Colorado football moves to Plan B after Butch Jones backs out

Butch Jones. (Getty Images)

As Colorado officials scrambled to implement a Plan B strategy in seeking a new football coach, athletic director Mike Bohn expressed confidence he would get an outstanding candidate after the school's No. 1 target, Butch Jones, turned the school down Thursday.

Jones, the Cincinnati coach whom Bohn had courted almost from the moment he fired Jon Embree 12 days ago, released a statement Thursday morning that he was withdrawing from consideration for the Colorado job.

"We've been working on a Plan B simultaneously in the past week, and we're sure we will get a coach everybody will be proud of," Bohn told The Denver Post in a phone interview. He refused to divulge any names that he was considering.

Jones, meanwhile, now appears to be a top candidate for the University of Tennessee's opening. On Thursday afternoon, multiple media outlets included Jones as a candidate for the Vols' job. Louisville coach Charlie Strong rejected Tennessee's offer Wednesday.

Bohn said he felt confident Colorado would land Jones. CU offered a five-year, $13.5 million contract, by far the largest in school history.

"It was so extremely close," Bohn said. "We thought we were really in good position in getting the deal done until early (Wednesday) night. Then there was a whole new development."

That development was apparently Tennessee moving in on Jones at the same time Colorado was attempting to close the deal.

Bohn wouldn't say exactly what changed things, other than, "You just don't know until you get the signature. ... I just think when it came down to it, he just couldn't do it, couldn't make the final decision to come to Colorado. ... There is a lot of things I can't go into now. But they should be clear in the next day or so."

Late Wednesday afternoon, a source with knowledge of the situation had told The Denver Post that Jones would come to Colorado and only the final details needed to be worked out. Soon after, Jones denied he had agreed to come to Colorado.

On Thursday, Denver Post editors tweeted: "We believed the story we published online yesterday was accurate. Obviously, the outcome is different. We pride ourselves on being accurate and regret any misinformation."

For those criticizing CU's public flirtation with Jones over the past week, Bohn said the school is well-positioned to attract an outstanding coach.

"We competed as hard as any school could (to get Jones)," he said. "We made a compelling, competitive offer that was extremely well thought out. He and his people were very receptive to everything we did, and both sides were candid throughout the process.

"The synergy shown by the (CU) president, the chancellor, the athletic

Mike Bohn. (The Daily Camera)

department, the players and our boosters was unprecedented in Buffs history. Everybody came together, and we will continue to have that same competitiveness, that same fire until we find a man who has character is a perfect fit for Colorado.

"We were competitive with a coach that has been wanted by a lot of big-time schools, and we will be a top-flight program. We have the resources and the support."

Bohn said the timing of the search might not have helped CU in that the process dragged out.

"It didn't help (the negotiations) that so many events were going on in such a short period of time," he said. "Cincinnati played its last game Saturday. Butch was at Purdue on Sunday, here in Boulder on Monday, back at Cincinnati on Tuesday for a press conference and then in Charlotte for a bowl conference Wednesday.

"We didn't put any demands on him to make a quick decision, but he wanted to get it done quickly, and we were right there until the very end."

CU supporters, meanwhile, were in a sour mood Thursday, flooding radio talk shows with criticism of the search and voicing their feelings via comments on The Denver Post's website and on fan forums.

While Bohn did not divulge any names he is looking at, two possibilities for a Plan B are current head coaches: Fresno State's Tim DeRuyter (9-3, 7-1 Mountain West) and San Jose State's Mike MacIntyre (10-2, 5-1 Western Athletic Conference). DeRuyter, in his first year at Fresno State and as a head coach, was a player and assistant coach at Air Force and is a longtime acquaintance of Bohn, who spent time at the academy as a young administrator. He was known to be interested when the job first opened.

MacIntyre is 16-21 in three seasons at San Jose State but has revived a program that appeared to be on life support and guided the Spartans to their first bowl game in six years.

Columnist Woody Paige contributed to this report.

Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280, tkensler@denverpost.com or twitter.com/tomkensler

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/cu/ci_22143135/colorado-football-plan-b-coach-butch-jones-out?source=rss

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