in high school."

"With all the success (Joseph) had at Archbishop Shaw, (Buffs OLBs coach) Bob Simmons recruited him and then Colorado came the next year and got me. I became their number one recruit that year, I committed and never looked back after that once I went on my recruiting trip.”

The Joseph connection — the future Broncos head coach and current defensive coordinator for Arizona was Stewart's player host on his recruiting visit to Boulder — influenced his decision to commit to Colorado, as did the hands-on approach of Bill McCartney, who stuck out of the pack of other coaches hoping to land his talents.

"I remember when I got my opportunity to visit Colorado or even have them as interested, he was a big part of why I went," Stewart said of McCartney. "When he came into my house, he did one thing better than any other coach that I had the opportunity to meet during my recruitment process, which was, he looked me dead in my eyes and told me exactly how it was going to be."

"Almost to a tee, everything ended up happening, as far as me having a chance to play, (Boulder being) a beautiful place to be, we were going to have success — (Colorado) at the time graduated over 66% of their athletes, overall in general as an athletic department — I remember those numbers and the conversation like it was yesterday."

McCartney's presence plus the status of the Buffs as a powerhouse program proved to be just the well-rounded pitch needed to land Stewart.

"It was a surreal moment for me to have the institution that just won a National Championship sitting in my house wanting my services," Stewart said. "Then to also have the opportunity to get an education, live elsewhere and meet new people and experience new things, what more can you ask for?"

Leading up to Stewart's senior campaign in 1994, the Buffs had been consistently good — posting a 25-8-3 record from 1991-1993 — but greatness, and an opportunity to compete for another national title eluded the team.

By September of 1994, with CU ranked to begin the season at No. 8 in the country — the Buffs' highest preseason ranking since the 1990 National Championship campaign — Colorado had assembled the correct parts to the puzzle which gave the team a shot at true greatness in Stewart's senior year.

"It was a mixture of two pieces, as far as me as a senior was concerned, which was my (recruiting) class of ‘91 and also the class of ‘90 that stemmed from the National Championship year," he said. "You brought all of those winning ways and tradition to my last season."

After the 1994 campaign had ended, 10 Buffaloes — including Stewart at No. 60 overall — were selected in the 1995 NFL Draft. That was the highest amount since 1976 (11) and has not been matched by a Buffaloes team in any NFL Draft since.

"We can go on and on with the players we had on that team — (OT) Derek West, (OT) Tony Berti, (C) Bryan Stoltenberg, (TB) Rashaan (Salaam) obviously, (DT) Shannon Clavelle, (DT) Darius Holland, (NT) Kerry Hicks, (OLB) John Knutson, (ILB) Ted Johnson, (CB) Chris Hudson — all those guys, we really were a close knit football team," Stewart said.

"As seniors, that was our football team. We felt that way and acted that way. The scepter was passed on to us by Bill McCartney and the coaching staff in that fashion."

The 1994 Buffaloes had six offensive and four defensive players selected in the NFL Draft that upcoming spring.

The defense let up 30-plus points on the year just once while the offense scored more than 40 points six times.

Colorado that season dispatched No. 10 Wisconsin (by 38 points), No. 16 Texas, No. 22 Oklahoma, No. 19 Kansas State and of course, in thrilling last second fashion, No. 4 Michigan.

A Fiesta Bowl victory over Notre Dame capped an 11-1 record and No. 4 finish in the rankings by season's end.

But yet, even for arguably the most talented Colorado team to ever be assembled, the Nebraska Cornhuskers played the role of spoiler.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of a genuine rivalry series is measuring what your rival historically has deprived you of; the pain inflicted, losses dealt.

For the Huskers, blown games in 2018 and 2019 to the Buffs, who won both of those contests despite trailing Nebraska in the fourth quarter, mark the current and most recent examples.

The Buffs' 62-36 humiliation of No. 2 Nebraska in 2001 remains one of the lowest moments in Huskers program history, a game which signaled a fall from national prominence to which NU has yet to return.

But of course, the Huskers lead the all-time series with Colorado, 49-20-2.

McCartney went 3-9-1 against Nebraska during his tenure at CU. He beat them in back-to-back years in 1989 and 1990, but when the Buffs were an up and coming program before the 1989 season, as well as at their pinnacle of success following the National Championship in 1990, Nebraska was routinely there to deal CU a disappointing loss.

The Buffs tied Nebraska, 19-19, during Stewart's freshman year in 1991, but fell to their hated Big Eight rival for nine straight years after that, with the losing streak coming to an end dramatically at the 2001 showdown.

Painfully for Stewart and the '94 Buffs, a 24-7 week nine loss to Nebraska in Lincoln proved to be the only blemish on the team's performance review, but it undoubtedly cost Colorado a shot at another National Championship.

"While the (1994) year was great, with great numbers and great wins, we just couldn’t get that one win — when you looked at the schedule — which was the only one highlighted in red," Stewart said.

"The (Nebraska) game was the only one we couldn’t get, but we got all the other ones. As crazy as that sounds, and as good as in so many cases as it sounds, that’s what it really boiled down to. If we beat Nebraska, we knew we’d have an opportunity to play for something really big.”

Colorado on Oct. 29, 1994 posted a season-low 314 yards of total offense. The 21:36 time of possession was also a season-worst for the Buffs, who failed to convert on any of their 11 third downs.

For Stewart, the loss in Lincoln proved to be a separator from the 1990 team in terms of legacy.

"(1994) was arguably the best team (Colorado) had, based on the guys of old all the way up to when we played," he said. "Arguably talent-wise, we had the best from top to bottom. Not being able to pull off (one win) kind of put us in the passenger seat (compared) to the 1990 National Championship team that won it because they were able to get it done (vs. Nebraska). We weren’t, with all the talent that we had."

Colorado's 1990s woes against the Huskers were on a broader scale indicative of the state of the Big Eight Conference at the time, of which several national powerhouse programs belonged.

The Buffs were one of them and the stakes were invariably high on an annual basis. It was a high-risk, high-reward environment where failing to be perfect could be fatal for teams wanting to compete for championships.

"Now, kind of how like everybody’s beating up each other in the SEC — there’s a couple SEC teams that we can talk about on a consistent basis that’s going to be contending for something — but that’s how it was in the Big Eight," Stewart said. "There were two to three teams that were going to be contending for something to where those battles were battles that were going to be remembered for a long time."

"You just hoped that you’d be on the better end of the stick, which being there at Colorado, we weren’t."

For Stewart and the 1994 Buffs, being a part of McCartney's final team and one that did put together an incredibly successful season, will always be special.

But the loss to Nebraska that season remains handcuffed to the team's legacy.

“What’s crazy is that me and Michael Westbrook were literally just talking about it," Stewart said. "We were saying how if we would have won that game, how great we could have been. (It) was a year that had a tremendous amount of joy and excitement but that ounce of pain — which is that loss to Nebraska — pretty much makes you forget about the Hail Mary pass (at Michigan), the win we had against Wisconsin that was just coming off a Rose Bowl victory, to beating the Texas Longhorns on the road, where Rashaan put up 317 (yards) — there were a lot of accomplishments."

"But one accomplishment that probably would have been the tip of the iceberg had we gotten it was that one against Nebraska. That’s the one that caused that season to lean to the left just a little bit. We could have played for something a little bit more special than Notre Dame in that Fiesta Bowl.”

The Buffs on Jan. 2, 1995 faced an unranked Notre Dame team under Lou Holtz that had gone 6-4-1 during the regular season. With a minute and some change left before halftime, CU led 31-3.

Colorado had a 31-10 lead entering the third quarter and won the game comfortably, 41-24.

Stewart for his part racked up 348 yards of total offense (143 yards on the ground, 205 yards of passing) and had two touchdowns.

Looking back at his college football days, Stewart is from the only Buffs alum to have played under McCartney that will tell you the kind of father figure and mentor he was for his players.

Seeing how close that 1994 unit has remained after nearly 26 years is all the evidence he needs regarding what a special time it was then to be at Colorado.

"We enjoyed (the season) as if we played in a National Championship — that was one of the most memorable football seasons in my entire career," he said. "Everybody to this day is still close. When you think of that season, it was a brotherhood that was bigger than the game. We still keep in touch — from Vance (Joseph), who’s defensive coordinator at Arizona, to Shannon Clavelle, who I talk to literally every day — to Blake Anderson who reaches out every once and awhile; the guys who remember those exciting moments, when we see each other, it’s almost as if it happened yesterday."

"That’s the thing I love about that ‘94 season, which was steered and geared by Bill McCartney, who we will all forever remember with how he was about raising young men into men, the philosophy and that fatherhood approach I think is something that allows us to stay as close as we have."

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