Buffaloes’ success fueled by team’s hunger to win
STANFORD, CALIF. » Coming to a new team, especially late in the hiring process, Karl Dorrell made sure he listened to what his players needed.
Dorrell was announced as the head coach of the Colorado football team on Feb. 23, hired about two months later than most teams make changes, because of Mel Tucker’s sudden departure to Michigan State.
At that time, the Buffs’ players, many of which had gone 5- 7 for three years in a row, told Dorrell they were just tired of losing. They were hungry to win.
“They told me that from the very beginning when I was hired here,” Dorrell said after Saturday’s 35- 32 win at Stanford. “I’m kind of riding on that wave of thought process and been building on that thought process and for the last nine months.”
So far, so good, as the Buffs ( 2- 0, 2- 0 Pac- 12) are off to a surprising start to the COVID- 19 pandemicdelayed season.
Given that Dorrell was new to the team, hadn’t been a head coach in 13 years, was hired late and didn’t have a chance to even practice with his team until October, national expectations were low. Throw in the fact that the Buffs had no experience at quarterback and lost their best player from 2019 ( Laviska Shenault) to the NFL, and this was sure to be a struggle for CU this year.
To this point, however, the Buffs have rallied around challenges and found a way to win.
“All I do is live and think about these guys and what we can do to get better as a team and try to continue to build this program in a way that we all have expectations for it to be at some point in time,”
Dorrell said.
The Buffs certainly are not at that point yet. Although they are averaging 41.5 points per game, they’re giving up 37 per game. They’ve also turned two potential blowouts into nail biters, winning by a total of nine points despite leads of 35- 7 in Week 1 against UCLA and 35- 16 on Saturday at Stanford.
“I would have loved to have finished the game like we finished it last week, where we had the ball and we took the knee,” Dorrell said. “But, we had the dramatics all the way to the end, unfortunately. The fortunate thing, we got the W, we get to learn from this and we’ll go onto next week.”
It’s all part of the maturation process for a team that is still fairly young in a lot of spots. But, to this point, they’ve bonded together, regardless of age or experience. The age and experience on the field has even changed during the two games, as the Buffs have dealt with several injuries but kept rolling.
“We just play for each other,” junior outside linebacker Carson Wells said. “That’s all it is. We know it’s a next man up mentality.
So everybody prepares like they’re the starter so when the starter does go down, you can step in and there’s no slack.”
In a year that hasn’t been a lot of fun for many people, and a year that’s been extremely challenging for college athletes, the Buffs have decided to roll with it and enjoy the moments they get.
“We’ve got something going here, something great going here,” senior quarterback Sam Noyer said. “We’re building something special with coach Dorrell and this team. Everybody’s buying in.
“Guys are having fun out there playing. It’s good to see that again. I haven’t seen that in a couple years and guys are really enjoying being out there on the sideline. Obviously we want to win, but you see it from the fourth string all the way up to the first string, and that’s a good feeling. That’s something that we’re going to continue to see going forward.”
What the rest of the season looks like going forward is unknown. CU will not be playing Arizona State on Saturday due to a COVID- 19 outbreak.