Dorrell hopes to see growth of young players at showcase
BOULDER » Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell was quick to point out that outside linebacker Alvin Williams isn’t a new player with the Buffaloes.
Williams does, however, represent a large number of players who are inexperienced and growing up quickly this spring.
“We’ve got a number of guys and I’ll use Alvin as an example,” Dorrell said. “He has been here a couple years with me and, yes, he’s still a young player in terms of his years, but he’s been around and been in our system for a good bit of time. So it’s good to see those guys kind of step up and let their natural instincts go a little bit more because they’re confident that they know what they’re doing.
“They’re playing faster and then when they’re playing faster, you really get a chance to see their ability. So that’s what I do like with some of those guys that are like him that are kind of in that sophomore category.”
On Saturday, Williams, a thirdyear sophomore, and the rest of the young Buffs will wrap up spring with CU’S annual showcase event at Folsom Field (1 p.m., TV: Pac-12 Mountain).
Injuries have impacted the Buffs at several positions, including the offensive line, so it won’t be a full-bore scrimmage. But, the showcase will allow fans to see the growth of players like Williams, tight end Erik Olsen, linebacker Eoghan Kerry, cornerback Joshua Wiggins and more.
“We need to just continue to keep building on some of the success of these guys,” Dorrell said. “I asked them all before we started spring about having a short little checklist of things that they need to personally do for themselves to improve on. They’ve been staying true to that, really trying to fix their game from a fundamental standpoint by their positions. They’re doing really a pretty fabulous job with that.
“I think collectively as a group, offensively and defensively, there’s so much gain and growth that happened over these (spring) practices. It’ll show on Saturday when fans get a chance to see it.”
In addition to developing the youth, CU’S spring has been about installing new wrinkles on defense and a new scheme on offense. Saturday’s showcase isn’t likely to give much of a preview of the new offense, though.
“We’ll be pretty vanilla,” offensive coordinator Mike Sanford said.
A year ago, Sanford was the coordinator at Minnesota, which faced CU in Week 3. Sanford said he knew CU was putting in a new defense a year ago and last summer, “We watched every single angle that was available in the Pac-12 Network of the spring showcase to be able to get ready for that game. We spent eight hours trying to figure out what it was.”
From that experience, Sanford isn’t too interested in giving much for CU’S first opponents of this season – TCU, Air Force and Minnesota – to study.
“People are gonna watch us, particularly our first couple opponents,” he said. “With that, obviously, we don’t want to give away all the trade secrets. … It’s reckless to run the entire system with everything that you have.”