How the Buffs built a foundation in the tight ends room

Just 18 months ago, the Colorado Buffaloes were finishing up a football season in which tight ends only contributed six catches for 56 yards. That’s half a catch and under five receiving yards per game.

That was a step backward, though a slight one, from the seven catches and 102 yards that tight ends contributed in 2018.

But all of a sudden it seems like the Buffs are buying back into the tight end position.

Brady Russell caught 23 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns as a sophomore in 2019. No Buffs tight end had posted those numbers since Nick Kasa in 2012.

And now there’s more help on the way.

Matt Lynch, a former tight end and backup quarterback at UCLA, announced Monday that he is walking on at CU as a graduate transfer.

Jake Peters, a tight end at Arizona, announced later Monday afternoon that he will transfer to Colorado as a walk-on for his redshirt sophomore season.

They’ll join Russell in the tight ends room, as well as Legend Brumbaugh who could break out in his junior season. Sophomore Luke Stillwell could also provide some punch as a receiving threat and freshmen Caleb Fauria and Louis Passarello will add high-upside depth.

Junior Jared Poplawski tore his ACL this spring and is a candidate to redshirt the 2020 season.

New head coach Karl Dorrell hasn’t had control of an offense since he was the offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt in 2014. Before that, you have to look back to his run as head coach at UCLA from 2003-07 to find out what sort of scheme he likes to run.

The sport has changed significantly since then, so he could be cooking up some changes based on what he learned at his various career stops since then, but his West Coast offenses with the Bruins used tight ends heavily.

Dorrell’s quarterbacks typically lined up under center with just two receivers split wide. That meant there were often two tight ends on the field. Sometimes there were three.

Brady Russell is set up for a career year in 2020, but if some combination of Lynch, Brumbaugh and the young guys can produce from the tight end position, Russell could be a candidate for a truly special season.

Russell is one of Colorado’s most versatile talents on the offensive side of the ball and having multiple tight ends who can fulfill the position’s basic duties will free Russell up to move around the formation. He could see plenty of time at fullback and H-back.

The emergence of one or two more tight ends behind Russell would also boost a running attack that has the potential to be one of the best in the Pac-12. The Buffs have talented ball-carriers and they may opt to line up heavy and pound their opponents, lightening the load on an inexperienced quarterback.

The newest additions to the tight ends room are virtual unknowns, but they increase the odds that CU will have multiple playable tight ends in 2020, and having three tight ends worthy of seeing the field could be the key to unlocking the offense.

If Colorado’s tight ends are up to the challenge the Buffs should be able to run the ball out of heavy sets, even when defenses know its coming. If his time at UCLA is any indication, that’s the type of program Dorrell will try to build in Boulder.

While coaching the Bruins, Dorrell worked with tight ends Logan Paulsen and Marcedes Lewis. The duo has combined to play 24 seasons of NFL football. Neither has retired, though Paulsen is yet to sign with a team for the 2020 season.

A renewed focus on tight ends and a power running game would be a return to the roots for a Buffs program that has struggled since joining the spread-heavy Pac-12 Conference.

Many of the great Buffs teams featured stellar tight ends like Daniel Graham, Christian Fauria (Caleb’s father) and Jon Embree. Embree is now the tight ends coach for the San Francisco 49ers, where he works with All-Pro George Kittle. Embree’s son Taylor was a quality control coach with the 49ers last season, where he worked closely with Kittle.

Now, the younger Embree is the Buffs’ tight ends coach.

Embree’s job may not be easy in Year 1 — it’s his first time running a room, there are some new faces in his group and he already lost one of his top options to injury — but the tight ends could be poised for a sustainable breakout in 2021.

Russell will be back for his senior year, Brumbaugh will also be a senior, Poplawski will return from injury to join Stillwell and Peters as the group’s juniors, and then you factor in the high ceilings of the 2020 signees.

That’s not to say Embree couldn’t pull enough out of his guys to have an above-average tight end group in the Pac-12 this season, but there will be elite potential in the tight ends room in 2021.