What we learned from Rick George's press conference

BOULDER — Colorado Buffaloes head football coach Mel Tucker is out.

Tucker is doubling his salary by taking the top job at Michigan State but is leaving Colorado in a tough spot because of his decision.

CU athletic director Rick George met with the media Wednesday morning in Boulder to provide clarity and share his plans for the future.

Here’s what we learned:

The coaching search has begun

Rick George opened his press conference by stating the obvious.

“As you know, Mel Tucker informed us that he is resigning as head football coach,” George said. “We are obviously disappointed to see him leave; however, we are excited about the upward trajectory of our program. We are already at work identifying our next head coach to lead our program and our young men.”

There are obvious challenges when starting a coaching search this late in the offseason, but George believes there are some advantages for Colorado as well. He says the Buffs are in a better position now than when they were searching for a coach 14 months ago.

“This is an incredible football program and an incredible institution,” George said. “My job is to make sure that we hire somebody that has the same expectations that I do for our student-athletes and for our program to be successful.”

Just like last offseason, George will work with associate athletic director for football Lance Carl to select the correct candidate for the job. As of Wednesday morning, there is no timetable for filling the position.

“We will go out and get the best person,” George said. “I want to be efficient and effective but I also don’t want to hurry. I want to take the right steps. We will do that.”

Darrin Chiaverini will be the interim head coach

Okay, so we actually learned this a few hours after the press conference.

Darrin Chiaverini, the Buffs’ assistant head coach and wide receivers coach is going to fill in for Tucker until George and Carl hire a full-time head coach. He will also interview for the full-time job, according to 9News’ Mike Klis.

“It’s an honor to be named the interim head coach at the University of Colorado, and my focus will be to help make it a smooth transition for the student-athletes and the program overall,” Chiaverini said in a press release. “This campus and the city of Boulder is where I grew up as a young man, and there’s no better place to be than CU.  The pride and tradition of the Colorado Buffaloes is something every student-athlete, like myself, in the country should experience.”

During his press conference, George outlined what he was looking for in an interim head coach. The most important box for an interim candidate to check was ensuring that he would be around for the duration of the interim period. In other words, George wanted somebody who wasn’t going to follow Tucker to Michigan State.

In the hours between George’s press conference and the interim announcement, Chiaverini must have assured George he was in Boulder for the long haul. It’s no surprise that Chiaverini is happy staying at Colorado, considering he played wide receiver for the Buffs in the late ’90s, he has coached at CU since 2016 and his son is currently on the roster.

Chiaverini’s ties to CU may help him land the full gig, but there’s certainly no guarantee.

“I am going to be open-minded to candidates that are out there,” George said. “I want somebody that shares my passion for this university. If that is somebody that has been here before that’s great.”

More than anything, George wants a championship-caliber coach.

Rick George thinks Colorado can win big

One of Michigan State’s major selling points to Tucker was its ability to double his salary from $2.7 million to $5.4 million in 2020. It’s worth noting that Michigan State is embroiled in a few scandals and was forced to overpay for whoever it hired, but the point still stands: Colorado doesn’t have as much money as many Power 5 schools.

There are plenty of reasons for Colorado’s smaller budget, including the Pac-12’s less valuable media deal and the Buffs’ lack of recent success, but George isn’t worried about CU’s finances.

“I don’t see them as constraints,” he said. “We know what resources we have. The coach that we bring in, just like Mel, knew what resources we had. Again, I am convinced that we can win a championship with the resources we have.”

For Colorado, the key is bringing in donations from alumni and other supporters, especially during a messy time like right now. George can keep investing in the athletics department despite Tucker’s departure, as long as the boosters don’t close their pocketbooks.

“Our donors have been incredible,” George said. “Our alumni have been incredible in supporting our efforts of what we are doing for our student students in the areas of mental health, nutrition, this facility, and strength and conditioning.  We have five strength coaches just for football. We are doing a lot of really important things for that program because we know how important it is to CU.  We will keep investing in that to make sure that we get this program back to where it historically has been.”

Tucker was signed to CU for four more seasons, so Michigan State now has to pay Colorado to get him out of the contract. The buyout is worth $3 million, a sum that should help pay for more investments in the football program.

“I think the way we continue the trajectory that we have going is we have to bring good people in here,” George said. “We have to give them the resources that they need to be successful.  I think we are doing that. I think we have a great program. We have incredible student-athletes.”

George says those investments should make finding a new head coach much easier.

“This is a destination at Colorado. This is where we think people can lay down their roots. It is an incredible community. It is a great state. We play in a terrific conference,” George said. “We are going to go out and hire somebody that shares the same expectations that I do, that we are going to win a championship and that we can do that at Colorado with the resources we have.”

The mood is “somber”

Most of Boulder was in a state of shock Wednesday morning.

The news of Tucker’s departure was still fresh and, to most people, shocking. Tucker was just 24 hours removed from a three-station radio tour, during which he reaffirmed his commitment to Colorado.

George was asked what the vibe in the locker room was like when he spoke to the team a few hours before the press conference.

“I would probably say somber,” George said. “They enjoyed playing for Coach Tucker. My message to them was, ‘We have an incredible opportunity here to do some really significant things. We need them to stick together, have confidence that we know what we are doing and where we are going. We are going to hire someone that they will appreciate, respect and want to play for. We will do that as quickly as we possibly can.'”

A source told DNVR that George declined Tucker’s request to speak to the team before he left for East Lansing, corroborating reports from multiple outlets. The source also said that Tucker met with his staff for 10 minutes Wednesday morning, expressing his gratitude for their service. Tucker was uncharacteristically emotional and people attending the meeting believed Tucker when he said he struggled to decide between Michigan State and Colorado.

The timeline is still fuzzy

The first report linking Tucker to Michigan State, from The Detroit Free Press, was released Friday evening. The Free Press reported that Tucker was one of two candidates interviewing for the vacant head coaching job.

“I was asked, formally, for permission to speak to coach,” George said. “That is a courtesy that we extend to each other. You’d have to ask him if he spoke to them or not, but I am certain that he probably has.”

A source with knowledge of Tucker’s travel plans told DNVR that Tucker never visited the state of Michigan during Michigan State’s hiring process. That’s no surprise, considering Tucker and George were attending fundraising events in California for most of the weekend. They shared a private plane when traveling from venue to venue.

Saturday afternoon, about 18 hours after the Free Press report, Tucker and George both publically committed to Colorado and each other.

“Coach and I have a really strong relationship,” George said. “We had a conversation on Saturday about his commitment to Colorado. I was comfortable with that.”

When asked if he thinks Tucker was being honest during that conversation, George had this to say:

“I believe what Mel told me. I think we had a shared vision of where we wanted this program to go. You’d have to ask him that that question. I am committed to this program. We are going to go out and hire an incredible coach.”

Things were quiet on Sunday but then, on Monday, Cincinnatti’s Luke Fickell announced that he was dropping out of the race for the Michigan State job. All of a sudden, Tucker became the favorite.

“What transpired in the last 24 hours is disappointing,” George said. “A coach is going to do what is best for him and his family. I support that. He made that decision and my focus now is moving forward with this program and where we are headed.”

There are still some gaps in the story, like when Tucker met with Michigan State and whether he knew he was on his way out when he made the radio tour, but George’s insights clarified some of the key points.

Now, George seems ready to stop talking about Tucker.

“This isn’t about me,” George said. “It’s about our student-athletes. I certainly have a lot of respect for Mel. He is a good man. I don’t have anything negative to say about our relationship. I think we had a strong relationship. He made a decision that I don’t personally like, but I respect. It is time to move on.”