Karl Dorrell finalizes coaching staff with an emphasis on communication

BOULDER — Colorado’s football coaching staff for the 2021 season is officially in place, as of Friday morning.

Two coaching spots were open prior to the announcement; tight ends coach and inside linebackers coach.

Bryan Cook, 42, is taking the tight ends job. In 2017, Bryan Cook was the offensive coordinator at Georgia Southern under former-Colorado defensive coordinator Tyson Summers. When Summers took Colorado’s defensive coordinator job two years ago, Cook became Colorado’s director of quality control for the defense.

Head coach Karl Dorrell says the work on the defensive side of the ball will help him as the tight ends coach.

“He can help with game planning, with really understanding what defenses are trying to do to stop us offensively,” Dorrell told reporters Friday. “His recent knowledge of being on the defensive side can really help gain even better understanding from some of our game planning on how to attack defenses.”

The other new coach comes from the defensive side of the ball too, but he’s staying there. Mark Smith, who previously served as Long Island University’s defensive coordinator, is Colorado’s new inside linebackers coach. Before heading to Long Island, Smith was a high school coach in Texas before heading to Arkansas to serves as recruiting director and, later, cornerbacks coach.

“Mark brings a great, great knowledge base in some different areas on defense,” Dorrell said.

That knowledge base is important because as the inside linebackers coach, he has to manage all phases of defensive football. His guys will responsible for helping the defensive line in the run game, but his knowledge of how the linebackers fit into coverage has Dorrell intrigued.

“That whole coverage group has to be pretty much on the same page and understanding everyone’s role and how the coverages work,” Dorrell said. “With him and Brett Maxie and Demetrice Martin and coach (Chris) Wilson, those guys and along with Brian Michalowski with the outside backers, all those people being on the same page and in concert are really important. I think (Smith’s) experience on the back end and at the linebacker position, it’ll be a good chance for a lot of that information to be seamless.”

Dorrell said both guys are smart, personable and have the teaching chops to handle their new positions.

“The biggest thing that I look as as a head coach is how well they communicate, how well they can explain the schematic concepts that we do so that our players can understand it,” Dorrell said. “And I feel strongly about the communication skills with these two.”

Dorrell was thrown into the fire at Colorado. He was one of the final Power 5 head coaches hired in the 2020 cycle and he didn’t have much time to solidify his staff. Three changes were made to the staff this offseason and Dorrell feels that he’s starting to get the right staff place.

“I feel that I am putting more of my imprint on the program now, I am putting the pieces in place,” Dorrell said. “From a coaching standpoint the right guys that I want are strong communicators, mentors, guys that are going to be personally invested in our players,” Dorrell said. “I do feel like the guys on the staff right now are really going to be engaging in that way.”

Dorrell doubled-down, saying that he wants the “role model” aspect of coaching to be one of the hallmark’s of Colorado’s program.

“I say the biggest asset of what I’m trying to do in this program is to create (a situation where) the coaches have many roles,” Dorrell said. “They’re not just their coaches they’re gonna be other support mechanisms for all of our student athletes.”