BOULDER – Week 1 is in the books, and Colorado is still undefeated following a 46-42 home win over UCLA.
“We obviously got a very good win. It’s a good start for us,” Dorrell said during his weekly press conference Monday. “For the first game, we definitely have a lot of issues to correct in all phases; special teams, defensively, offensively. We’re looking forward to another opportunity this weekend.”
Colorado scored its second touchdown of the game halfway through the first quarter, and UCLA never got possession of the ball in a one-score game the rest of the way. Despite the Buffs’ dominance, though, the Bruins built some momentum in the second half, thanks to a combination of mistakes on Colorado’s part and some great plays from the visitors.
Colorado missed three field goals and blew some coverages, which led to a three-touchdown run for UCLA in the middle of the game. Dorrell said that one of the talking points prior to the game was trying to match the big plays that UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson would likely create during the game because of “his elusiveness in the pocket and how dangerous he can be in the open field.”
“We’ve got to make a few more plays than he does to win the game, and that’s what we were able to do,” Dorrell said.
The Buffs made the majority of their splash plays in the beginning of the game. That’s a big reason why they created a 35-7 lead. But once Thompson-Robinson’s offense began to show its explosiveness, the Colorado defense was crucial in cutting them off, including a pair of fourth-down stops.
“We had to make some plays, particularly in the second half, when UCLA made a pretty strong charge to get back into the football game,” Dorrell said. “We had to settle down, and our players did settle down and executed a little better.”
This wasn’t the first time a Colorado defense showed a penchant for giving up big plays. Through most of the 2019 season, the Buffs’ defense was known for its ability to hold strong on a down-to-down basis but give up a handful of big gains on blown assignments throughout the 60 minutes.
“We had some coverage mistakes in a couple of places that allowed some big plays,” Dorrell said. “We’re going to address those issues and try to get those things fixed for this coming week.”
This week will be a big one.
Stanford is coming off a 35-14 loss to Oregon, but Dorrell doesn’t think that score is indicative of how tough the Cardinal played the 12th-ranked team in the country. He also said that this isn’t the same Stanford team that Colorado beat last year on the Cardinal’s path to a 4-8 record. Instead, Dorrell expects to see a team that better resembles the Stanford program over David Shaw’s tenure as head coach, in which he has amassed an 86-35 record.
Colorado knocked off a bottom-tier Pac-12 team in Week 1, but the Buffs will need to beat mid- or upper-tier teams like Stanford to compete for a title.
“We have to win these games to be in the thick of things at the end of the season,” Dorrell said.
So far, Dorrell’s squad is on its way toward being in the thick of things with a 1-0 record, which may have come as a surprise to outsiders. Vegas had Colorado a 6.5-point underdog in its season-opener, despite hosting the game.
But when asked if his team is ahead of schedule, Dorrell said bluntly that it wasn’t.
His reasoning is something like this: you could only call Colorado’s Week 1 performance “ahead of schedule” if you lowered the Buffs’ standards because of the lack of spring practices and other covid-or-Mel-Tucker-related reasons.
That isn’t something that Dorrell is willing to do.
“We have a high standard,” Dorrell said. “Right from the very beginning, we felt that we have good coaches, good players. Spring practice – even though that was missing, we still didn’t want to use that as an excuse for our performance.”
According to Dorrell, the team isn’t using the circumstances as an excuse to celebrate just a little bit more following a season-opening win, either.
“Our players have done a great job with their training and with their time and studying our systems that allowed us to be productive this past Saturday,” Dorrell said. “I think, if anything, it helped our players realize that we played well for sure offensively and on defense most of the game, but there’s still a lot that we can fix to get even better.”
And what has Dorrell seen from his team since the win?
“Their mindset right now is to continue to build off what they did, clean it up to be a little bit better for next week, and be ready to play another great game against another good opponent.”
