Colorado athletic director Rick George held another lengthy press teleconference today, providing an update on CU athletics with respect to the ongoing COVID-19 situation.

Here's a transcription of what he had to say below, with notes where necessary:

George on whether he's considered enforcing a pay cut on any CU coaches (Washington State's AD, football and MBB coach recently took voluntary pay cuts): “Certainly, everything’s on the table and we’re having those discussions and talking through what that might look like, but we’re trying to be methodical in our approach to this. The last time we talked together, we feel really good about finishing this budget year, which ends June 30-. We should be in the black. We’ve still got some things that we’re looking at — we’ve had to eliminate all on-campus events (through July 31) which is a hit to us this fiscal year and we know that the NCAA’s distribution (of revenues) is going to be significantly less. We’ve looked at that and we still believe that we will be in the black and so I’m confident of that...now we’re really focused on the budgeting process for 2020-2021 and hopefully by the end of this month we'll have a little more clarity on what that looks like.”

“I would say that everything’s on the table (but) I would absolutely be the first one to take a pay cut.”

George on playing college football games without fans: “There’s a lot of discussion on the what-if scenarios on that and again, I think that would be challenging. It would be different obviously and where that goes at this point, we really don’t know. We continue to have conversations about what that would look like and until we get more clarity on what the future looks like, it’d just be premature for me to address that.”

George on the possibility of moving the season back to early in 2021: “Again, there’s a lot of different scenarios on the table...we’ve got groups working on what all those look like from a competitive standpoint and we’re not just talking about football, but all fall sports. If football is pushed back or doesn’t play, it would be very similar to all of our fall sports and so we’re looking at all of those different sports that we have. Football, we know, is significant because of the revenue it generates and so we’re looking at that closely and we’re also looking at, as we go through these different scenarios, the health and safety of our student-athletes is primary...so could the season be pushed back? That’s a scenario. Could it start on time? That’s a scenario. There’s a lot of things that are out there being discussed. Again, it’s like planning for the budget next year. You’ve got to have a little more certainty on what things may look like before you can finalize it.”

George on Tad Boyle, the latter's NCAA Tournament bonus of $105,000 and his personal thoughts on the end to the 2019-20 season plus Boyle's incoming recruiting class: “I did offer Tad the bonus based on the principle that he felt like he earned it, but Tad declined it and preferred that we use it on other areas that would help us during this crisis. It speaks to who Tad is and I thought that he earned the bonus. It was offered to him and he declined it. As it relates to the state of the program, I feel great about it. The end of the year certainly wasn’t what we all would have liked to see but going into the three student-athletes that we signed, I think the class he just brought in in combination with who he brought in in the fall, and with our current student-athletes, I think the future of our basketball program is going to be outstanding...I look to yesterday and what Tad did without any official visits to campus, getting those three student-athletes in. I think that was monumental and significant that they were able to do that.”

George on selling season football tickets in a time of uncertainty: “We immediately, when we started cancelling basketball tournaments, extended our timeline for season ticket renewals. Is it difficult to sell? Certainly, with all the unknowns, but we’ve got a pretty loyal fan base and donor base that’s been very supportive. We still continue to sell tickets but we’ve extended our deadline into May and we may extend that again. We’ve put into place different pricing structures and payment plans and so again, we’re going to continue to sell tickets as we make some determinations on what the future looks like.”

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George on the importance of California as a recruiting pipeline: “California is important to us for a lot of reasons, and you just mentioned one (with respect to) recruiting. Our connection with alumni and donors — we’ve got over 30,000 living alumni living on the West Coast, so that’s always going to be a primary focus area for us. Our first focus is Colorado, getting the best student-athletes out of here and this is California and Texas. Karl’s background there is important and valuable. Some of the assistant coaches he hired, where they’re from and their geographic backgrounds are important. Having (Darrin) Chiaverini and (Darian) Hagan, who are both West Coast recruiters and guys is impactful, so recruiting, they do it every day and have meetings every day where they’re talking about recruiting. I think they’re going to do a really good job of recruiting and having the experience of the staff that he put together also is going to be impactful."

George on the continual disadvantage Karl Dorrell faces as a new head coach who's been limited in his ability to get to know his team and instill the culture that he wants to CU's football program: “They’re working with the student-athletes and running the program just like everybody else is around the country. We’re certainly at a bit of a disadvantage because they haven’t had as much time to create the culture that would like but Karl has embraced it, he and his staff have embraced it, they’re meeting within the NCAA limitations of (eight) hours per week with their student-athletes. They’re still game-planning, looking at film — all the things they’d be doing in the office, they are doing remotely and so, their role hasn’t changed. They’re still recruiting and all of that are things they continue to do every day. They’re working hard.”

George on his budgeting priorities moving forward: “I’ve given this a lot of thought but my first priority is to make sure that the support areas that we have for our student-athletes: mental health areas, academics, nutrition, leadership and career development, sports medicine — all of those areas we’ve got make sure that we provide the same level of support. We tell them that we’re going to create a world-class experience for them, so those are areas that would be my priority. Certainly, from a personal standpoint, I want to keep everybody. Our primary principle going into this are the areas that support our student-athletes.”