years of head coaching. He holds a 31–game WAC winning streak, the longest in conference history. One of his first hires at Boise State was Chris Petersen as his offensive coordinator; Petersen was a quarterback at UC Davis while Hawkins was an assistant coach, and was the wide receivers coach at Oregon under head coach Mike Bellotti. Petersen succeeded Hawkins as head coach following the 2005 season, when Hawkins departed for Colorado. Colorado Hawkins was introduced as head football coach at the University of Colorado on December 16, 2005. Hawkins was signed to a five-year contract paying him $900,000 annually with incentives totaling to $1.5 million. Hawkins took over the Colorado football program from Gary Barnett, who had spent some of his tenure mired in controversy. Hawkins earned national attention in February 2007 during the National Signing Day press conference. He passionately expressed his disappointment in the attitude of a player's parent who had anonymously complained about the reduction in the players' time off before the summer conditioning program started, famously saying "It's Division I football! It's the Big 12! It ain't intramurals! You've got two weeks after finals. You've got a week at July 4th. You've got a week before camp starts. That's a month! That's probably more vacation than you guys (reporters) get. And we're a little bummed out that we don't get three weeks? Go play intramurals, brother. Go play intramurals." Prior to the 2009 season, Hawkins, under fire for his performance at Colorado thus far, publicly pledged "ten wins no excuses". The team ended that year with a 3–9 record. On November 26, 2009, Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn announced that Hawkins would return as head football coach for the 2010 season, despite an overall record at Colorado of 16–33. On November 6, 2010, Colorado blew a 28-point fourth quarter lead over the Kansas Jayhawks and lost, 52–45, the biggest collapse in the 121-year history of Colorado football. While still nursing that large lead in the fourth quarter, Hawkins continued to have his team throw the ball on offense instead of running it, allowing Kansas time to mount its comeback. There has been widespread suspicion Hawkins made that choice because he was more concerned about his quarterback, son Cody Hawkins, breaking the school's all-time passing record than winning the game. After the Kansas loss, Hawkins was criticized for cutting his contractually-obligated post-game interview with radio station