 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.After five seasons at the helm of the Broncos football program, Hawkins left for Colorado of the Big 12 Conference.He had three top 25 finishes, won ten or more games three times, and won two bowl games.