How Colorado and many others are sharing Coach Mac's legacy

Many of Colorado’s newer fans don’t realize the historical significance of Friday’s season-opening kickoff against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. 

Since head coach Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders arrived in Boulder two seasons ago, his polarizing and inspiring Hall of Fame personality has been fervently writing a new chapter in CU football. After nearly two decades of mostly losing football at Folsom Field, Sanders brought a winning record and a bowl game by season two. He has attacked recruiting in ways that Colorado lacked, and – while he had the playing career and original notoriety to back him up – brought the eyes to the Buffaloes with soundbites and confident claims. He’s continuously shouted out The Man Above along the way.

Naturally, Colorado’s faithful are excited to see what Prime can do in season three’s debut contest. After sending his two sons, the 2025 Heisman winner, Travis Hunter, and multiple players to the NFL, Sanders will finally get to show how his team retooled.

However, Friday isn’t just the Buffs’ first game of the season, where the offseason questions will be answered. It will be the first-ever matchup between Colorado and Georgia Tech, who split the title of college football’s 1990 national champions with CU after the programs topped the sport’s two major polls at the end of the season.

Falling a week after his 85th birthday, CU's season-opener will also mark the first college football season since former Colorado head coach Bill McCartney passed away. “Coach Mac,” who passed away in January after battling with dementia, led the Buffs during the 1990 national champion season, as he did from 1982 to 1994. And he wasn’t too different than the Buffs’ modern-day leader.

“He was one of the first coaches to pull everyone together. Coach Prime [is] similar,” Colorado running back Micah Welch said of McCartney, remembering McCartney's Celebration of Life. “That’s one thing I learned from [McCartney].”

While much of the young generation beyond Welch and CU players fail to realize it, Sanders mentioned that he uses many of the characteristics McCartney did in hopes of revisiting the success McCartney previously brought.

Colorado head coach Bill McCartney is raised by CU fans. (Photo by CU Athletics)

Two days before the legendary McCartney passed away, his grandson, Brandon, received a phone call.

Brandon, or “B-Mac” as many of Buffs Nation know him, was getting rung by a college friend’s father. Those who met B-Mac at Olivet Nazarene University, where he studied, understood he was McCartney’s grandson and that he loved the Colorado Buffaloes. B-Mac picked up and was told a familiar story about his grandpa.

“[My friend’s father] said he came home a totally different man,” B-Mac said. 

The caller was talking about an event he attended in the 1990s. Promise Keepers, a Christian men’s ministry created by McCartney, came to his city to share the gospel. Like many others who attended the organization’s record-breaking gatherings and heard McCartney speak, the man was inspired to lead a life inspired by Jesus Christ and chose to become a pastor.

The story was one of many shared that January. The University of Colorado held a “Celebration of Life” for Coach Mac, where his family, the CU football community and his good friend Dr. Raleigh Washington reminisced about a man who inspired them and many beyond. Around a third of the 11,064-person capacity CU Events Center was occupied that day. From the gridiron, where he took over in Boulder in 1982 and led the Buffaloes to their lone national championship in 1990, to places such as South Africa, where he washed the feet of locals in their own churches, McCartney’s impact was far and wide.

“We all learned hard work from Coach Mac,” former CU quarterback Darian Hagan said. “...I'll never forget when we'd be in the middle of practice, and the sun is starting to come out, and Coach Mac would stop practicing, get his bullhorn. He'd summon God, “Come on out, big fella!’ And everybody, we knew what that meant. 

“He wanted us to be in pain. That was what that was all about. He wanted us to suffer. But he also wanted us to be able to play in conditions like that.”

In the new age of Colorado football, however, McCartney isn’t familiar to a surprising number of students and fans. 

In a way, it makes sense. B-Mac himself was born in 1999 and never got to see his grandpa coach. The youngest members of the 2025 CU football team were born more than a decade after McCartney stepped away from the gridiron; B-Mac describes how those impacted by McCartney are the players’ “dads’ age.”

“To be honest with you, I don't see his impact still around in kids my age,” B-Mac said. “But I definitely see his impact still alive in the people who he coached and the people who are fans of Colorado football while he was still coaching.”

Still, B-Mac hopes that the younger generation can learn about his grandpa and find motivation from McCartney even after his death. B-Mac mentioned that the statue the university plans to erect of McCartney outside Folsom Field will help accomplish that. The team’s uniforms will also sport a “mac” patch with “82-94” on it this season, in honor of McCartney, and will rock gold helmets, black jerseys, gold pants, white socks and black shoes in the season-opener.

Beyond his hope, though, B-Mac, also nicknamed “Brandino the Mosquito from Holy Toledo” by his grandpa, decided to take matters into his own hands. B-Mac has nearly 4,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter) under the name “@BMcCartney7,” posting gameday predictions with the signature catchphrase: “I am wired, fired and inspired!” With his videos, he’s introducing the “#ForCoachMac” hashtag for this upcoming season and will also share a quote from McCartney in each one. The first episode with the new tradition drops on Thursday at 6 p.m. MT.

“I thought, ‘Wow, my grandpa has so many great quotes that I can probably do one a week,’” B-Mac said. “Since there's a video for each game of the season, I can incorporate a new quote each week…Hopefully it'll bring back some memories.”

Of course, whatever happens on Friday night happens. B-Mac, who has never predicted a Buffs’ loss, will give his prediction on Thursday and debut his new tradition. And the 1990 national champion title will stand, victory or not.

Yet, in a new era within a new era of Colorado football, with the second chapter of Sanders’ tenure about to begin, calling back to the program’s roots will be helpful, at least to B-Mac and those who got to know McCartney when he was alive. 

“It’s huge,” Hagan said when asked if keeping McCartney’s legacy alive was important. “...For those young guys that were [at the celebration] from the football team, it's an honor. It's a privilege to get to where black and gold. It's the honor, privilege, to wear the multiple helmets we have now, to go on that field and to represent the past, the present and the future.”

Cover photo by CU Athletics