BOULDER – As of now, the Colorado Buffaloes are on their bye week.
The Buffaloes would have hosted Arizona State on Saturday in #Pac12AfterDark action, but late last week, enough Sun Devils tested positive for COVID-19 to cancel last Saturday’s game against Utah. On Sunday, the Pac-12 decided that ASU’s circumstances wouldn’t change enough to allow the Sun Devils to take on Colorado, so that game was canceled as well.
“We knew that I some point in time it was going to happen over the course of the season where there’s going to be a no-contest, a postponement, a cancellation,” head coach Karl Dorrell said during his weekly press conference. “It is unfortunate for us that we are coming off of two games (that we won), playing well and winning games and now we have a little bit of a pause in the season.”
Instead of implementing a gameplan to be used against Arizona State, the emphasis at practice is now looking inward to find ways to improve, and getting practice reps for depth players who typically wouldn’t spend time on the field while Colorado is preparing for its next opponent.
“We’d like to get them some expereience playing,” Dorrell said. “Anytime we can do that with guys that haven’t played it helps their confidence and in-game experience of what it feels like when they do play.”
Getting experience for depth players is even more important to Dorrell this season.
“We’re going to need those guys at some point in time over the season, whether it’s because of COVID, whether it’s because of injury,” Dorrell said.
There’s no guaruntee that Colorado won’t play this week. If another Pac-12 game is canceled because one team is unable to safely field a team, the Buffs would likely play that team’s opponent. That’s what happened last week when Utah and Arizona State couldn’t field a team, so their scheduled opponents – UCLA and Cal – played each other instead.
As of now, Utah’s game hasn’t been canceled and there’s optimism that the Utes’ health issues will have subsided enough for the team to play.
#Pac12 source: Utah's situation improving, players coming out of quarantine, roster more robust – team scheduled to practice today.
— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) November 16, 2020
However, if Utah’s situation doesn’t allow it to play, Colorado could wind up playing its scheduled opponent, USC. The Buffs are supposed to play USC next weekend anyway, so tweaking the schedule wouldn’t be hard to do, at least in theory. Dorrell said that Colorado could make that situation work, if the hypothetical becomes reality.
“I don’t think it would throw everything out of whack,” he said. “I’ve looked at all of the teams and have a preliminary scouting plan for all of our conference members. So, for that to occur, it wouldn’t be a tremendously hard thing for us to shift gears.”
Those scouting reports would help Colorado prepare quickly for a conference opponent but they wouldn’t help if the Buffs aren’t able to find an opponent within the Pac-12 and are forced to look for outside options. The Pac-12 isn’t allowing non-conference football games this season, but it may be willing to grant an exception, given CU’s circumstances. It’s worth noting that all scheduling discussions are the responsibility of the athletic director, not Dorrell.
“It would be harder if you try to play someone at a conference that you don’t have much familiarity with,” Dorrell said. “That’s the harder scenario; to get that type of game schedule where it’s late in the week and all of a sudden you’re playing someone that you weren’t anticipating.”
If a non-conference opponent is the only option Colorado has, Dorrell says that the team could make it work. When asked whether he would prefer a non-conference opponent to sitting at home, Dorrell said this:
“I would like to continue to play.”
I think Dorrell speaks for all Buffs fans.
