CU athletic director Rick George walked across campus recently when his phone buzzed. A text from legendary Buffs coach Bill McCartney. Big news.

T.C. got offered the job!

George smiled, because it referred to who just landed the gig as Denver Broncos quarterbacks coach, and the T.C. who accepted it was once a young trick-or-treater George helped look after in a late 1980s Boulder neighborhood. George, then a CU assistant football coach, raised his youngest daughter at the same time as T.C., the grandson of Bill McCartney and the son of the great late Buffs quarterback Sal Aunese, grew up.

“T.C. and I go back to birth,” George said. “He’s a great young man and being in that role is awesome.”

The McCartney family is equally elated. T.C.’s mother, Kristy, still resides in state, in addition to his uncle, Tom, the longtime head football coach at Fairview for whom T.C. once played quarterback under in high school.

“Everybody is just super excited for T.C.,” Tom McCartney said. “There are only 32 jobs in the world coaching NFL quarterbacks. He’s been climbing the latter to be a position coach and now he has his first opportunity in his hometown. We’re all huge Broncos fans, anyway. It’s great.”

T.C.’s desire to play quarterback developed early in youth football, Tom said, and his toughness in high school often mirrored what once made Aunese a dominant force. But T.C. lacked the same college recruiting buzz and he accepted a walk-on position at LSU. It later opened doors as a graduate assistant in Baton Rouge (2011 and ’16) and then back at CU (2012-13) before T.C. received his break in the NFL as a Browns quality control coach in 2014.

But it was T.C.’s past two seasons learning under Rich Scangarello, the former 49ers quarterbacks coach turned Broncos offensive coordinator, which paved his way back to Colorado. Tom said it harkens to advice his father often gives: “Your inner circle is crucial and the people you choose to surround yourself with.”

“T.C. has been very fortunate at each stop to be around great people and to continue to be a student of the game, to learn and grind it out,” Tom McCartney said. “You’ve got to be a sponge and be willing to put in the time. You might be the low man on the totem pole and the hours might be tough, but you’ve got to keep learning.”

T.C., who was not made available by the Broncos for an interview this week, is said to have remained close through the years with his grandfather Bill, who went public in 2016 with his ongoing battle with dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. It hasn’t dampened his love for football. And, now he’s got another member of the family namesake to continue the McCartney tradition.

“It’s amazing … the way (Bill) is wired and how he can talk football and encourage you,” Tom McCartney said. “I think it’s great for T.C. to be able to come back and have someone in grandpa who will be there, be a supporter, to love the game and talk football with.”

Added George: “Having that opportunity to come back home is pretty cool.”