The Winningest Football Coach In CU History Was 84
BOULDER — Bill McCartney, one of the most visible and successful head coaches in all sports in the University of Colorado’s 135-year athletic history, passed away peacefully here after a long illness shortly after 9 p.m. Friday evening with family members by his side. He was 84.
The family issued the following statement Friday evening:
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Bill McCartney, beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, who left this world peacefully at the age of 84 after a courageous journey with Dementia.
Our father surrendered his life to Jesus at 33 years old setting a trajectory for our family and many others. We share his faith in Jesus and truly believe our Dad has been reunited in Heaven with his beloved bride and our Mother, Lynne Marie.
Coach Mac touched countless lives with his unwavering faith, boundless compassion, and enduring legacy as a leader, mentor, and advocate for family, community, and faith. As a trailblazer and visionary, his impact was felt both on and off the field, and his spirit will forever remain in the hearts of those he inspired.
While we mourn his loss, we also celebrate the extraordinary life he lived and the love he shared with everyone around him. We are grateful for the outpouring of prayers and support during this time and ask for privacy as we navigate this difficult moment.
Details about memorial services will be shared in the coming days. Coach Mac deeply believed that investing in the local church was the most impactful way to transform a community. In honor of his legacy, and in lieu of flowers, we invite you to consider making a donation—beyond your regular tithes and offerings—to a local church in Bill’s name.
With love and gratitude, The McCartney Family
When “Mac” first set foot on the CU campus in Boulder in June 1982, little did he – or anyone – know at the time that just over a dozen years later he would retire as the winningest coach in CU football history. He orchestrated a turnaround with a program that had won just 14 games over the previous six seasons to one that claimed three Big Eight Conference titles and the 1990 consensus national championship.
He is one of 11 with CU ties in the College Football Hall of Fame, as he was inducted in 2013, the first (and only) Colorado coach to be recognized. He coached four players in the college hall: outside linebacker Alfred Williams (inducted in 2010), wide receiver Michael Westbrook (2020), the late running back Rashaan Salaam (2022) and cornerback Deon Figures (2024). Eighteen of his players are in CU’s Athletic Hall of Fame.
CU athletic director Rick George, who McCartney hired as his recruiting coordinator in 1987, remained life-long friends with him and spent time with him recently – one final chance to visit with one of his greatest mentors.
“I am very saddened at the passing of Coach Mac,” George said. “I was fortunate to be able to say goodbye to Coach in person last week. Coach Mac was an incredible man who taught me about the importance of faith, family and being a good husband, father and grandfather. He instilled discipline and accountability to all of us who worked and played under his leadership. The mark that he left on CU football and our athletic department will be hard to replicate. My thoughts and prayers go out to Mike, Tom, Kristy, Marc and their families. I have many fond memories of Coach Mac and will hold those close to my heart. God bless Coach Mac.”
[ADDITIONAL TRIBUTES TO MCCARTNEY WILL FOLLOW SATURDAY IN ADDITIONAL STORY]
McCartney was 93-55-5 in 13 seasons at the reins of the Buffaloes, guiding the program to its first and only national championship in football in 1990, doing so by playing the nation’s toughest schedule, just the second time that feat was ever accomplished. He coached CU in more bowl games, nine, than anyone before or after him, as well as to three consecutive Big 8 titles in 1989-90-91 during a run of 10 consecutive winning seasons in league competition. After a 4-16-1 start in conference games, the Buffs finished 58-29-4 against Big 8 competition, going an impressive 54-13-3 over his last 10 seasons.
In the six-year span from 1989-94, Mac’s last six seasons, Colorado was 58-11-4, the fifth-best record in the nation behind Miami, Fla. (63-9), Florida State (64-9-1), Nebraska (61-11-1) and Alabama (62-12-1). CU’s 36-3-3 record in the conference games in the same period was the nation’s best. CU finished in the nation’s top 20 each of those six years, including a No. 3 ranking his final season.
All 93 wins came against Division I-A/FBS competition, with just nine against so-called “non-Power 5” schools (though five of those were with in-state rival Colorado State). He coached the most games ever (153) at Colorado, with his 13 seasons second to only the legendary Fred Folsom (15) in the number of seasons working on the “hilltop.”
When Mac was inducted into the College Football HOF, he was quick to credit two specific groups for his election to the Hall.
“It all started with my first recruiting class, that winter of ’83,” he recalled. “I asked all the in-state players not to make a decision until they visited CU, and we wanted them to come in the last weekend before signing day. They gave their word and most of them held to it. They stuck together, and they helped recruit our great class in ’87 that made up the core of the national championship team.
“That’s how I am in the Hall of Fame,” he said boldly. “This means something to the state of Colorado, it’s part of our history. What led us to the national championship is that seven years earlier, the in-state kids stayed home.”
He also had great assistant coaches through the years, those he only hired because they could also recruit; he would pass on coaches they were great with X’s and O’s if they weren’t great recruiters.
And those who worked under him formed a pool that eventually would produce 12 future collegiate head coaches: Gary Barnett, Jim Caldwell, Ron Dickerson, Jon Embree, Gerry DiNardo, Karl Dorrell, Les Miles, Rick Neuheisel, Bob Simmons, Lou Tepper, Ron Vanderlinden and John Wristen. Neuheisel, Barnett, Embree and Dorrell would all follow in his footsteps and coach the Buffaloes a combined 14½ seasons, while Wristen won the Division II national championship in 2014 at CSU Pueblo.
During his 13 seasons, he had 32 assistant coaches under him at various times, and 337 players lettered under his staffs, including some who did for the first time after he retired in 1994.
McCartney knew had coaching in his blood almost from the get-go.
“When I was 7 years old, I knew I was going to be a coach,” he said in 2013. “My friends, other kids at that age were going to be president, businessmen, attorneys, firemen. Ever since I was a little kid, I imitated my coaches, critiqued them, always followed and studied them. I was a student of the great coaches. I was a disciple of Bobby Knight’s when I was (high school) basketball coach.”
McCartney attended the University of Missouri on a football scholarship and lettered three times as a center-linebacker for the Tigers. He played in two Orange Bowl games and was named second-team All-Big 8 as a senior.
He graduated from Missouri in 1962 with a degree in education and immediately turned his attention to coaching. His first job was as an assistant at Joplin (Mo.) High in 1963 and 1964. He then returned to Michigan to coach the basketball team at Holy Redeemer High School in Detroit. He coached there from 1964 to 1968.
The next stop for Mac was at Divine Child High in Dearborn, where he was the head basketball coach from 1969 to 1973 and the head football coach from 1971 to 1973. His ’69 hoops team won the Detroit Catholic League title, and his ’73 team won the state class B crown. His three Divine Child football teams compiled a 30-5 record, winning the DCL title all three years and the state championship in ’71 and ’73.
His feats of winning state titles in football and basketball in 1973 made him the first coach ever in Michigan high school history to win both the same season, and it would serve as his entry into the college ranks. After his teams won the state championship in both sports, the University of Michigan’s Bo Schembechler and Johnny Orr both offered him an assistant’s job within one week of each other. He picked the football position because he said he “played college football but wasn’t good enough to play college basketball, so that settled that.” That, and his first love was football, and being a Michigan native (born and raised in Riverview), he felt “to become a part of Schembechler’s staff was the opportunity of a lifetime.”
He joined the Michigan coaching staff as a defensive aide in 1974, coaching outside linebackers for the next three seasons. In 1977, he took over the chores as Michigan’s defensive coordinator, a position he held until he departed for CU. One publication had Mac rated as one of the top five defensive coordinators in the nation in 1981, and he was considered one of the finest recruiters in the country.
McCartney gained national recognition at Michigan in 1980 when he devised a scheme to stop Purdue quarterback Mark Herrmann (using six defensive backs to neutralize Herrmann and his receivers). He was named the Big Ten’s “player” of the week for his plan, in which the Wolverines shut out the 16th-ranked Boilermakers, 26-0. That Michigan team won the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl, allowing just nine points over its last five games.
He always first credited Schembechler as the coach he owed the most for his successful coaching career.
“Bo won more games in a 20-year stretch than any other coach in history,” he said prior to his induction into the College Hall of Fame. “Fame comes in a moment, but greatness comes with longevity. I had the privilege of serving under him for eight and half years, and that’s what prepared me for the Colorado job.”
That call came the first week of June in 1982. The late Chuck Fairbanks abruptly resigned on June 1 to become president and head coach of the New Jersey Generals in the fledgling United States Football League. (The late) athletic director Eddie Crowder was faced with hiring a new coaching staff with the season opener just 102 days away.
Mac had started entertaining thoughts about becoming a head coach.
“When the Colorado job opened, it was the perfect time for me,” McCartney recalled. “Because of the timing, there was really no head coach in America who could have applied for the job, because if you didn’t get it, you would have been run out of town because you were willing to abandon your team. I didn’t have to fight several head coaches who would have been interested had the job opened at a more opportune time.
“When I saw that Chuck resigned, I was immediately interested, I went in and saw Bo. At the appropriate time, Bo called Eddie Crowder. He was instrumental in my getting strong consideration. It was my good fortune, the timing was such that I was in position to be a candidate because of the success Michigan had had and the fact that I worked for Bo.”
“Colorado was one of the premier jobs in the country,” he continued. “It was in a prestigious conference, the location, the history, and there was something about raising your family in a college town. All the opportunities you can ask for in a dynamic collegiate environment. Boulder is just the right size, not too big, not too small and has access to a major city in Denver. The populace and all that goes with that, the professional teams, the arts, a major airport providing access to wherever you’d want to go. The aesthetic beauty of Boulder, Colorado is that it has no parallel and offers what I call the ‘maximum experience.’
“When I was recruiting, I would say there are other schools that have won more games, others that have better academics, others that might have a better campus. But not all three in a package like the University of Colorado. I personally believed I had the greatest product to sell, and I truly believed what I was saying. I never had a kid say to me even once, ‘Coach, you oversold me on Boulder.’”
It wasn’t a slam dunk that Crowder was going to hire him, though. In fact, he was the longshot. He wasn’t even contacted until six days into the search. He told the story best to CUBuffs.com back in 2007:
“What happened was that Eddie Crowder called me on a Sunday night (June 6) and asked if would I be interested; I said absolutely. He said ‘When can you be here?’ And I said the next morning. I took the first flight out of Detroit and got to Colorado pretty early in the day, but I got here so fast that they weren’t ready to interview me. It took him until Tuesday morning to put together an interview panel. That gave me a day here where nothing was happening and I was able to get acquainted. I had been here before as an assistant with Michigan and as a player with Missouri, so I had a little familiarity with the place. Eddie assigned me to (the late associate AD) Fred Casotti; when the interview took place Tuesday morning, there were about 15 people representing all kind of factions on campus and the alumni. About 15 minutes before I was going to go before them for the interview, I said to Fred, ‘What do you think my chances are?’ He said, ‘Coach, it’s third and long. You’d better make a big play.’
“That was the best thing he could have told me, otherwise I might have tip-toed into the interview. But after Fred told me that, I threw caution to the wind, decided to get aggressive and put my best foot forward. The format was for them to ask me questions, or that’s what they had in mind. But I stood up, and I said before I take any questions, I want to make a statement. I spoke for about 20 minutes and told them who I was, my background, what I had done at the University of Michigan, my philosophies and values, and what I would bring to the University of Colorado if I was to get the job. I was the only one talking, and after I was done speaking, nobody asked me a question.
“I went from there to meet the president, Arnold Weber, and he had already gotten a phone call following the first interview. He was energized and anxious to see me, and was warm and welcoming. Later that night, they took me to meet the Board of Regents, as by chance they were having their monthly meeting in Denver. I was waiting with Casotti in the car, waiting for a break in their meeting to be introduced, and I asked Fred again, ‘What do you think my chances are?’ And Fred said, ‘Coach, fourth and short. You just need to make a first down.’ So I just needed to move the chains. That Tuesday night, Eddie offered me the job. Really it all happened so fast, we didn’t have a lot of time because of the unusual circumstances.”
McCartney was hired as the 20th head coach in CU history on June 9, 1982, taking over a team which had just suffered through three of its worst seasons in an otherwise tradition-rich football program.
Upon his arrival in Boulder, he had but 94 days to hire a staff and prepare for his first season. When the season opener against California rolled around some three months later, he had only 77 players on scholarship, and only 73 in uniform to line up and play.
His first three teams posted records of 2-8-1, 4-7 and 1-10. The offense came alive his second season, primarily the passing game, helping CU to improve its record. His third team was better than the record showed (four of the 10 losses by seven points or less), but was also injury plagued. Though those three teams passed for over 6,700 yards, the rushing game was almost nonexistent and the defense nowhere near McCartney’s standards.
The foresight of athletic director Bill Marolt, just two months into the job, also played a tremendous role. Despite a 1-7 record at the time, Marolt extended McCartney’s contract. Mac was now working with a net, and it led to one of the boldest and most daring moves in CU history, if not college football’s.
He announced in March ahead of the 1985 season that the Buffaloes were switching to the wishbone formation on offense. What did the move from a passing to a running game do for CU? Colorado posted a 7-5 mark, the most wins in seven years at the school, and netted the Buffs the NCAA’s Most Improved Team honor. CU also went from last to ninth in rushing offense and from last to first in net punting, two of the most dramatic turnabouts in NCAA history. And CU’s 4-3 league mark, which tied the Buffs for third place, helped McCartney gain the Big Eight’s Coach of the Year award. Colorado also earned its first bowl appearance in almost a decade in 1985, opposite Washington in the Freedom Bowl, but dropped the contest by a 20-17 count.
In 1986, the Buffs staggered to an 0-4 start, but McCartney’s fifth team never threw in the towel. Colorado rebounded to post a 6-1 mark in the Big Eight, finishing second in the league’s race, CU’s best effort since winning it in 1976. And McCartney’s Buffs became the first at CU to defeat Nebraska (20-10) since 1967. Colorado made its second straight bowl appearance (a 21-9 loss against Baylor in the Bluebonnet Bowl). His 1987 team posted a 7-4 record, but to the surprise of many, the team was left out when the bowl committees made their selections.
The 1988 Buffaloes posted the best record at CU since 1976 by going 8-4 (with a new-fangled “I-bone” offense), which included a win at No. 19 Iowa. Mac’s team again battled the Big Eight’s top two to the wire, losing 17-14 to Oklahoma and 7-0 at Nebraska; CU placed fourth with a 4-3 mark. However, the Buffs fell short again in postseason play, losing 20-17 to Brigham Young in the Freedom Bowl. The biggest stride the 1988 team made was a return to the national Top 20 for the first time in over a decade.
As the unanimous National Coach-of-the-Year selection for 1989 (UPI, Kodak/ AFCA, Bear Bryant/ FWAA, The Sporting News, Dodge/ Maxwell Football Club, CBS/ Chevrolet), McCartney’s eighth CU team roared to an 11-0 regular season record and the first ever No. 1 national ranking in CU’s 100-year football history. The Buffs won their second outright Big Eight title, to go with 1961, which earned McCartney unanimous Coach of the Year honors in the league. Colorado became the first team since 1969 to defeat Oklahoma and Nebraska in the same year and all told the Buffs defeated five top 25 and three bowl teams.
The team had bonded together after the death of its leader, quarterback Sal Aunese, to stomach cancer; diagnosed just prior to the start of spring football, he passed away on September 23. CU rolled its non-conference opponents – Texas, Colorado State, Illinois and Washington – and a 20-3 win at Oklahoma set the stage for a nationally televised battle of 8-0 teams, No. 2 CU and No. 3 Nebraska.
The Huskers scored on their first play to take their only lead, as CU stormed back to tie the game on one of the most celebrated plays in school football annals—a 70-yard touchdown run where Darian Hagan sprinted to the NU 30 and then pitched the ball to a trailing J.J. Flannigan who took it into the end zone. The Buffs went on to win, 27-21, the players carried McCartney off the field, and the Folsom Field scoreboard remained lit through the weekend with “Things Have Changed” on its message board. Wins over Oklahoma State and Kansas State completed the undefeated regular season. Only a 21-6 loss to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl kept CU from being crowned the national champion, but the No. 4 final ranking was still the second best ever for the Buffaloes at that time.
His ninth Colorado team won the biggest prize possible in college football: the national championship. The 1990 team, with an 11-1-1 record, was also the first Buffalo team to claim back-to-back Big Eight titles. He was once again named as the league’s Coach of the Year, the third time he was afforded that honor.
The Buffs “survived” one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the school’s history, if not in college football history, defeating Stanford, Texas and Washington, tying Tennessee and dropping a one-point decision at Illinois. Texas and Washington won their league titles, Illinois shared its, and Tennessee finished second, a half-game out of first. Colorado then went undefeated in Big Eight play, with the key win a 27-12 rally in Lincoln after Nebraska led 12-0 going into the fourth quarter.
Colorado’s 10-9 win over Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl paved the way for the Associated Press along with most of the other recognized organizations to select the Buffaloes as the 1990 consensus national champion. Nine members of the 1990 team were drafted into the NFL, and three players earned Colorado’s first ever unanimous All-America honors (Eric Bieniemy, Joe Garten and Alfred Williams). Williams won the Butkus Award, with Garten finishing second for the Outland Trophy and Bieniemy third in the Heisman Trophy race. In the end, CU played the nation’s toughest schedule and joined the ’82 Penn State team as the only schools at the time to win the national championship while doing so.
His 1991 team became the first at CU to win three straight Big Eight titles, going 6-0-1 in league play. He did this despite having the second youngest team in the nation’s top 25, as he started nine freshmen or sophomores and utilizes 24 of the pups in each week’s game plan. Center Jay Leeuwenburg earned unanimous All-America honors, Mac’s fourth unanimous selection in two years. His 10th team went 8-3-1 overall, earning McCartney’s sixth bowl appearance (the Buffs lost to the following season’s national champion, Alabama, 30-25, in the Blockbuster Bowl).
McCartney and his staff did another excellent coaching job in 1992, leading the Buffs to a 9-2-1 record, despite a total overhaul in the offensive system. The Buffs switched gears to a one-back, more pass-oriented attack, and the season produced a school and conference record 3,271 yards passing. The team was also McCartney’s best defensively, surrendering only 278 yards a game and boasting the Thorpe award winner in cornerback Deon Figures. The ’92 squad also featured offensince tackle Jim Hansen, CU’s first Rhodes Scholar in 30 years. The 9-1-1 regular season mark was the fifth best in school history, with the loss to Nebraska ending a remarkable 23-0-2 run in league games dating back to 1988. CU went to its seventh bowl under McCartney, a 26-22 loss to Syracuse in the Fiesta Bowl.
In 1993, he assumed the responsibilities of coaching the quarterbacks, the first time during his head coaching career that he worked with a specific position other than special teams. This team posted an 8-3-1 mark, the losses by a combined 14 points. The team earned a sixth consecutive bowl appearance, defeating Fresno State by a 41-30 count in the Aloha Bowl. The offense continued to evolve, finishing 10th in the nation, averaging 470 yards per game. It was the first CU team in history to average over 200 yards in both rushing and passing, and the first time since 1975 that Colorado led the league in total offense. A youthful defense matured during the league season, overcoming five seniors’ graduation from the previous year’s team into the NFL.
What would be his final CU team in 1994 posted an 11-1 record and was ranked in the nation’s top 10 the entire season (17 consecutive weeks, a school record). His 13th and last Buffalo team had several memorable moments, from Kordell Stewart’s 64-yard touchdown pass to Michael Westbrook (via a Blake Anderson tip) to beat Michigan, 27-26, on the final play of the game, to Rashaan Salaam’s dramatic 67-yard touchdown run in the season finale against Iowa State that pushed the eventual Heisman Trophy winner’s season rushing total to 2,055 yards. Cornerback Chris Hudson won the Thorpe Award with Ted Johnson finishing second for the Butkus Award. The Buffs finished second in the Big Eight with a 6-1 record, losing only at Nebraska, which cost CU a chance at the national championship in what would eventually be the last year McCartney strolled the CU sideline.
From 1985, when he made the bold move to the wishbone, until the end of his career, McCartney’s teams posted an 86-30-4 record in registering 10 straight winning seasons, both overall and in league play. His 1988 to 1992 teams went those 25 straight games without a loss in the Big Eight, the fourth longest streak in the now-defunct conference’s history. In 1989, his teams started the run of 143 consecutive weeks in the AP rankings, still the eighth-longest streak of all-time.
He worked under four contracts at CU, with a 15-year deal signed in 1990 one of the longest contracts ever in college football history. It would have expired in the year 2005, but he had the option after five years of stepping down if he so chose. He did just that on November 19, 1994, deciding to retire after that team’s final game, a New Year’s appearance in the Fiesta Bowl.
The Buffs were inspired to send him out a winner, and Stewart, Salaam and company had huge games as Colorado routed the Irish, 41-24, the game literally over in the second quarter after CU built a 31-3 lead. The Buffs had denied Irish head coach Lou Holtz his 200th career win; prior to the game when asked what he thought of Colorado, he said, “You tell them they’d better pack a lunch because we’ll be ready to play.” hen McCartney took the podium to speak at the pregame luncheon for both teams, in a surprising moment of humor, he pulled out a brown bag, opened it and said to Lou: “I see a ham sandwich … some chips and a cookie, but I don’t see your 200th win.” It brought down the house.
When asked before his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame what his favorite games during his CU tenure were, they resonate with most of the fan base. “Without a doubt, when we beat Nebraska in Lincoln when we were behind 12-0 going into the fourth quarter and scored 27 in one of the most dominant quarters on both sides of the ball we ever had. The win at Washington the week after Sal passed away, not only for the game, but when the players on their own took a knee and pointed to the sky. And then the second Orange Bowl against Notre Dame, because it was our only national championship. That Notre Dame team was as good a Notre Dame team as (coach) Lou Holtz had. We lost our quarterback at halftime and still found a way to win that game.”
In 1999, he was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, just the sixth coach at the University of Colorado to be honored so. He was enshrined in CU’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006.
McCartney was extremely active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and was voted the FCA’s “Man-of-the-Year” in Colorado for 1986. He was also one of the co-founders of “Promise Keepers,” one of the nation’s fastest-growing Christian organizations in the late 1990s and whom he worked and represented for almost a decade after retiring from coaching. He remained visible with the university, often visiting with every coach hired after him from Rick Neuheisel to Deion Sanders, and attended most football games and many men’s basketball games until his illness progressed to the point where it was too hard for him.
“All you have to is recruit, and if you recruit the right kids and get them, you’ll find yourself playing in a lot of big games,” Mac once said. “So it was never about me, it was about the University, what a great place it is, it was about all the good assistants we had, and it was about that first recruiting class that got things going for us.”
William Paul McCartney was born on Aug. 22, 1940 and raised in Riverview, Mich., where he graduated from Riverview High School in 1958, having earned 11 letters in three sports (football, basketball, and baseball). He was captain of the football and basketball teams his senior year. He was married to the former Lynne (Lyndi) Taussig of Santa Monica, Calif., for just over 50 years until her death in 2013. He is survived by four children, Michael, Thomas, Kristy and Marc, and 10 grandchildren, including T.C. McCartney, who was the quarterbacks coach this past season with the New England Patriots.
Memorial services at this time are pending.
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