I spent a few minutes with Toney Clemons last week and thought I’d let CU fans hear from the junior wide receiver in this video interview. Enjoy.

Let me start this blog by saying I’m not advocating that CU stop recruiting in Texas. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I think the Buffs need to do a better job recruiting talent from the Lone Star state, especially in football.

With a possible switch to the Pac-10 Conference in mind, some CU fans have raised concerns that leaving the Big 12 would kill recruting in Texas for the Buffs. I don’t think it would help. That’s for sure, but I’m not convinced it would prevent CU from landing prospects from what is probably the most talent-rich state in the nation, at least when it comes to football.

But I also believe a move to the Pac-10 would only help recruiting in California, where CU has traditionally fared much better.

A lot of CU fans erroneously believe the football program used to pull large numbers of Texans to Boulder every year. That simply isn’t true. Did you know the largest number of recruits from Texas former coach Bill McCartney landed in one year was five? That happened in 1991, just after CU won the national championship.

By the way, all of my numbers in this blog come straight from CU sports information guru Dave Plati.

Former coach Gary Barnett was the most successful recruiter in Texas of any CU coach since 1973.  During his seven years in Boulder, Barnett recruited 27 Texas recruits into the program, including 18 prospects in the 2002 and 2003 classes. That is by far the most successful two years in Texas since the program began tracking its recruiting in 1973.

A typical year in Texas recruiting for the Colorado program is signing three or four prospects. I see no reason why that can’t or won’t continue if the Buffs make a move to the Pac-10.

Here are some numbers on Colorado, California and Texas football recruits signing with CU since 1973.

Year         Coach                      Total           Colo.    Calif.      Texas

2010        Dan Hawkins             20 2              8              2

2009        Dan Hawkins             19 5              5              3

2008        Dan Hawkins             20 5              6              2

2007        Dan Hawkins             23 4              7              0

2006        Dan Hawkins             20 4              6              2

2005        Gary Barnett               21 9               6             1

2004        Gary Barnett               17 2              4              2

2003        Gary Barnett               23 5                4              8

2002        Gary Barnett               28 7                6            10

2001        Gary Barnett               13 7                1              3

2000        Gary Barnett               19 8                3              2

1999        Gary Barnett               16 6                3              1

1998        Rick Neuheisel           20 1                9              5

1997        Rick Neuheisel           22 5                9              3

1996        Rick Neuheisel           21 3                9              3

1995        Rick Neuheisel           22 5              10              5

1994        Bill McCartney            18 3                6              2

1993        Bill McCartney            20 7                2              2

1992        Bill McCartney            25 5                4              4

1991        Bill McCartney            20 4                3              5

1990        Bill McCartney            20 6                5              4

1989        Bill McCartney            20 8                7              1

1988        Bill McCartney            22 3                8              2

1987        Bill McCartney            12 1                5              3

1986        Bill McCartney            23 7              12              2

1985        Bill McCartney            23 9                6              2

1984        Bill McCartney            22 12              6              2

1983        Bill McCartney            24 11              3              0

1982        Chuck Fairbanks         13 10              1              0

1981        Chuck Fairbanks         24 3                8              8

1980        Chuck Fairbanks         25 6                7              0

1979        *Bob Cortese             24 9                4              2

1978        Bill Mallory                 28 5                3              1

1977        Bill Mallory                 21 10              5              0

1976        Bill Mallory                 23 2                4              4

1975        Bill Mallory                 21 10              5              2

1974        Bill Mallory                 23 9                1              6

1973        Eddie Crowder            35 12              5              3

Totals                                      810         230         206         107

I crossed paths with CU wide receiver Markques Simas this week in the Dal Ward Center. He’s not exactly the easy-going, fun-loving guy these days that he was at the end of last season after being arrested for DUI last month and suspended from the team indefinitely.

He obviously has a lot on his mind, but it was good to see him doing his best to deal with the situation and not just completely bailing out.

I asked athletic director Mike Bohn whether Simas would be reinstated to the team in the future and he said, “That’s up to him.” Bohn said coach Dan Hawkins will ultimately make that decision, but apparently, there is some scenario in which Simas will be allowed to return.

I would have asked Hawkins about this, but he turned down my interview request last week, saying he was too busy and won’t be available until the first day of spring ball on Saturday.

Simas won’t participate in spring ball, but he clearly still has a chance to earn his way back into good standing after the third strike of his career. He was suspended for the first two games last season for an undisclosed violation of team rules and he missed the entire 2008 campaign being academically ineligible.

“He was going to be a big time player for us and things didn’t really work out,” quarterback Tyler Hansen said. “It’s real disappointing what he did. Hopefully he will learn his lesson and grow from it and be a better man, but it’s a real big loss for our team offensively. We just need some new guy to step up. We need Jarrod Darden to step up, Will Jefferson to step up, one of those guys to step up and take his role and hopefully we can overcome it.”

Simas finished last season with 43 catches for 585 yards and three touchdowns. He caught 31 balls for 463 yards in the final four games. Losing that kind of production is obviously a big problem for the CU offense and a big reason why his teammates want him back.

Wide receiver Toney Clemons is more than capable of replacing Simas. Clemons might already be the best receiver on the team, but having them both as well as senior Scotty McKnight, would make the Buffs hard to handle.

Clemons said Simas is attending team meetings and seven-on-seven work leading up to spring practices and the team does what it can to keep Simas up to speed when he does miss something.

“It’s a big loss in the fact that we’re trying to get better and we can’t have setbacks,” Clemons said. “We’re not good enough to not be at full strength and him not being there kind of hurts us. At the same time, it’s spring ball and everybody knows how spring ball goes.

“We’ve got younger guys who have got to step up and play. This is how the game goes. Every play you’ve got to be on alert. This gives some young guys an opportunity to step up and show what they can do and learn the system and adapt to the game speed. Hopefully he’ll be back. If he can get back, we’d love to have him. We’d be tough to stop, like five-deep, six-deep out there running routes and stuff. We’re pulling for him. We want him here. Minus all the negativity, we want him here.”

Colorado will open its doors to the public for spring practices once again a year after closing them because too much info was getting out.

Spring football is less than two weeks away. It will be interesting to watch competition at most positions on the depth chart. There will definitely be some new faces contributing on Saturdays in the fall.

It’s time for another edition of the mailbag.

Hey Kyle,

Mike Bohn has been mentioning attendance figures a lot lately as proof the football team is on the right track and that fan support is still high.  Any chance he’s forgotten how many buy-one-get-one tickets he’s given away or failed to notice how much more prevalent the opposing team colors are on Saturdays in Boulder?

Kent  (Fort Collins)

Kent, Very good points. I think Mike is well aware of those issues, but he’s trying to put the best face possible on a bad situation. I don’t envy him having to try to sell tickets for the product that has been put on the field recently, especially in this economic environment.

What about the Ralphie’s Kids Roundup program that contributed significant numbers to those attendance counts he is emphasizing? Those kids are in the stadium because of donors paying for tickets. In fairness to CU and Bohn, special deals and donor-funded tickets are not unique to CU, but you’re right in pointing out that the department has had to work very hard and has had to entice people to the stadium at times on Saturdays.

Hey Kyle,

Just read your blog post. I’m curious, what is your gut feeling on the likelihood of the Buffs ending up in the Pac 10? 50/50? I had kind of been dismissing all the talk as speculative rumors, but it seems to be gaining momentum.

Jason, Boulder

Thanks for the question Jason. It all depends on the Pac-10. If the league invites CU, I think it’s a done deal. Everyone on the hill loves to idea of moving to the Pac-10. From athletic department administrators to coaches to faculty and regents. It has been difficult finding anyone to criticize the idea from the CU perspective in the conversations I’ve been having with people.

It seems to me that everyone at CU is sort of waiting around with fingers crossed hoping the offer comes. The move would put CU in a league filled with schools with academic standards much more in line with what it requires. It brings CU into more regular contact with a large number of alumni up and down the West Coast. It puts the school in a league in which it will probably be more competitive in both football and men’s basketball over the long haul.

It’s a positive move in so many ways for the school. I believe it will happen, but it’s more in the hands of the Pac-10 than CU at this point.

Kyle,

Hi, I come from Sioux City, Iowa! Native Coloradan but still follow my Buffs out here! My question is, if Colorado was to move to the Pac 10, do you think Nebraska fans would do? I honestly, think at first they would rejoice. However, they would soon become jealous because they are going to quickly realize that Colorado will be doing quite well and then Husker Nation would miss the Colorado game and want it back. Also, wouldn’t it be cool if Colorado and Nebraska played in a bowl game?

Thanks!

Dennis Driscoll

Good question Dennis. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Colorado as the only team that leaves the Big 12. I know there has been talk of Missouri joining the Big Ten, but I see that league wanting to grab more of the northeast, especially the New York television market, more than areas such as St. Louis and Kansas City, where it already has some presence because of Iowa and Illinois.

Assuming the Buffs are the only team to leave the Big 12, I could see the league picking up TCU as a replacement and moving Oklahoma into the North Division and changing scheduling to make sure the OU-Texas game happens every year.This would also set up a good possibility of an OU-Texas or Nebraska-Texas championship game most years.

The OU-Nebraska game would return to an annual rivalry as well, which would make many in the corn giddy. I honestly don’t think Big Red would miss CU much, except for the trip west once every other year.

Watching CU and Nebraska play in a bowl game would be really interesting if it happened any time in the first 5-7 years after realignment. If it got too far removed from the switch before it happened, it probably would be as significant.

Kyle,

Spring football is starting early next month and I was wondering what you will be paying attention to? Is there one position battle you believe is most important to the success of the team next season?

Thanks for all your articles. Keep them coming!

Stewart, Aurora

Thanks for the question Stewart and thanks for reading. If I had to pick one position where improvement is needed most for the team to take a step forward in 2010, I would say it’s the offensive line. There is a lot of talent here and this unit ought to be playing better than it was down the stretch last year.

If the offensive line improves, the running game will improve and the quarterback play will improve as well. I think adding Eric Richter to the mix will be interesting. One of the biggest problem areas has been the guard spots, especially when Ryan Miller has had to move to tackle to replace Bryce Givens. Almost all of the guys who will be competing for playing time on the line are third and fourth-year players. The group also includes Nate Solder, who earned first-team all-conference honors from Big 12 coaches in 2009. There are no excuses now. It’s time for these guys to get the job done.

There are a ton of other things to keep an eye on. Linebackers will be battling hard to playing time. The wide receivers should be fun to watch. Who is going to replace Cha’pelle Brown in the secondary? My money is on Deji Olatoye. Then you have the normal focus on the quarterbacks and Zach Grossnickle will be taking over as the punter and could compete with Aric Goodman for the place-kicking job, at least in spring ball.

There are also two new assistant coaches (Ashley Ambrose in the secondary and Robert Prince with the wideouts) to get to know and keep and eye on. Plenty of story lines to keep us busy for a month and into the summer.

Thanks for all the questions everyone.

If you have a question for next week’s mailbag, please send it to me at ringok@dailycamera.com.

If the Pac-10 Conference invites Colorado to join its ranks later this year, a move that would take effect in 2012, the Buffs might be without a true conference rival, assuming Nebraska didn’t leave the Big 12 for the Pac-10 along with CU.

If the Buffs no longer play the Cornhuskers every year, Colorado State would probably become the big rivalry game each year.  After a few years of Pac-12 play, that could change, especially if Colorado competed annually for a division title with a team such as USC, Oregon or Washington.

But there are other possibilities for rivalries to develop, or return, as the case may be.

The most logical scenario involving Pac-10 expansion would have CU and Utah joining the league together. It’s been a long time, but the Buffs and Utes have been conference rivals before.

The football programs competed almost every year between 1910 and 1947 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference or the Mountain States Conference. CU moved east in 1948 joining the Big Seven Conference, which included more than half of the current Big 12 and nearly all the former Big Eight Conference teams.

It probably wouldn’t take much for the CU-Utah rivalry to be rekindled. Playing in the same league has a way of doing that, especially when the programs are on similar footing. There is no denying Utah has been much more successful over the past few years than the Buffs.

Colorado and Utah haven’t met on the football field since 1962, and the Buffs lead the series 30-24-3, but have a two-game losing streak against the Utes.

I love reading Every Day Should Be Saturday for comic relief every day. If you don’t read it on a regular basis, let me suggest you bookmark it and give it a try. It will help get you through the offseason.

I mention it because they had a pretty funny story about the Buffs today. Check it out.

A group of CU fans recently started a Facebook page dedicated to supporting the idea of Colorado joining the PAC-10 conference.  There are already more than 200 fans of the page.

It’s a shame to see wide receiver Markques Simas just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. He was arrested and charged with a DUI last week and his career at CU might be over.

Why do I say that?

Well, I’ve had a couple conversations with folks in the CU athletic department in the past few days, and one of them said to me, ‘If I had to say at this point, I don’t think he will be on the team next season.’

The decision is ultimately up to coach Dan Hawkins. Since he became coach at CU, his general approach has been to part ways with guys after a second infraction. Hawkins always says, “Once is a mistake, twice is behavior.”

This was Simas’ second violation of team rules. He was suspended for the first two games last season for a previous violation of team rules. And he missed the entire 2008 season after becoming academically ineligible during a redshirt season in 2007. One could argue he has already had three opportunities to get it right and two second chances.

Then again, Hawkins has another saying, “We’re not into disposable people.” So who knows?

Simas won’t participate in spring bal, and I’m expecting that sometime after spring ball, the program will announce that Simas is moving on. If he isn’t on the roster next year, it’s not necessarily a huge blow, but it definitely makes what was expected to be an area of strength on the team a little less sturdy. An injury or a player becoming academically ineligible could create a big problem.

IF Simas is on the team, he will probably miss another game or two to start the season once again, meaning if he actually makes it all the way to his senior season in Boulder and he actually plays in the CSU game that, it will be the first time he has been on the field against the Rams in five years.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. I expect somebody else will be wearing No. 6 next fall.

Got a question for my next mailbag? Send me an email at ringok@dailycamera.com