Gary Barnett To Return To CU In The Radio Booth

BOULDER — His first time at the University of Colorado, he was an assistant football coach for a team that won a national championship and three Big Eight Conference titles. In his second stint in Boulder, he coached the Buffaloes to their only Big 12 championship. Now he will return to the state and school he loves for a third time, and hopes to bring that good fortune with him again.

CU and KOA announced Friday that Gary Barnett will join the broadcast team for Colorado football on a limited basis this fall, and in 2016, he will replace the legendary Larry Zimmer as the full-time analyst.

He will be in the radio booth for two games this fall, a road game at UCLA (Oct. 31) and the home finale against Southern California (Nov. 13), which will also be Zimmer's last game at Folsom Field as he wraps up his 42nd season calling Golden Buffalo football. Others will fill in for those few games they cannot attend, as Barnett is will work his 10th and final year as a regular commentator for Sports USA Radio Network, working top games around the nation.

“I think it's great timing for me and hopefully for the university,” Barnett said. “Going through the new facilities (at CU) just really made me want to be a part of this. I've enjoyed traveling around the country for the last 10 years, but I gave this a lot of thought and I am looking forward to it. I also appreciate Larry being in favor of it, having the support of the broadcasting icon that he is. I think we'll have a lot of fun.”

“Finding someone to follow a legend like Larry Zimmer is no easy task,” CU athletic director Rick George said. “You need the right fit. Gary not only has familiarity with our program that dates back over three decades, he's one of finest game analysts in the business today. I believe our fans will be pleased with the addition of Coach Barnett to our broadcasts and we welcome him home.”

"Gary is a dear friend and our relationship goes back to when he was a young assistant coach,” Zimmer said. “I couldn't be happier with Gary taking my seat on the CU broadcasts. When he took the job doing the national radio college games, we sat on my patio and went over my charts and the type of preparation that I did for a game. So, in a way, I had some input in his training to be a radio broadcaster. He has come a long way since then, and I'm looking forward to working with him for the USC game and possibly others, and listening in the future."

“You don't simply replace an iconic figure like Larry Zimmer on the broadcast,” said Mark Johnson, KOA's sports director and CU's play-by-play man since the 2004 season, when Zimmer moved into the analyst role. “But as we celebrate Zim's final season in the booth, I'm pleased to know he'll be succeeded in 2016 by somebody who has a legendary place in Colorado football history. Along with being a great football coach, Gary has become a very good broadcaster during his time with Sports USA Radio. I look forward to working alongside Coach Barnett for many years!”

Barnett first moved to Colorado in the summer of 1971 after earning his Master's in Education at the University of Missouri, where he lettered three seasons at receiver under legendary coach Dan Devine. He spent two years as the offensive coordinator at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs and assumed the head coaching position in 1973, a post he would hold for the next nine years. At Air Academy, his teams reached the state semifinals twice (1980, 1981) and won six conference titles. He was considered one of the state's finest prep coaches before leaving the school to become head coach at Fort Lewis College in Durango, where he piloted the team for two seasons (1982-83).

CU then came calling; Bill McCartney brought Barnett to Boulder on February 20, 1984, naming him running backs coach. A year later, when McCartney made the dramatic announcement that the Buffaloes would switch to the wishbone offense, Barnett coached the quarterbacks and fullbacks, a position he would hold throughout his remaining tenure as a CU assistant. On December 3, 1990, he was promoted to offensive coordinator after Gerry DiNardo resigned to become head coach at Vanderbilt. His first game as OC was in the 1991 Orange Bowl against Notre Dame, a 10-9 Colorado victory that enabled CU to win the consensus national championship.

During his eight seasons as an assistant coach at Colorado, he coached some very high profile players, most notably Lee Rouson, Eric McCarty, Mark Hatcher, the late Sal Aunese, George Hemingway, Erich Kissick, Kordell Stewart and the winningest quarterback in CU history, Darian Hagan. CU was 59-34-2 during his tenure as an assistant under McCartney, and in his last three seasons at Colorado, the Buffaloes did not lose a Big Eight Conference game (going 20-0-1).

Northwestern hired him as its head coach in 1992, where he turned a moribund program around, taking just four years to lead the Wildcats to the outright Big Ten Conference title in 1995 and a shared championship in 1996. He took the Wildcats to their first bowl game in 47 years when the '95 team played USC in the Rose Bowl. His 1996 squad went to the Citrus Bowl, marking the first time Northwestern ever went bowling in back-to-back seasons. He was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year both seasons, and just this summer, it was announced he will be inducted into Northwestern's Athletic Hall of Fame.

He returned to Colorado in 1999 as CU's 22nd head football coach, and in 2001, led the Buffs to the Big 12 title and nearly an appearance in the BCS Championship game. The regular season closed with two of the most memorable wins in CU history, a 62-36 rout of No. 2 Nebraska to win the Big 12 North Division and a berth into the league's title game. Playing basically a road game outside of Dallas, Barnett's Buffs continued their roll with an upset of No. 3 Texas, 39-37, when the Longhorns were playing for a spot in the national championship game, one when all was said and done, CU missed out by .005 points in the BCS Standings.

In seven years as head coach for the Buffaloes, he led the team to a 49-38 record and five bowl appearances. Since leaving the coaching profession in 2006, he has been a college football analyst in both television and radio, with several weekly shows around the nation as well as on XM College Sports. With his wife, Mary, he has also run the Gary Barnett Foundation, which is dedicated to the support of educational programs for economically disadvantaged and at-risk youth, particularly in the area of suicide prevention.

Zimmer, who is a member of CU's Athletic Hall of Fame and the 2009 Chris Schenkel Award winner, is back for his 50th season overall announcing college football. He missed the second half of the 2014 season after suffering a fall at his Lookout Mountain home and complications that followed. He still is recovering and likely won't travel much if at all this year, though he has not ruled out a road game or two at this point; Johnson will be joined by former CU quarterback Charles Johnson in the booth for CU's season opener at Hawai'i on Sept. 3.

Colorado University Athletics

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