Santa Claus delivered an early Christmas present to the University of Colorado football team and its fans – a number one ranking. Go Buffs!
The December 22nd issue of Forbes Magazine featured its annual ranking in “College Football’s Best And Worst Teams For The Buck 2014”. The Buffs were ranked #1 – the worst investment in college football.
Author Chris Smith stated, “Across the last three seasons, no team has spent more per football victory than Colorado, our pick for the sport’s worst team for the money. The Buffaloes have won just seven games in that time, tied with Kansas for the least of any team in our pool, while spending over $50 million. To put that into perspective, Mississippi State has built a competitive SEC program while spending $44 million across the same time period,”
To be exact, the Buff footballers spent $51.4 million over three years. Basic math shows that each of the seven wins cost $7.34 million.
Just think how it must feel to be one of the seven teams that lost to the Buffs! Thank goodness those seven teams were inept; otherwise the cost for CU to win a game would be much higher.
This notoriety is of the same ilk as the university’s #1 ranking (multiple years) as the top party school in the country. In addition, the Leeds School of Business is continually ranked as one of the country’s weakest business schools in the country and the worst in Colorado. Bummer!
The article proves that if you are good at math, it is possible to calculate virtually anything – meaningful or meaningless. While a case can be made that the Forbes calculations fall into the latter category, they point to a larger challenge for CU.
CU clearly does not have the money to build the facilities, attract the top athletes and coaches, and be competitive with the elite football teams in the PAC-12 and the country.
Will they retain the number one ranking in 2015? Probably not!
More importantly, where will they be able to find the money to play with the big boys? Smoke and mirrors? An unsuspecting sugar daddy? The state will triple its funding for the university?
A more likely option would be for CU to lower its academic standards or look the other way to become a winner. The only cost involved in that type of decision would be their reputation.
In the mean time Buff fans can only hope that Forbes and Chris Smith have somewhere else to look when the article is penned for 2015.