Colorado Buffaloes Football

Colorado will interview former Wisconsin and Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema for its head-coaching vacancy, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.  

Bielema works as an outside linebackers coach and senior assistant for the New York Giants.

Mike Klis of 9News reported Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy is still a candidate, as well.

The Buffaloes are searching for a new coach after Mel Tucker abruptly left for Michigan State. Less than a week after he reaffirmed his commitment to Colorado, the Spartans announced he was taking over.

Bieniemy is a natural choice to fill the void. He has overseen one of the NFL's most dynamic offenses in Kansas City, and the Chiefs are fresh off a Super Bowl LIV victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

The 50-year-old was also a star running back at Colorado, finishing third in the 1990 Heisman Trophy voting. He returned to his alma mater to work as a running backs coach from 2001-02 and worked as the offensive coordinator from 2011-12.

The obvious question is whether Bieniemy would leave the Chiefs to coach a program with one bowl appearance since 2007. As deep as his ties to the Buffaloes are, he could choose to remain in the NFL in the hope of finally becoming a head coach there.

Bielema, on the other hand, appears eager for another chance at the college level:

Exactly right. We don’t know what their understanding was. Bielema made no secret of his desire to be a HC in college again and did so publicly. What he and Judge agreed upon matters. Perception doesn’t necessarily match reality, so we’ll see. https://t.co/a8ldA8vL3K

— Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) February 17, 2020

I’m told Bielema really wants back in the college game #giants https://t.co/rLUkFLKXb3

— Ryan Dunleavy (@rydunleavy) February 17, 2020

Bielema didn’t interview at BC but had some interest there. He would like to coach in college again for right opportunity.

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) February 17, 2020

Bielema compiled a 68-24 record in seven years at Wisconsin, and the Badgers made back-to-back Rose Bowl appearances in 2010 and 2011.

His tenure with the Razorbacks was a disappointment, though. He was fired upon the conclusion of the 2017 season, and the team went 29-34 in his five years.

Bielema would be unlikely to generate a ton of enthusiasm from the fanbase, especially with Bieniemy still a possibility.

But Colorado's coaching search is naturally limited by the fact it's a mediocre Power Five program. The timing of Tucker's departure narrowed the school's options even further because most coaches are settled in for the 2020 season.

Colorado has reportedly reached out to Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy to gauge his interest in the open football head-coaching job, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.

"Nothing imminent," a source reportedly said. "EB is doing his due diligence."  

The Buffaloes have an opening after Mel Tucker left to take the same job at Michigan State. He went 5-7 in his one season with the program.

Landing Bieniemy would seemingly be a dream scenario for Colorado, considering the coach's success at the NFL level. He led the No. 1 offense in the NFL in 2019 before helping the squad bring home the Super Bowl in February, the organization's first in 50 years. 

With seven years learning under Andy Reid and 12 years of coaching in the NFL, he would be overqualified to take over the Pac-12 program.

Perhaps more importantly, Bienemy has a long connection to the school since starring for the team from 1987-90. He finished third in voting for the Heisman Trophy during his senior season after totaling 1,787 yards from scrimmage and 17 total touchdowns.

Following a nine-year NFL career as a player, he got his start as a coach back at Colorado while heading the running backs in 2001-02. He also served as the team's offensive coordinator in 2011-12.

Bieniemy will have to decide if he wants to return to the college level or remain in the NFL for 2020 and beyond.

The Colorado Buffaloes and Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy have "preliminary mutual interest" in the university's open head-coaching job, 9News' Mike Klis reported Wednesday evening.

Klis added that Colorado has reached out to Bieniemy, who played running back for the Buffaloes from 1987-90. The 1990 Heisman Trophy third-place finisher then served as a running backs coach at Colorado from 2001-02 before returning as offensive coordinator for the 2011 and '12 campaigns. 

Colorado was thrown into the market for a new head coach when Mel Tucker officially left the program to become Michigan State's new head coach earlier Wednesday:

To all Spartans, please welcome Coach Mel Tucker to Michigan State! pic.twitter.com/irYiYfOntE

— Michigan State Football (@MSU_Football) February 12, 2020

Colorado athletic director Rick George released an accompanying statement:   

"We are disappointed to see Coach Tucker leave. We are excited about the upward trajectory of our football program and we'll get to work immediately hiring the next head coach to build on our momentum and lead our young men. We're confident this program is on the verge of competing at the highest level and has the resources and support in place to do so for a long time."

Tucker was only in Boulder for one season. The Buffaloes went 5-7 but sported impressive victories over ranked opponents Nebraska and Arizona State.

Bieniemy left Colorado for Kansas City in 2013, where he served as the running backs coach until taking over offensive coordinator duties in 2018. With him in his current role, the Chiefs won their first Super Bowl in 50 years by defeating the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV on Feb. 2. 

Bieniemy went viral for the comments he made after the historic victory, which required his offense, led by 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes, to rally from 10 points down in the fourth quarter:

Chiefs OC Eric Bienemy had plenty to say after his offense rallied to win the Super Bowl pic.twitter.com/fAWJj8Jluv

— Steve Wyche (@wyche89) February 4, 2020

The Chiefs' first touchdown of the night came on an inventive play design that Bieniemy later disclosed he had gotten from the 1948 Rose Bowl:

Chiefs really took a play Michigan ran in the 1948 Rose Bowl 😯 @Chiefs pic.twitter.com/VE0gvp0VQV

— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) February 3, 2020

Bieniemy interviewed for the Carolina Panthers', Cleveland Browns' and New York Giants' head-coaching vacancies this year, and there was widespread criticism when the 50-year-old did not land any NFL head-coaching job. He has interviewed for seven NFL head-coaching jobs overall (h/t Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star).

ESPN's Mina Kimes offered a poignant take:

Today on @OTLonESPN, they asked us to give Parting Shots. Mine was on Eric Bieniemy and the excuses we make for the lack of diversity amongst head coaches. pic.twitter.com/tKAMeXhPsG

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) January 18, 2020

Colorado could be the landing spot Bieniemy has been seeking, though not in the NFL. He could also decide to return as Kansas City's offensive coordinator for the 2020 season before testing the head-coaching waters again next offseason.

In the meantime, per Klis, George named Darrin Chiaverini as the Buffaloes' interim head coach. Chiaverini will also interview to become the team's full-time head coach. 

Bieniemy and Chiaverini are considered Colorado's leading candidates.

Former Alabama defensive end Antonio Alfano is transferring to Colorado.

CU Boulder’22 #skobuffs pic.twitter.com/w0AMSXi1G8

— Antonio Alfano (@Antonioalfano99) November 5, 2019

Alfano's parents confirmed in September he had requested to enter the transfer portal. They said his grandmother "fell very ill and is still fighting on life support." As a result, Alfano had stopped attending classes and practices at Alabama.

A 5-star recruit, the Colonia, New Jersey, native was the No. 1 strong-side defensive end in the 2019 recruiting class, per 247Sports' composite rankings.

Alabama head coach Nick Saban was blunt in addressing Alfano's continued absences, per the Montgomery Advertiser's Alex Byington:

"I just know that the guy basically quit. He quit going to class, he quit coming here (to the football complex). We tried to encourage him, we tried to help him. We set up counseling sessions with him to help him every way we could, and all those things are still available to him if he wants them. But he didn't respond to any of the things. So until he responds, you have to assume the guy quit."

AL.com's Matt Zenitz reported Saturday that Colorado was a contender to land Alfano and that he had started following the Buffaloes' official Twitter account, as well as the account for head coach Mel Tucker.

Tucker and Alfano likely crossed paths on the recruiting trail before he officially signed with Alabama. Georgia, where Tucker was the defensive coordinator from 2016 to 2018, was among the schools Alfano considered prior to making his decision.

With a 3-6 record through nine games, Colorado is likely headed for another losing season. Tucker can point to his success in recruiting as a reason for optimism, though.

The Buffaloes ranked 53rd in 247Sports' composite team rankings for 2018 and rose to 44th in 2019. They sit 47th in 2020, but Tucker and his staff still have time to fill out their class for next year. Alfano would effectively be a part of that group even if he doesn't count toward their ranking.

BOULDER, Colo. — He has never seen anyone like him.

Never. Anyone. It's a distinct description with zero wiggle room for a no-frills realist like Colorado head coach Mel Tucker.

"That's just not a statement you're going to hear from me," Tucker says.    

Until he met Laviska Shenault Jr. 

In 23 years as a defensive assistant or coordinator in college football and the NFL, Tucker has been around every size, shape, strength and speed possible at the wide receiver position.

Plaxico Burress and Josh Reed. Michael Jenkins and Santonio Holmes. Alshon Jeffery and Calvin Ridley. Those are but a handful of the players he has coached and doesn't include those he has coached against.

None has the complete package of Shenault.

"You could go a whole career and not coach a guy like him," Tucker says, and he can feel the skepticism, so now it gets serious.

He leans in, elbows on his knees with a steely stare that looks a whole lot like the one he gave his team an hour earlier during practice when he barked, "You'd better be comfortable with being uncomfortable, with that sense of urgency to do it right every time, or you can take your ass to the [NCAA transfer] portal right now."

"Some guys are your speed, go [route] guys," he continues now. "Some are your slants. Some are your highpoint-and-go-get-the-ball. Some are your guys that can go over the middle. Or size and strength and run-after-the-catch guys.

"This kid is everything rolled into one."

If that doesn't do it for you, maybe this will: One NFL scout tells Bleacher Report that Shenault—at 6'2", 225 pounds with a sub-4.4 40—will go in the first five picks of next year's draft.

"He's Julio Jones," the scout says. "Only bigger."

Wait, everyone. This story is just beginning.

Seems as though Viska—everyone calls him Viska, because CU's other star wideout and Shenault's childhood best friend, K.D. Nixon, calls him Viska, and whatever K.D. says, goes—has no idea just how good he is. Really.

Earlier this spring, the NCAA held a symposium in Indianapolis to introduce NFL draft-eligible stars of the game to the realities and dangers of turning pro.

Choosing an agent, managing money, dealing with needy family and friends with their hands out. Everything that's so important yet so often overlooked by players with newfound wealth.

Shenault walked into the conference room at the NCAA symposium, and it was filled with a who's who of top college football players. Tua Tagovailoa and Jake Fromm, Grant Delpit and Chase Young. You name him, and the star was there.

So was Shenault.

"I was thinking, Is this where I am supposed to be?" Shenault says. "It kind of hit me right then. Somebody thinks I'm as good as these guys."

He grabbed a notebook and filled it with insight on everything from draft grades and eligibility to choosing an agent and financial planning.

The one thing that shocked most everyone in the room: understanding your contract. Even in the most basic form, the realities of a contract are overwhelming and understated.

If you sign for $1 million, 37 percent goes to the federal government because you've gone from the lowest to the highest tax bracket. Another 5 percent ($50,000) goes to your agent. That leaves you with less than $600,000, and that's before you pay back your agent or financial planner who probably fronted you money needed for the pre-draft process (a car to get around, clothes to interview in, training for the combine).

That can bring the number, conservatively, down as low as $350,000 for your first contract, and as Shenault says, "You haven't even bought your mother a home."

Shoot, that's one of the reasons he's playing this game in the first place. His mom lost her husband, his dad, when Shenault was 10, and Annie Brown Shenault has spent 10 years sacrificing without Laviska Sr. and raising a family on her own (including Laviska Jr.'s younger brother, CU freshman wideout La'Vontae).

"His dad always told him, 'Do your best and stay out of trouble,'" Annie says. "Him playing is like him telling his dad, 'I'm doing what you told me to do.'"

But it hasn't been easy. He didn't play football until the ninth grade, and when he did at legendary DeSoto High School in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, he played tight end until his senior season.

He was lost at a position that has been minimized in most college offenses, was a 3-star recruit and was ignored by a majority of major schools. Darrin Chiaverini, then a wide receivers coach at Texas Tech, found him at DeSoto and told him he wanted to make him a wide receiver.

Chiaverini begged Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury to offer Shenault, and when Chiaverini left to become offensive coordinator at CU, his first priority was to sign Shenault.

By that time, Alabama had found tape of him and had zeroed in on adding him to a freshman class that already included receivers Jerry Jeudy, DeVonta Smith and Henry Ruggs III.

The very thought of Shenault at Alabama with that receiver class is frightening. Fortunately for CU, Shenault got bad vibes from his visit to Tuscaloosa—"it just didn't feel right"—and he and Nixon both signed with the Buffs.

"When he signed," Chiaverini says, "I immediately thought, 'It won't be long until he's the best player on this team.'"

Then the first obstacle hit: Shenault didn't pick up the offense as quickly as the CU staff liked, and there were more experienced receivers in front of him. So he spent his freshman season on special teams.

"We used to come home from games and fight each other because we were so mad and knew we could help our team," Nixon says. "It was not a good time."

Shenault says he thinks he could have played right away as a freshman, and probably should have, but he didn't waste the year, embracing special teams, volunteering and playing every unit he could—and scoring his first career touchdown on his first career touch, returning a fumbled punt 55 yards.

Laviska Shenault's first career touchdown | #Pac12FB | WATCH on Pac-12 Network #TXSTvsCU pic.twitter.com/pJ63Br96IU

— Colorado Buffaloes Football (@CUBuffsFootball) September 9, 2017

Realizing talent alone wouldn't get him on the offense, he also studied and made sure that when he showed up for his sophomore season, his mental preparedness matched his physical. "He finally learned the offense," Chiaverini says. "Now it's second nature for him."

The result last season was an immediate impact. In the first five games, Shenault had 51 catches for 708 yards and 10 touchdowns (six receiving, four rushing), helping Colorado to a 5-0 start before missing three-and-a-half games with foot and shoulder injuries. It turned into a disappointing season for the Buffaloes from there as they lost their final seven games. But Shenault finished with an 86-reception, 1,011-yard, 11-touchdown season that got him on everyone's radar.

Days after the end of the season, Mike MacIntyre was fired and Tucker was hired. The only thing the new head coach was told about the roster was he had a "pretty good" wide receiver.

"I didn't know who [Shenault] was before I got here. I had no idea," Tucker says. "When I get here, he's in a sling and a boot recovering from surgery. Then I see him on the field for the first time in fall camp, and I'm like, Holy s--t, really? I really got one of these players my first year here, walking into the door?"

To be fair, Tucker kind of had an idea of what he was getting into with Shenault when during the summer, he was told Shenault couldn't lift weights with the receivers anymore. He had to lift with the offensive linemen.

It was taking too much time to change plates on the various stations, and not everyone was getting their reps. By working with the linemen, there wasn't as much plate-changing because he was lifting similar weight.

His best clean and jerk came during his freshman season. He did it once and cleared 315 pounds and hasn't done it again. He has squatted 455 pounds but says he can add 100 more pounds on that number with fresh legs.

"I'm telling you right now: Y'all haven't seen his best," Nixon says. "You're going to see it this year, and he's going to blow everyone away."

Early in fall camp, before Colorado began this season with back-to-back wins over bitter rivals Colorado State and Nebraska, Tucker had an odd idea. In fact, now that he's saying it out loud for the first time, it doesn't sound so odd at all.

Shenault is the fastest player on the team (and most likely one of the top five in the country). He is pound for pound, CU director of football strength and conditioning Drew Wilson insists, the strongest player on the team.

Now back to Tucker's idea.

Let's begin with the baseline that Tucker is a defensive coach, and he thinks like a defensive coach—which is to say, he wants the best athletes on that side of the ball.

"So I got to thinking, What if I put him on the outside, a rush linebacker, on defense for a few select plays and told him to go get the quarterback?" Tucker says. "I mean, he looks like an outside linebacker. Can you imagine that? People would be saying, 'What are they doing? Are they crazy?' But I'm telling you right now he'd get five or six sacks, at least. Wouldn't that be nuts?"

He's the type of player who inspires such out-of-the-box thinking.

Also the type of player who, once the word is out, is not allowed to run free in secondaries for long. Through three games this season, he's constantly been double-teamed. More creative thinking is required to get him the ball—at receiver or as a Wildcat quarterback. Shenault's tough run between the tackles last week against Air Force tied the game late before CU lost in overtime.

Here's a look at that game-tying touchdown by @Viska2live

📺 on Pac-12 Network#GoBuffs || #RELENTLESS pic.twitter.com/SEnpJzSAnG

— Colorado Buffaloes Football (@CUBuffsFootball) September 14, 2019

Midway through his breakout season last year, Shenault started getting more media requests, and at one point, CU officials had both Shenault—quiet and measured with his words—and Nixon—a lovable carnival barker—together at a podium.

Nixon, of course, carried the moment. He talked about their dreams growing up together in DFW and how they wanted to play in the NFL because playing in the NFL meant they could take care of their families.

A year later, Nixon has escaped an oddly steamy August Colorado morning and is talking about his favorite thing: his friendship with Shenault. They'll live in L.A. one day and produce movies—after they play in the NFL.

Shenault laughs and plays along. He has been given an athletic gift from God, he says.

"When your time comes, you better have put in the work to be ready for it," he says. "There's a lot of work between average and unique."

A distinct description with zero wiggle room.

It won't be the last one used in Viska's story.