What disappointed Karl Dorrell and team leaders the most in the loss to TCU

It was a frustrating season opener for Buffs fans as Colorado kept it close in the first half but ultimately got overpowered by TCU in the second half in a 38-13 loss.

Following the lackluster showing, it’s as if there are more questions about Colorado’s football team now than there were before kickoff on Friday night.

The media spoke to head coach Karl Dorrell and team captains Quinn Perry and Brady Russell after the game to try and extract some answers as to what went wrong.

“We seemed to not catch rhythm quite as well as we should have,” said Dorrell. “(We) really didn’t catch rhythm the whole game if you think about it even in the first half with the field goals. We did some positive things, but it wasn’t like it was a seamless operation. Those two, the quarterbacks will continue to work through that, but I felt like there wasn’t an established rhythm at all.”

The fans were out in full force criticizing Dorrell and how he handled Brendon Lewis and J.T. Shrout last night in particular.

“B-Lew did some things to move the football,” Dorrell said. “We didn’t score a touchdown until the very end of the game. That’s the part that I’m a little more disappointed (about). We have to continue to work. We’ve got to figure it out. I have good enough coaches to figure it out.”

Lewis started the game at quarterback and played most of the first half before Shrout entered the game with 2:23 remaining in the second quarter.

On the first offensive drive of the second half for CU, Lewis came back on the field at quarterback.

When comparing his play against TCU to what he put on film in 2021, there were some marginal improvements in Lewis’ game such as his mental processing and willingness to take off and use his legs to pick up yardage.

Despite those improvements, Colorado’s offense was one-dimensional and lacked explosiveness when Lewis was under center.

Dorrell was also asked what he would say to fans who don’t think Lewis has improved over the off-season.

“I think he’s different and better,” said Dorrell. “We didn’t have an idea of what he would look like today. But everything he’s shown in the offseason up to this point, he looked really well and did really good things.  We’ll do what’s best moving forward, but I didn’t think Brandon played poorly. He did some things with his legs, he had some throws. He wasn’t perfect, though. And neither was JT.  Maybe it was too much pressure on (Brendon). Who knows. But I’m confident that he’s a better player, I still feel that he’s a better player than last year.”

Brendon Lewis finished the game with a stat line of 13/18 for 78 yards passing. He did add 42 yards on the ground on 8 carries and was the leading rusher in the game through the first half, however.

One of the turning points of the game occurred with less than a minute left in the third quarter. Colorado had the ball on the TCU 41-yard line on a 4th and 5, down 17-6 and Dorrell elected to punt. The ball would go into the endzone for a touchback resulting in a net 21-yard punt.

TCU then mounted a ten-play, 80-yard drive to make it a three-score game with 10:55 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Brady Russell shared his thoughts on what disappointed him the most after the game.

“The part that disappointed me the most was in the fourth quarter when we were down 17-6 I saw way too many heads drop I saw way too much defeat when we were still very much in the game and if we started executing as we did in the first half then we could have made it a game very easily,” said Russell. “I saw way too many heads drop that’s why I’m so mad right now is that we had too many people give up and that’s not the team we formed this offseason.”

Colorado’s offense was able to produce more first downs (11) than TCU (3) in the first half and showed that they were comfortable playing at a fast pace.

“Part of that’s on me, Quinn, T-Lang and all the leaders because the speed of the team is the speed of the leaders,” said Russell. “There’s something we need to do differently in order to get the team to operate. I think there’s some stuff ingrained in guys from the past and what this program has been and we’ve got to find a way to take that out of their mind and disregard it.”

Colorado’s defense had a strong first-half showing but the offense was unable to score a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter and by then the defense gave out.

Quinn Perry gave his thoughts on the performance of the Buffs’ defense.

“I definitely think we had momentum building up,” said Perry. “We had I think four three and outs in a row. We were definitely in the right mindset. I think like what (Russell) was saying some dudes mentally checked out at halftime. I think there’s a lot of internal stuff with guys that did not show up during fall camp and during practices.”

The Buffs are taking the short trip down to Colorado Springs next weekend to play Air Force. The triple option will present a variety of challenges for the Buffs, but it seems like they will have their plate full trying to sort out internal issues as well.