The next chapter in University of Colorado football history starts today, as the school introduces alums Jon Embree and Eric Bieniemy as the team’s new head coach and offensive coordinator, respectively. The two landed in Colorado yesterday on a private jet with CU athletic director Mike Bohn, who tells Boulder’s Daily Camera that the duo’s discussion of recruiting and plans for the future has impressed him. Prior to the flight, both men coached their former NFL teams yesterday: Embree as the tight ends coach for the Washington Redskins and Bienemy as the running backs coach for the Minnesota Vikings.

Embree played at CU from 1983 to ’86 and was an assistant coach in Boulder from 1993 to 2002. He’s the third former player to become the Buffs’ head coach, notes the Longmont Times-Call, and he’s also the school’s first football coach of color, which has elicited some strange comments from former CU coach Bill McCartney, also a finalist in the recent search for a new coach.

“It was never about me [coaching the team] again,” McCartney told The Denver Post. “It was about setting the table for a black man to come in [as head coach]. And [Bohn] hired one.” Not surprisingly, the comment has caused a stir. “It almost seems that McCartney is saying that if Embree were white, he would be deemed unqualified,” writes the Black Athlete Sports Network.