Karl Dorrell doesn't want his staff "in the laboratory too long"

Head Colorado Buffaloes coach Karl Dorrell stepped behind the wheel for the Buffs in February under strange circumstances and, so far, his situation has only become more strange.

“We’re still trying to find a way to be productive,” Dorrell said in a conference call with the media Thursday. “We’re working on recruiting, we’re working on our current players and making sure that even though we’re in spring break right now, we’re trying to alleviate a lot of the different things that we’re dealing with during the learning process.”

Just like most Coloroadans, Dorrell is working from home due to the state’s shelter-in-place order. That means he’s staying in touch with his staff and players through virtual meetings.

“We are spending time as a staff offensively, defensively, special teams, kind of just working on our systems, what our philosophy is, who we think are going to be, the certain players in certain positions, all that stuff,” Dorrell said.

With no on-the-field work to base decisions off of since all of Colorado’s spring practices to this point have been suspended, the Buffs coaching staff is working from last season’s tape. While the coaches try to contact each player 2-3 times per day, there isn’t as much to teach because the players aren’t making mistakes and showing flaws on the field.

That means there’s more time for coaches to scheme, and that may not be a good thing.

“My biggest thing, and I learned this years ago, is that we have to be really careful about how much we’re in the laboratory devising too many things,” Dorrell said. “I’m going to say this delicately because I think this is where coaches can be in the laboratory too long and then they can be a problem.”

Dorrell is worried that if the coaches get too carried away with their more creative ideas, there will be too much information for the players to absorb before

“It’s not about what we know it’s what our players know,” Dorrell said. “As much as we spend all this time creating new avenues, ideas, things like that, if it’s too much for our players to handle then they’re not going to play as effectively and fast and explosive and physical if they have too much on their plate. So, sometimes having this type of time as a staff can be a detriment because we’re not on the field, we’re not evaluating them daily, and we’re not maximizing their abilities because we’re not seeing it face to face and in person.”

The uncertainty at the quarterback position makes the problem even more difficult to handle.

“We have two quarterbacks on campus currently,” Dorrell said. “One is a true freshmen here and one is a veteran player that was a backup. We have to figure out what their skill sets are and what they can be productive at on a consistent level and kind of build it from there.”

The problem is that their skillsets are different and the offensive schemes they would be most successful in are different.

“They’ve got to compete because we don’t have a starter right now,” Dorrell said. “It’s still undecided as to how much you go in a particular direction because we don’t have a starter there yet.”

Do the Buffs lean into using the quarterback as a power runner, which would suit true freshman Brendon Lewis, or do they try to keep things similar to last year, which would make the process easier for junior Tyler Lytle?

“That’s the biggest question in my mind offensively,” Dorrell said. “We want to make sure we’re maximizing the abilities of what our quarterbacks can do more so than what I think from a scheme perspective that an offensive coach wants to do.”

The stakes are significantly higher when you consider the importance of a quarterback to his offense.

“That’s the one position that we have to be really smart about because he’s the one that’s going to engineer our offense,” Dorrell said.