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Colorado president Todd Saliman: ‘We have work to do’ with football program – buffzone.com

After 99 years, the front porch at the Boulder home of University of Colorado president Todd Saliman recently gave way, so it was under repair Thursday morning.

That is not the only front porch Saliman wants to fix, however.

Colorado’s football program is falling apart this season, too, getting blown out in each of the first four games. As the Buffs (0-4, 0-1 Pac-12) aim to shift momentum with Saturday’s trip to Arizona (2-2, 0-1), Saliman, like others involved with the program, has been disappointed.

“Clearly, we’re not performing at the level we’d like to be performing,” Saliman said in an interview with BuffZone. “I am grateful every day for our student-athletes and what they do to try to win, but we have not figured out the formula yet and we need to fix that. I am relying on the people who are closest to the action – the chancellor (Phil DiStefano) and the athletic director (Rick George) – to find a path forward for us. I expect success. I expect excellence and I expect us to turn this around, both in the short term and the long term. We have work to do.”

Athletics, and football in particular, are often referred to as the front door – or front porch – of a university. Football often provides the first impression of a university, and Saliman, unanimously selected by the board of regents to be the 24th president of the CU system in April, is well aware of that.

“It creates kind of an informal way to talk about the work of the university and it opens the door so we can talk about the other extraordinary things that are going on at all of our campuses,” Saliman said. “So athletics are truly the front door for many people to CU.”

Right now, it’s not the most inviting front door around.

ESPN has ranked CU as the second-worst team in the Football Bowl Subdivision so far this season – with Colorado State as the worst – and head coach Karl Dorrell has seen his program get progressively worse during his tenure.

Hired in February of 2020, Dorrell successfully and admirably navigated the Buffs through the COVID pandemic. CU started 4-0 in that shortened season and finished 4-2. The 4-0 start helped Dorrell land Pac-12 coach of the year honors.

Since then, however, CU is 4-14. The Buffs followed the Alamo Bowl appearance in 2020 with a dismal 4-8 record in 2021. Dorrell changed 60 percent of his full-time assistant staff in an effort to make this year better.

Instead, this season has been a disaster. The Buffaloes have struggled to score, struggled to keep the opposition from scoring and struggled to keep their fans interested enough to stick around for the fourth quarter of the two games played at Folsom Field.

Dorrell is projected by oddsmakers as the next coach most likely to be fired, while the fans have increasingly expressed their desire to move on from him.

Arizona State, Georgia Tech and Nebraska have already fired their head coaches this season.

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” Saliman said. “Right now what we need to be focusing on is the next game and doing all we can to get a win and support our student-athletes. Of course we’re keeping our eye on performance. That’s such a huge piece of what we need to be figuring out.”

So far, Dorrell has been unable to figure out how to get this team to win or even be competitive, which has opened the door to the possibility of CU making a change.

That change would not be cheap. Dorrell is under contract through December 31, 2024, and is still owed roughly $8.7 million. Combine that with the potential cost of buying out all the assistant coaches under contract and the price tag jumps to about $13 million.

If Dorrell or any assistants who are let go find coaching jobs for next season, their salaries would reduce CU‘s obligation, so the final number is likely to be less than $13 million.

Regardless, it would be a hefty financial commitment to make yet another change with the football program. Just three-and-a-half years ago, CU reached a buyout settlement of $7.238 million after firing Mike MacIntyre.

Finances would not prevent CU from making a change if change was deemed necessary, however.

“CU always lives in a financially-constrained environment in every area where we do work – academics, financial aid, research and athletics,” Saliman said. “It’s just the nature of higher education in Colorado. We also make investments in the areas where we think we need to that are strategic and are part of a long-term strategy for success.

“Of course finances are a consideration, but finances are never the only consideration. We look at things strategically to try to determine what will benefit us most over the long term.”

In the short term, Saliman is hoping Dorrell and his Buffs can get a win in Tucson.

“Right now,” he said, “all eyes are on the next game.”

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