A football on the field during the Rocky Mountain Showdown at Canvas Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Clementine Miller/CU Independent)
Legendary University of Colorado Boulder football coach Bill McCartney passed away Friday at the age of 84.
‘Coach Mac’ was the longest tenured head coach of the Buffaloes, spanning from 1982 to 1994. During that time, he won three consecutive Big 8 titles and led the program to its only national championship victory in 1990.
That 1990 team was led by running back Eric Bieniemy, who finished third in the Heisman race that year with 17 rushing touchdowns. The team finished 11-1 with a perfect conference record, giving them the Big 8 title, and would go on to beat the University of Notre Dame 10-9 in the Orange Bowl to clinch the national championship.
He is one of the most illustrious football coaches the university’s ever seen, finishing with ten winning seasons and making nine bowl game appearances in his 12 seasons, which is even more impressive with the team he inherited.
Before hiring McCartney, the Buffs hadn’t made a bowl game since 1976 and hadn’t won one in even longer, the last coming in 1971 under head coach Eddie Crowder. They hadn’t finished with ten wins since that 1971 season, and it only took Coach Mac three years to return Colorado to where it belonged.
McCartney has by far the most wins by a head coach for the Buffs with 93, and ended his career with a handful of impressive accolades. In 1989, when he had his first double-digit win season, ending 11-1, he won the American Football Coaches Association, Football Writers Association of America, Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach and Walter Camp Coach of the Year awards.
He manufactured 11 consensus All-Americans in his time, four of which would turn into first-round picks in the NFL. He was inducted into the CU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2013. Coach Mac is still Colorado’s only head coach to be recognized with the latter to this day.
In his final year of coaching, 1994, he sent off the program with an 11-1 record including his third bowl game win, defeating Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl 41-24. The cherry-on-top of that season was producing Colorado’s first Heisman winner, Rashaan Salaam.
Following his early retirement in 1994, he would carry on in his life, motivated by his religion. He founded a Christian ministry in 1990, called Promise Keepers, which he devoted the rest of his time to.
McCartney will forever be remembered as one of the best coaches the Colorado program and college football has ever seen.
Contact CU Independent Sports Editor Baylan Wysuph at baylan.wysuph@colorado.edu.
