Woelk: Buffs Made Steady Progress In Tucker's First Fall Camp
August 24, 2019 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — After three weeks and 20 practices, the Colorado Buffaloes have wrapped up fall camp and are ready for game week.
Because Mel Tucker's Buffs open their season on a Friday, their first game week of 2019 will look a little different. The Buffs took Saturday off and will return to the practice field Sunday to begin preparations for next Friday's 8 p.m. season opener against Colorado State at Broncos Stadium at Mile High (ESPN).
By all accounts, Tucker's first training camp in Boulder was a good one. Here's one last look at the Buffs' fall camp (and maybe a peek or two at what's ahead) …Â
1. Overall, Tucker was pleased with how the Buffs progressed. Even though Tucker and his staff had a good look at the Buffs in spring ball, fall camp provided another level of inspection and evaluation. There were a number of new faces who weren't present (or weren't available) in spring ball, and the daily work provided a much better look for CU's coaches.
"It's been a very productive camp," Tucker said Thursday. "We've gotten a lot out of it. You really want to get your schemes installed and you want to find out who your best players are, find out how much depth you have, who can do what."
A big part of that is not only installing offensive and defensive schemes, but also identifying strengths and weaknesses of individual players and position groups. Then, CU coches tailor and tweak those schemes to fit personnel.
"It's critically important to go into games knowing who you are," Tucker said. "That way you can game plan and make sure you are doing what your players can do. You never want to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. Now, from the scheme standpoint, we know how to adapt our schemes to the guys that we have and also have our schemes comprehensive enough that we can have what we need for our opponents."
But, here is a stat that can't be overlooked: overall, CU's entire roster has just 179 total career starts from top to bottom. If you are wondering how this fits into historic comparisons, figure this: it is the fewest returning starts for any Colorado team since the advent of the 11-game regular season in 1971.
2. The Buffs took a solid step in establishing an identity under their new coach. This is not a process that happens overnight, or even in the span of a month. It is a never-ending undertaking that requires constant attention. While this team is no doubt a different bunch than the one that finished fall camp a year ago, the transformation is just beginning.
Still, Tucker and his staff have managed to establish some baseline fundamentals, and the Buffs emerge from camp having improved in some of those key areas.
It begins with stopping the run on defense and establishing a rushing attack on offense. Those are the cornerstones of good football teams, and they are areas that require toughness, discipline and the stamina to produce in those areas for four quarters.
Those are trademarks Tucker believes are non-negotiable.
"Twenty-three years of coaching, everywhere I've been, the first thing you have to do is stop the run," Tucker said early in camp. "If you can't stop the run and make teams one-dimensional, you're going to have a hard time holding people to low numbers because they can basically do whatever they want to do. Even though we face a lot of teams that are heavy pass, every team we're going to play is going to have some type of run game that we have to be able to stop. If we can make teams one-dimensional, we'll have a better defense."
Defensively, the Buffs made solid improvement against the run throughout camp. They have established a solid front seven and some depth to go with it. While the defensive line is overall untested — it includes a redshirt freshman, Jalen Sami, at nose tackle — it is a group that made strides each day. CU's inside linebackers, led by Nate Landman, are stout and the outside linebackers are solid as well.
Offensively, Tucker's goal since arriving has been simple: "Run the ball on our terms." The Buffs showed improvement on a consistent basis in that area as well, especially as their young running backs corps began to feel more and more comfortable in the scheme. Meanwhile, CU's offensive line gelled steadily. Colorado may not yet be ready to bulldoze people all day with the run game, but the Buffs should be able to establish a ground attack and make people respect it.
That leads nicely into …Â
3. CU's skill players on offense are a formidable group. If there was one thing that stood out in the two main scrimmages of camp, it is that Colorado has playmakers on offense. Lots of them.
It starts, of course, with junior wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr. and senior quarterback Steven Montez. The duo had an outstanding camp, and there is no doubt Shenault — one of the nation's top receivers — will be the focus of every defense the Buffs face. Montez, meanwhile, is throwing the ball better than ever before.
CU will do its best to make sure Shenault is a focal point — but they won't overload him. Tucker and offensive coordinator Jay Johnson have weapons from one side of the field to the other, and they will no doubt do their best to utilize every one of them. If teams concentrate too much on stopping Shenault, the Buffs will be more than happy to turn to their other playmakers.
"It's going to be important for us this year to make sure we have balance on offense — not just run-pass, but how we distribute the ball," Tucker said. "We have some really good skill guys that can make plays for us, some guys that have shown it in games before and some guys that haven't, but have shown it in practice. Hopefully it's not going to be the Laviska show every play. We want to be able to spread it out, spread out the targets and opportunities. But at the end of the day you have to get the ball to your best players."
4. The defense has made strides, particularly over the last week. On the surface, Colorado's depth chart on defense looks to be a veteran bunch, with four seniors and four juniors atop their positions.
But truth is, Tyson Summers' group is far from an experienced group. Only three members of CU's defense — safety Mikial Onu (20 starts at SMU), defensive lineman Mustafa Johnson (12 career starts) and Landman (12) have double-digit starts on their resume. Onu is also the only player with anything resembling more than a year of Division I experience.
Still Tucker and Summers did a good job in camp evaluating talent, then putting together a group that seemed much more comfortable playing together over the past week.
But there will no doubt be moments when inexperience could rear its head.
First, a young front seven will have to stop the run game enough to force teams into passing situations. Then, the young secondary will be depending on that front seven to produce a consistent pass rush and not leave them alone in coverage for too long. CU's leader in sacks last year was Mustafa Johnson (8.5), but after that, only two other players — Landman and Carson Wells — had at least four. The Buffs will need more players this year in that 4-5 range to keep opposing quarterbacks nervous.
No doubt, there is talent on this defense. But how quickly that talent and potential turns into production — and how much of an impact CU's few veterans can have — will be a critical question for this bunch.
5. Tucker's staff did a solid job in developing depth. Tucker's mantra is to win the fourth quarter, and that means having fresh legs in the decisive period. That, in turn, will mean rotations at a number of positions, beginning with the defensive line.
The Buffs will be young up front, but CU coaches made sure the youngsters listed as backups got their fair share of quality reps in camp. It was the same at running back, in the secondary and at outside linebacker. Those are places where fresh legs down the stretch will be critical, meaning the backups will have to contribute some quality snaps as the game progresses.
6. Difficult schedule, beginning with three tough non-conference games. Just about every team in the nation has at least one relative "breather" in the non-conference.
The Buffs have no such luxury. All three games — CSU, Nebraska and Air Force — can be considered "rivalry" games to a degree. Certainly, all three games are the biggest non-conference games for their opponents, meaning they will be seeing all three opponents at their fever-pitch best.
Then, of course, comes a brutal conference schedule that includes five teams ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 — Oregon (11), Washington (13), Utah (14), Washington State (23) and Stanford (25). Throw Nebraska (24) into the mix and it means half of CU's opponents are nationally ranked, with three others — Arizona, Arizona State and USC — receiving votes in the initial poll.
7. Culture, accountability and leadership. These things go hand-in-hand — and in the big picture, they have been more important than Xs and Os since the day Tucker arrived.
As he has said repeatedly, culture is "how you live on a day-to-day basis," and accountability is a huge part of that. It means being accountable to yourself, accountable to your teammates and accountable to the coaching staff.
One of Tucker's most impressive traits as a coach is his steadfast belief in teaching. Every day, every play. Tucker and his coaches "confront and demand," and they use every occasion possible to teach their players how to get better. Equally important, Tucker has a bedrock belief that no player should be left behind.
"You never know what guys can become if you continue to coach them," he stressed. "My goal is not to have any player fall through the cracks … It's our job to coach every guy that we have out there and get the most out of every guy, scholarship and walk-on."
But Tucker also isn't afraid to put the onus of leadership on his players. That means players taking ownership and holding each other to a standard of accountability. It is a process, a day-to-day fundamental building block that has to continue to grow.
So far, Tucker has seen good signs from his team, indicators that he has players who are willing to lead not only by example, but are also willing to speak up and make sure their teammates are doing the little things that make the big difference.
The question is how that leadership will react when adversity hits home. That will be a crucial element as Mel Tucker's first season in Boulder unfolds.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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