Karl Dorrell says the Buffs are "heading strongly in the right direction" through 10 practices

BOULDER – It’s no secret that the Colorado Buffaloes are working on a tight schedule to get ready for their Nov. 7 season kickoff against UCLA, but what may come as a surprise is just how well things are going.

Head coach Karl Dorrell told reporters Tuesday that the Buffs’ installation of their schemes are almost complete.

“We started out camp where the first two or three days of install was a lot of information, a lot of volume,” Dorrell said. “I think the installs, for the most part, other than a few things here and there situationally, are pretty much done.”

That’s good news as the Buffs capped off their 10th practice of fall camp, leaving 15 to go before the season-opener. It also seems to come as at least a mild surprise to the coaching staff.

“We didn’t know how far we could take them (before the season),” Dorrell said. “There’s some really smart kids on our team that we think can handle more. We might start to feed them a little bit more.”

Tuesday’s practice appeared to be the turning point, as the coaches were impressed with how well things went.

“We were guarded at first with how much (we could teach them before the season),” Dorrell said. “But I think that 10 practices in, we have a pretty good idea of what our guys can handle.”

The install isn’t totally comple though, as Dorrell mentioned, because Colorado will continue to implement their situational packages – the plays they’ll run at the end of halves, on third downs and in the red zone, for example. That work continued Tuesday, as all three competitors for the starting quarterback job led simulation two-minute drills.

“Our quarterbacks overall today – that’s one position I’m sure everybody has a thought about – I thought all three of them did some really good things today,” Dorrell said. “They all had two-minute drives, and I thought they performed well within the plays that were given to him. So, I was really pleased with that.”

If every practice is as effective as Tuesday’s, which Dorrell said was the longest so far this season, the Buffs will have plenty of options when gameday rolls around in a few weeks.

“It was good to get the volume of work that we had today, and our guys did a nice job of performing,” Dorrell said. “We have a few details to clean up, but I’ve been very impressed with hard this group works and how coaschientius they’ve been… I think we’re heading strongly in the right direction.”