Why Karl Dorrell says this is the closest team he's had at CU

With his team on a short week, Colorado head football coach, Karl Dorrell, spoke to the media on Tuesday for the last time until after Friday night’s season opener.

Much of the off-season conversation has been based on the quarterback competition between J.T. Shrout and Brendon Lewis. Dorrell has maintained a level of confidence and ambiguity as to how the Buffs will handle the position against TCU. Despite that, Dorrell is confident in his team’s confidence in Shrout and Lewis.

“I think both have the assurance from their offensive players that they can win,” Dorrell said. “They’re excited about both of them. I think that’s a comfort level for us, as a coaching staff, we feel that those guys can win, can lead an offense and a very productive offense and be very successful. So it’s a good situation to have.”

As we enter the 2022 season, it’s quite a different situation from this time last year when the Buffs had no other option other than to roll with Lewis, who at the time was still a redshirt freshman. Dorrell spoke to this and how much better he feels about the QB situation going into this season.

“When Steven graduated in 2020, after that season, I only had two scholarship quarterbacks here,” Dorrell told the media. “So we’ve come a long way from that point to where we are now. I think our quarterback situation is like anything that’s normal out there, it took a year or so to build depth at that position. But I would say each year you have to challenge yourself that there might be a point in time where either one of these guys we’re talking about might just end up taking off and taking over.”

In regards to his team as a whole and how he sees the state of the roster, Dorrell said that he took some time to “weed out” some guys that are committed to playing for this great university and that he really likes where this team is it in terms of camaraderie and togetherness.

“There were expectations from when guys were recruited here by other coaches about what they thought they would be,” Dorrell said. “Sometimes you have to go through the fire to refine yourself to become a [stable] program and meet those expectations. I think that’s where we are right now. It’s closer to what a family would resemble now than I would say in years one and two. This is a close football team.”

“I think a lot of the challenges at this place for a long period of time has been the inconsistency of the head coach position,” said the Buffs’ third-year head coach.

After an off-season full of questions, concerns and comments about nearly every aspect of CU’s football program, the time is here for those words to become actions. The Buffs enter Friday’s season opener a 14-point underdog at home to the TCU Horned Frogs. Ahead lies an opportunity to prove everyone wrong and show Colorado football is back on the right track.