Mike Sanford has a chip on his shoulder and he's not the only one

BOULDER — Things didn’t end well for Mike Sanford at Minnesota.

The offense he coordinated fell from fifth in the Big Ten to ninth in total yards in his second season. It fell from sixth in points per game to seventh.

Despite winning nine games, head coach P.J. fleck decided to fire his offensive coordinator.

“Life isn’t isn’t really meant to be lived without any any adversity,” Sanford told reporters in his introductory press conference at Colorado on Wednesday. “Adversity is where you really find out who you are. Adversity is going to be what allows you to form your true identity.”

This is an optimistic view of the situation but the truth is that coaches get fired all the time in the world of football and if you can’t handle it you aren’t going to last very long. In some ways, becoming the offensive coordinator at CU is the perfect fit for the coordinator as he tries to make up the steps he lost last season.

“We’re going to be an entire program for people with a massive chip on our shoulder,” Sanford said. “That’s who we have to be. I certainly am that way and we have an offensive staff full of guys that have a chip on their shoulder. Every single one of us, we have a lot to prove.”

The offensive coordinator was fired from his last job two months ago.

The quarterback just led the worst passing attack at CU in years.

The offensive line was right there with him.

The running back was forgotten after his replacement became the league’s best offensive player before leaving for a brand-name school a few weeks ago.

The top two receivers and cornerbacks, plus a starting safety, all went with him.

The fans see the head coach as a dead man walking.

“When you get to see Coach Dorrell and the fire that he has, he is a guy that has an incredible chip on his shoulder to go prove that this program is exactly what it is capable of being under his direction,” he said. “There’s an energy, there’s an excitement that’s in this building, and the fanbase is going to see that when when we have a chance to take the field.”

The story of the offseason—and the story of what 2022 could be—is very different depending on who is telling it. And Sanford will have plenty of impact on whether the team is successful. Beyond designing the overall scheme, Sanford will also serve as the play caller at CU. Given his recent past at Minnesota—a ground-and-pound program that loves nothing more than putting an extra lineman on the field—fans were hesitant to buy into the hire.

People love the passing game.

“I think a lot of CU fans want to know if we’re gonna run the ball 70% of time or not,” Sanford said. “And here’s the answer: That’s not going to be the case. We want to be very, very balanced.”

Sanford told reporters that he’s just as willing to throw the ball 50-60 times as he is to run the ball 40-50 times.

“The bottom line is—run, pass, all the different things we want to do, whatever—we do what we need to do to win that particular game based off of what the defense gives us, and also based off of what our personnel is going to give us the best advantage,” he said.

Still, Sanford wants to implement a physical mentality into his offense.

“We’re going to make sure that we have an identity as a program that we want to build a bully here,” he said. “A bully in the weight room. And then we’re off the field we’re gonna be gentlemen, obviously, but on the field we want to be a bully. And that’s when the ball’s in the air in the pass game, too. We want to be a bully that comes down with that football. When the quarterbacks in the pocket, ‘I want to show my toughness and my physicality by taking a shot when I’m under duress and delivering a ball down the field.'”

And here’s why…

“Ultimately, all championship football teams—It’s never comes down to statistics, it comes down to finding a way to win the football game, what that exact formula is,” he said. “And it does involve being the most physical team on the field that day.”

Sign me up for physical football from a bunch of guys with chips on their shoulders.