Nearly everyone was all-in and super excited about the Frost hire and his first couple of seasons. So, when he crapped the bed for 5 years, NU fans felt kind of lost near the end of last season. Shoot, there was a good percentage of the fan base who thought NU should have hired Mickey Joseph as the full-time coach, even though he had no prior head coaching experience and had never been involved in rebuilding a program. So, when Rhule was hired after his failure at Carolina, and when NU fans saw the contract which he got, many fans are taking a wait and see approach with him, just because they don't want to get burned again. Rhule was the pragmatic hire, while some fans wanted a splash hire.
With Colorado, they made the splash in Deion, and it has generated a lot of attention and buzz for their program. CU needed to do that because nobody cared about CU football the past few years. I have lived 30 minutes from Boulder for the past 15 years, and even when they have had years of success, they get very little attention in the area. CU football has been having serious money issues, so they had to take a chance at Deion to generate interest and money. While some think Deion is going to be a sure-fire success, I have a lot of doubts with him.