Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville has sympathy for Dan Hawkins, who was fired Tuesday as coach of the Colorado Buffaloes.
"You hate to see that,'' Tuberville said Tuesday. "Dan's a good football coach.
"As a matter of fact the year that I got National Coach of the Year in 2004 he was one of the nominees for several of the awards that I won. But that's how things can change.''
Tuberville was 13-0 at Auburn in 2004, the same year Hawkins was 11-1 while coaching at Boise State.
From 2001-'05 at Boise State, Hawkins posted an impressive 53-11 record. But that magic never followed him to Colorado.
From 2006 until he was fired by the Buffs, Hawkins was only 19-39 at Colorado. That included a 3-6 overall record and 0-5 Big 12 Conference record this season.
The final straw for Hawkins at Colorado came this past Saturday when the Buffs led Kansas, 45-17, with 12 minutes remaining in the game, but blew that lead and amazingly lost the game, 52-45.
"He went in and took over a tough situation and I thought at times it got better,'' Tuberville said of Hawkins. "You just got to work through the hard times, and unfortunately he didn't make it through it.''
-- Dwain Price
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