Karl Dorrell wants eight weeks of practice before his team plays its first game.
“I’d like to have a month of conditioning and training to get (the team) in shape and then a month of training camp before playing games,” Dorrell said in a media call on Tuesday.
However, the new coach of the Colorado Buffaloes football team isn’t optimistic.
“I don’t think we are going to get anything close to that,” he said.
Dorrell is already in a tough spot. He was one of the last FBS coaches to be hired this offseason and then all team activities were canceled before he held a single spring practice.
“For me, I haven’t even been in this program as an assistant for quite some time,” Dorrell said. “In my mind, I am looking at 22 positions. They are all new. I have no eyes on them. My eyes will be wide open once that time comes.”
All 22 positions might be new, but the most important position on the field has been particularly tough for Dorrell to gauge because there’s virtually no tape on any of Dorrell’s quarterbacks. Brendon Lewis, the true freshman favorite, obviously hasn’t played any college football, and the two veterans — Tyler Lytle and Sam Noyer — have barely seen the field.
“All three of those guys, when it’s all said and done haven’t had much (playing) time,” Dorrell said. “The freshman hasn’t had a down. Tyler has not played very much, maybe 20 snaps all (last) season. And Sam was playing the safety position last fall prior to coming back and playing quarterback. It’s really a wide-open position. We are coaching them all hard.”
So how is Dorrell, who is back at the college level after coaching in the NFL since 2014, managing the situation?
Mostly by building relationships with his new players.
“I have tried to pick off a (few players) each week to create a connection, to introduce them to things that we do,” Dorrell said. “I am the one that is new. That’s the challenge that they are all trying to (manage), gaining the confidence in me and me gaining their trust.”
Of course, managing the football side of things is important as well, and that hasn’t been ignored.
“We are doing our eight-hour (per week) rules with our virtual meetings and installs (of the playbooks),” Dorrell said. “And our strength and conditioning people are doing what they can. We are being patient with the process.”
When the preseason festivities of college football begin Dorrell will have his hands full. The big question is just how much time coaches will have with their teams before the season starts. There may not be time to follow the traditional schedule, so either practices or games would have to be cut.
“In the NFL is a much longer process, that starts in the third week of April,” Dorrell said. “There’s that two-week period of just strength and conditioning that gradually builds into practice time. When you are asking me a time frame, given the situation we are in right now since we haven’t had much hands-on supervision — and I might be the only one that feels this way — but I think it’s an eight-week process.”
