Folks, doesn’t it feel good to have faith in an institution again? Isn’t it nice to trust the people making decisions that affect your life? I got to feel the sunshine of good decisions (not mine, obviously) on my face this weekend. My bet is, if you’re reading this, you did, too. We, as Colorado Buffaloes fans, get little gimpses of well-run organizations. It seems to me that this is the first time that CU-Boulder leadership was able to show that off in athletics.
Fernando Lovo, the current athletic director at the University of New Mexico, is now the athletic director at the University of Colorado. This search was led by the new chancellor of the university, Justin Schqartz, and the president of CU, Todd Saliman. Saliman has already been the most successful president for athletics since Gordan Gee at CU, and Schwartz (who comes from Penn State) just showed off a bit of his prowess as well. Lovo is a FANTASTIC HIRE.
Let’s get the easy criticism out of the way. We’ve heard before of “I-25 hires”. Giving employment to people who seem to be good coaches or administrators in the 200 mile radius around Boulder. Tad Boyle (worked), Karl Dorrell, Troy Calhoun (potential) etc. Lovo technically fits that description, working at UNM. However, this feels very different for a few reasons.
Let’s look at his resume, which starts as a college student. He was the lead football manager under Urban Meyer at Florida from 08-09, which means he saw some insane stuff and decided to keep going for the love of the game. After Meyer “retired” due to health problems, Lovo then worked at ESPN for a year in the event space (my guess – Gameday ops). Then, after Meyer’s health issues magically resolved when Ohio State was looking for a coach, a Lovo with a fresh Master’s degree was hired as the football operations coordinator from 2012 – 2015. These Football Ops are jobs that really teach you the nitty gritty of the biggest show on any P5 campus, and they also demand insane hours. Good for Lovo. He got his next shot as the football-only AD at Houston, who had superstar coach Tom Herman at the time (who came from Ohio State as the offensive coordinator). He was there for two years, where he then followed Herman to Texas in 2016. Lovo was at UT as the football chief of staff for Herman’s tenure there, 2016 – 2020/2021 (which means he dunked on a Karl Dorrell-led Alamo Bowl team in 2020). After Meyer returned to coaching again to coach the Jacksonville Jaguars, Lovo joined him as the Chief of Staff there. Honestly, based off of how that year went, this may be the largest black mark on his record. After that year, he went back to UT-Austin to work under legendary athletic director Chris Del Conte as the Director of Facilities. That means DEEP fundraising experience at the largest pressure cooker in college athletics. From there, he was hired as UNM’s AD.
His tenure at UNM was short, but important. In his year there, he had to replace a football and a basketball coach. UNM is so underresourced that Bronco Mendenhall left for conference rival (and now Pac-12 school) Utah State. Richard Pitino then left to coach Xavier after a successful rehab tenure as the Lobo’s basketball coach. Lovo, who is only 37, had to make the two hires that define every AD’s tenure. He turned to Jason Eck, a young gun coach at Idaho who turned out to be the best possible hire (keep that name under your hat, CU fans). For basketball, he reached to Eric Olen. who shepared UC San Diego to D1 basketball. Both hires have worked out tremendously. At the same time, he fundraised a record amount of donations for UNM and increased football and basketball attendance.
This is a guy who is football-first, with legendary mentors (Urban Meyer and CHris Del Conte), who knows how to operate a ship. Based off of his current trajectory, who knows how long he stays in Boulder. Until then, my trust level in the university is topped up.
Welcome, Fernando Lovo!
