How young Buffs are benefiting from a broken season

BOULDER — On the surface, there isn’t much to be excited about at the moment when it comes to Colorado Buffaloes football. The team is 3-6 and in the midst of a five-game losing streak. Three of the losses haven’t been competitive.

There’s still a path to a bowl game and it’s as clear as ever; Colorado needs to win each of its final three games or there will be no postseason. Mathematically, the Buffs are alive but after seeing the team play it’s tough to expect their season to extend into December.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth watching though.

A host of young players have been thrust into big-time roles. From wide receiver Daniel Arias, to cornerbacks KJ Trujillo, Tarik Luckett and Dylan Thomas, to starback Mark Perry, the lackluster 2019 season is giving an early look at the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Buffs squads.

And there’s a lot to like.

“All these freshman DBs who are starting for us right now, those are all guys who were getting reps in developmental periods two, three, four weeks ago,” defensive coordinator Tyson Summers said Thursday.

Mel Tucker instituted two “developmental periods” per week during in-season practices when he took over as the Buffs’ head coach. Each Monday and Wednesday, a section of on-field work is dedicated, not to game-planning for that week’s opponent, but to giving reps to younger guys and coaching them up.

The goal was to get them ready for 2020 and beyond, but as the season has played out the timeline has been sped up.

For example, at one point during Saturday’s game against UCLA, all four of the top cornerbacks on Colorado’s depth chart were sidelined by injuries. That meant true freshman Tarik Luckett was the new No. 1 and redshirt freshman Dylan Thomas was the No. 2.

Both were wide receivers up until fall camp. Luckett played some cornerback in high school but Thomas had never played a down at the position.

Learning the new terminology and responsibilities took Thomas some time, but help from veterans like Delrick Abrams and Chris Miller made the process easier.

“They really took me under their wing,” Thomas told DNVR on Thursday.

The cornerbacks held extra meetings almost every day during fall camp and once school started those meetings turned into extra film sessions after class. The overtime work has helped Thomas feel more prepared when he takes the field.

“The biggest difference now is that I can focus on what (opposing wide receivers) are doing instead of on what I’m doing,” Thomas said.

Thomas took defensive snaps on Saturday for the first time this season, after Abrams left the game for a few series with an injury. The debut was unexpected but Thomas says he graded out well.

“That was amazing,” he said of his first college football experience. “(The speed of the game) was a little slower than I thought it would have been. I thought it would be a lot faster than it was.”

An injured Trujillo waited on the sideline for Thomas to get off the field, offering advice and a calming presence. Now, with Trujillo likely to return this weekend, the staus of Thomas’ playing time is up in the air.

“I’m going to stay ready for anything,” Thomas said.

The stream of young players progressing from development periods to playing time on Saturdays has been steady. Each week, one or two have made their collegiate debut. Some build off a strong performance and retain playing time, others filter back to depth roles. The process has been fluid, outside of one big shakeup in early October.

During Colorado’s bye week, Tucker left the standard in-season practice complex and returned his team to its fall camp home. The practices weren’t a structured progression from basic walkthroughs into real reps as the team learns about and gameplans for an opponent. Instead, they were camp-like practices intended to offer depth players an opportunity to show their improvement over the first month of the season. Several players earned real, in-game playing time.

One of those was sophomore Daniel Arias.

Up to this point the 6-foot-4 wide receiver was best-known as the special teams regular who stayed late after every practice catching passes rifled at him by a JUGS machine. Typically, Arias was the last one off the practice field.

“Honestly, I don’t even know,” Arias told DNVR when asked how many balls he catches after practice. “I’m just out there until the guy that’s shooting me the balls gets tired and tells me that it’s time to go.”

Following Colorado’s lone open practice of fall camp, Arias was at it again. While fans were taking pictures with, and asking for autographs from, the rest of the team, Arias was set up in the back of Folsom Field’s north end zone catching more balls.

At least until linebacker Nate Landman told him to shut the JUGS machine down since any one of the footballs it fired out could hit one of the couple thousand civilians behind him.

But neither of the catches Arias’ well-trained hands pulled in against Arizona in his first action of the season is the play that will be remembered. Instead, viewers he’ll be remembered for the bomb that hit his hands and bounced incomplete in the end zone.

For a young player like Arias, missing out on one of just a few opportunities can sting, but there’s was still a lesson to be learned.

“(I thought about the drop) back then but it’s in the past now,” Arias said. “Like my coaches said, I have to learn how to move on. Just keep improving and just keep getting better.”

Arias faded out of the Buffs’ offense after the drop, but on Saturday against UCLA, he was thrust back onto the field.

“It was just great to be out there, great to just get that feeling,” Arias said. “I’m not worried about (the future). I’m just worried about doing my job and doing it how I’m supposed to do it.”

With another bye week coming up after Saturday’s homecoming contest against Stanford, another major shakeup to the rotations could be on the way. But as easy as it is to get lost in the shiny, young potential that is finding its way onto the field, the Buffs’ coaches don’t want to get caught day-dreaming.

“The future is bright,” Summers said. “But we need to win on Saturday. Period.”