Colorado State 14, Colorado 10

Well, the Dan Hawkins era for CU football is off to a rocky start, with two losses to less-than-stellar teams.

On recent CU coaches: it always struck me that you could make a telling analogy of: Gary Barnet was to Rick Neuheisel as George W. Bush was to Bill Clinton. Take Clinton and Neuheisel. Both were young for their positions; both were smarter than average. At the same time they were deeply distrusted by older, socially conservative people; Neuheisel for not being a disciplinarian and for fraternizing with his players. And most of all, both guys were too slick for their own good. You always felt like they were trying to get away with something, staying just inside (or not) the letter of the law while doing something shady. And that turned out to be the undoing of both. If they’d both kept their hands a little cleaner, they could have saved themselves and their team/country a whole lot of heartbreak.

Enter Barnet/Bush. Older, more reassuring after the hijinks of their predecessors. Both promised to restore dignity to their office. And both, while having some success at times, were generally considered failures in the end, evidenced by massive disapproval ratings by their constituents. Here the analogy breaks down, since they failed for different reasons. But I would argue that in both cases their pride and inflexibility led to avoidable breakdowns.

I wonder if the analogy will continue to the next president? Probably not, and I’m not sure who the Dan Hawkins of politicians is anyways. But I will wish Hawkins immense success just in case.