LOS ANGELES — Karl Dorrell attended his first Pac-12 Media Day as head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes on Tuesday.
While his time on the stage at the W Hollywood Hotel was short on hard news, he left plenty of reasons for Colorado fans to be excited about the Buffs’ chances of building on a strong start to the Dorrell era last season.
“As for the 2020 year, it was a positive step forward,” Dorrell said during his opening remarks. “I really felt like we accomplished a good deal of things in such a short period of time. That helped catapult us to having a good momentum going into this off-season. We expect to take that another step forward again going into this season in 2021.”
Here’s what you need to know about Dorrell’s time on the stage on Tuesday.
Nate Landman should be good to go
This is the big news.
Nate Landman is ahead of schedule in his recovery from a torn Achilles sustained late last season, according to Dorrell. Landman confirmed to DNVR on Tuesday.
“He’s close to a hundred percent,” Dorrell said. “We do anticipate him being a hundred percent by somewhere in the middle of training camp.”
I don’t think anybody is surprised that Landman is ahead of schedule. Dorrell absolutely isn’t.
“If you know Nate in terms of how he plays, he presses the envelope on everything he does,” Dorrell said. “He doesn’t do anything half speed, half tilt, half assed – excuse me for saying that word. He’s going to go all out. He’s going to be ready to play, there’s no question in my mind.”
And the praise didn’t stop there.
“He’s a great leader for us,” Dorrell said. “He’s a catalyst. He’s a guy that leads by not only what he says but also what he does. You wish you had 120 Nate Landmans on your team to have that mentality. He’s really one of those key pieces to our defense.”
While none of what Dorrell has said to this point is too surprising, he finished of his spiel with an intriguing comment.
“Now, the better part of this thing is that we did build our defense through the portal and some other acquisitions on our team that he doesn’t have to make every play, which is what he did the last couple years,” Dorrell said. “It’s going to be good to have other players around him that are really good players that he can just do his job and allow for those others to do theirs.”
Colorado added some big names in the transfer portal, and it sounds like he’s been impressed by them.
Landman, for the record, thinks he’s going to put up the same astronomic numbers he always has. Who saw that coming?
The quarterback decision won’t be made quickly
With Sam Noyer off to Oregon State, Colorado’s quarterback competition is down to two. According to Dorrell, those two will split reps until sometime in the middle of fall camp when a winner is chosen.
“It’s going to be a day-by-day test, right?” Dorrell said. “They’re going to be assessed on everything about how they run the offense, the mistakes they make, the plays that they do make, everything like that. We’re going to account for everything as we go through that process. But they know when it’s all said and done, they’re both all in about helping us be a factor in winning this season.”
Brendon Lewis, the second-year true freshman, received the first round of praise from Dorrell.
“If you remember what Brendon did in the bowl game, his first time playing college football end of the season in the bowl game, I would say he had a passing grade,” Dorrell said. “He did really well. He did some positive things that I would say any first-year quarterback might have done poorly. He was able to do those things in a positive way. So that confidence from the bowl game has given him a great level of confidence going through the whole off-season, going through spring. He’s a completely different player now than where he was last fall.”
He had kind words for Tennessee transfer J.T. Shrout, too.
“In a short period of time he digested our offense,” Dorrell said. “He spent the overtime hours to do that to get himself a chance to compete.”
While the starting quarterback decision is still up in the air, there’s no doubt that the competition will be the biggest storyline of camp.
He’s a “hard-ass” receiver coach
While Dimitri Stanley went so far as saying his receiver group could be one of the beset in the country, some questions linger. Namely, can the youngsters that Colorado will rely on be able to convert their raw talent into production?
“That group has skill. The receiver group has skill,” Dorrell said. “We continually have to refine that skill where the talent is consistent. That’s the way I would say it.”
Freshmen Brenden Rice and La’Vontae Shenault both flashed their talent last season but finding consistency will be the key in 2021.
Luckily they have Dorrell, who coached wide receivers in the NFL for six seasons, on their side.
“I’m a hard-ass receiver coach,” Dorrell said. “I’ve done that most of my career. There’s definitely some really good talent in that group, but it’s young. That’s the part that have to grow and have a level of consistency that needs to be better than where it is.”
For what it’s worth, Stanley agreed that Dorrell is a hard-ass receiver coach.
The new strength coach has impressed
Shortly after the 2020 season concluded, Dorrell replaced strength coach Drew Wilson with Shannon Turley.
Turley, who is known as one of the best in the business, spent 12 years in the same position on Stanford’s staff, which aligned with the program’s growth into a powerhouse.
Dorrell brought up Turley in his opening remarks.
“We hired a new strength coach,” Dorrell said. “Done a great job with really giving our players a chance to develop, particularly our young players, building our depth within our program.”
When asked about Turley later on during his time on-stage, Dorrell said that he and his players recognize that “they’re physically better than what they were a year ago.”
“He’s instantly having credibility with our players,” Dorrell said. “I can see the results in our players already in watching them train, what they look like physically. There’s a lot of respect that Shannon has done in such a short period of time. I hired him in February, now it’s mid July, end of July, that the team really believes in everything that he’s been teaching them from a development standpoint.”
That’s good news for a CU team that wants to win the Pac-12 South this season.
He’s high on the new commissioner
New Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff opened media day with a bang, mentioning that every detail of how the conference handles its football league will be re-evaluated to make sure it has the best chance of sending its teams to the College Football Playoff.
Dorrell liked what he heard Tuesday morning and during a meeting with Kliavkoff.
“The thing that resonates with me that he said that I really liked is he said, ‘We’re going to make this a championship program or conference,'” Dorrell said. “That’s what I want to hear. I want that expectation from our leader to tell us that this is all about winning championships.”
While all options are on the table, there are a few that stand out above the rest; converting the league from a nine-game conference schedule to an eight-game slate, normalizing kickoff times and eliminating divisions.
“I think he wants to help that process and do the things that’s necessary for us to get into that next step,” Dorrell said. “We’re very encouraged with what he told us. That was a good pep talk he gave us yesterday. We’re very encouraged with the direction we’re headed.”
