Quotes From Coach Dorrell's Media Conference Call

Below is the transcript from a conference call held early Thursday afternoon between Colorado Football Head Coach Karl Dorrell and various members of the local and national media.

Opening Statement
"Well there's not much going on is there guys. Obviously the whole world is dealing with the pandemic that's been going on but, as you know, I was hired back in February and it took the first two weeks to hire staff, get all those pieces in place, getting ready for spring practice and then obviously this pandemic hits and it puts us a little bit behind in terms of not being able to get out on the field, but we'll deal with this. There's no question that it's more important that the health and safety of our country is at stake and so we need to do what's right. Obviously there's a lot of stay-at-home orders that are going on right now and we're part of that process too. We're still trying to find a way to be productive, we're working on recruiting, we're working on our current players and making sure that even though we're in spring break right now, we're trying to alleviate a lot of the different things that we're dealing with during the learning process. So there's plenty of stuff on our plate. Other than that, we're doing just fine. Health-wise we're good, there's no cases involved with anybody that I know of right now. So we're just moving forward and taking it day by day."

On His Communication With The 2020 Signees
"First and foremost, when I did get the job I got a chance to interview all of our players here on campus and then we went into the process of me talking with all of our 2020 signees that are coming in, whether they're here right now, the mid mid year transfers that are here right now, or whether they're coming in this summer. So, I had to quickly try to get myself acclimated with all their families and I've had contact with them to be in constant communication. That was started early and is still in process right now with. The biggest thing is making sure they're getting all their paperwork and documentation and things of that nature for getting admitted and on campus this summer. Obviously, everybody's dealing with the same issues right now so there's common ground from that standpoint, which we talked about how they're working out, what they are doing to keep themselves safe and healthy, so there's that constant communication that's going on between me and the staff and those incoming players. They're part of our family, even though they're not technically on campus yet, so we still try to engage with them."

On Players Potentially Not Returning Until The Summer
"Really anything and everything is possible right now. Right now we have these stay-at-home orders about when you can go out and go back on campus and things like that. We just issued some information to all of our student athletes yesterday about the date being April 10 as to when they would reconsider and evaluate where we are as Boulder County, as a nation, there's a lot of things in terms of dates and deadlines that are out there but as you know the situation is pretty fluid. They can change to be extended. I think the biggest thing we've been doing with our guys is staying in communication and keeping them in the loop of what we're doing on campus. What the coaches are doing in their preparation for if there's going to be any type of spring ball at some point in time, or if not, you know, preparing ourselves for the summer in terms of how we're going to get our work done and get ready for the season. So, there's a lot of scenarios, and really none of them are etched in stone, but we've got to be ready for it any moment."

On Players That Have Jumped Out To Him When Watching Film
"Well we're watching a lot of recruiting tape. We watched a lot of our team earlier, probably two or three weeks ago, in terms of getting ready for spring practice when we were getting ready to start. Now we kind of shifted gears to get caught up on the recruiting side. I watched all of our in state players for example, I'm working on a lot of the different areas that we actively recruit and I'm working through some tape from those areas right now. We're meeting as a staff at least once a day on zoom, trying to get updates as to what they're doing, who they've been in contact with, who should I call, things like that. We're staying pretty active and pretty busy from a recruiting standpoint, given we're all separated in our homes right now. Our football side is really not the hardest part right now, because those systems are in place, we just haven't had a chance to really get into the teaching of most of that, but we have time to get caught up with that with our players at some point. I know this is kind of the tail end of spring break so it is their break this week. Technically school is back in session on Monday, so they'll be learning remotely just like everybody else across the country, so that's when we'll continue to engage our players at least two or three times a day with making sure they're on pace with what they're doing academically, and also to do some football work as well just to keep them engaged in what we're doing until we are able to practice, which we don't have any idea when that would happen."

On Evaluating Players On Tape vs. On The Field
"I have a really strong philosophy on that. I think the best way to really get your best evaluation of the players is really not on tape, tape kind of gives you an idea, but from my experience it's getting your hands on the players on the grass. That's when you know what you have, you can kind of feel their movement, their explosiveness, their lack thereof, anything that are important ingredients for you to make an assessment. To me, it's always been best when I see it live and when I see them running around and competing against each other. Those are the best telltale signs of making your evaluation. We did the assessment from a tape perspective, now I'd like to see it in person. But right now, as you know, we can't do that. But there will be a point in time where we will be able to do those things and we'll quickly get ourselves caught up.

On The Struggles Of Not Having Spring Practice As A New Coach
"I'm not looking at it as a detriment just because I'm new. Everybody's dealing with this. I know there's some institutions that may have already finished spring or are maybe halfway through, or maybe in the first week, who knows. I know that they're all under the same guidance and standards of what's going on right now with our country. So from our perspective, we're just going to try to maximize whatever chance we get with our players. Whether that's a portion of time in April or May or June, we'll be prepared for that. We'll get a chance to quickly implement what we need to get implemented and still keep our team in shape and keep them strong and excited about playing. Then there's the fall training camp which usually starts in the beginning of August. There's still some time for a lot of stuff to occur and I know that there's going to be some limitations of some sort, but we're prepared for it. I think we've talked about all those scenarios, and we're not going to use any excuses. We're going to go out there and put our best foot forward and get our team ready to play our first game when that September date hits."

On Potentially Not Having A 2020 Season
"Those thoughts have crossed my mind too. It's hard to fathom at this point being that we're still in March, but we're hopeful. I know it's gonna take some time for this pandemic to calm down and be under control, I get that, but we're hoping that it's not going to affect the season, but there is that possibility. We have to be prepared for any and all things that could happen. As you know, our country's health is more important than anything right now just to kind of get that under wraps and under control. I think those are the things that in our minds we need to create the understanding are more important right now. And the other parts, you know, we'll figure out those things when the time comes. It's towards the end of March right now and there's a lot of time between now and the season, the season doesn't really begin until September, so we're hoping to get some positive solutions and answers hopefully in the next couple months. I think all of us that run these programs will be ready to accept and go by whatever is given at that point in time."

On Keeping Players Engaged And In-Shape While Away From Campus
"I think our strength staff, which is led by Drew Wilson, has done a really fantastic job. Our players have just come out of a nine or 10 week session prior to spring break where they did a great job of getting themselves ready for the start of spring practice, and obviously we haven't started, but they were prepared for that. Right now, Drew and his staff have done a great job with just supplementing our players daily with different types of workouts. Whether you have weights, or a park to work in or a track to run around, he's been really innovative with creating different elements of any type of workout given your environment to really get something positive done in that particular day, and he's been shooting these things out every day. So, I really take my hat off to what Drew and the staff have been doing. Whether you're working in your apartment or in your home where you're currently residing, if you have a field or someone to throw to, all those different things. Any type of scenario that could possibly present itself in your own situation. I think our players at least have an idea of what they can do to stay in shape and I really do take my hat off to what Drew has done."

On What His Daily Routine Has Been Like
"I'll tell you what these these days aren't average. I'm not quite used to it, I'm usually an early riser and I'm in the office and I get a lot done before anybody else really gets in. It's been very unusual for me working out of the house but fortunately for me I have the technology to get work done just like you see me here on camera doing the interviews with the media. We can also zoom and meet as a full staff, we can watch recruiting tape, we can watch our own personal tape from the season here at Colorado. There's a lot of stuff that we can be doing. I think it's more just getting used to your surroundings and using it for a work environment. I think that's been my biggest challenge, but each day it's gotten better since I've been home. Now, I don't want to get comfortable doing that, I want to be in the office. I want to use my domain there to get things done that naturally feel easier for me to get done, but I can work given the process of what's been mandated in terms of what our county has mandated here and us being at home. The biggest thing is like I said earlier, we're trying to stay safe and we're trying to do what's right and we're going to do our part. It's been challenging but I would say we've been pretty productive.``

On Commits Who Might Want To Reopen Their Recruitment
"That could occur and I understand that it could happen. In our case with me being a new coach and having some new coaches on our staff, there's always an element of uncertainty when no one can give you a timeline as to when things can start. We feel good about our incoming class, we mentioned that earlier, but my '20 class is solid, they're ready to go, they want to get here as soon as they can. Obviously they're concerned about if that's even going to be delayed, I get that, but those are just natural questions to have. Now, for the guys that we're recruiting for the future. This is a small senior class that I have this year in 2020, there's only eight seniors on the team and there's only 10 scholarships collectively right now. We're going to recruit hard and really try to fill in those pieces that are needed. We just have to keep moving forward and keep lining up guys that fit what we think are going to be difference maker types of players for us in this next class in '21, so that they can really bounce off of what we've done this year with our '20 class. There's still a lot more time to go. I think people want to know what Colorado is going to look like to be quite frank with you. These decisions aren't going to necessarily be made at this point in time but there might be skepticism, they want to see what this team's going to look like this year. I can guarantee it's going to be a very competitive team and that I'm not going to make any excuses for the lack of time. We're going to get this team ready to play. Part of it is them evaluating what they see as well, so hopefully it's a great product from what they see from us and what our potential is and we'll be able to collect the guys that we need that feel that they can help our team and elevate themselves even higher."

On Draft Advice He Might Have For Laviska Shenault Jr.
"When I was coaching receivers in Miami, I already evaluated about 40 receivers prior to the combine, and Laviska was one of them, obviously. He's a very talented kid and I had a lot of questions for him because his production wasn't as high this year as it was the previous year and I know he's had some injuries in his career, so those are questions that I've had. I have met him since he's been on campus and I know he just went through a surgery after the combine and it was good to meet him finally and get a few minutes to talk to him. I know his head's in the right place right now in terms of his next step and what he wants to accomplish in the NFL. He knows he's not a finished product too, he knows that this is going to set him back and there's going to be question marks because of this injury that he just had, but he has enough on tape to prove to people that he's definitely an NFL quality player and he can help somebody put some points on the board. My advice for him was that everything about him and what he does is what he does from this point forward, it's not anything that you've done in the past that you can't really change, it's really what you do as you look forward to this opportunity. Are you going to prepare yourself both mentally and physically in doing the necessary things for you to have the success that you garner for yourself? It's really just him putting himself in a mindset of looking forward and with that the impression and understanding that he's not a finished product and he knows he has so much to learn. But with that being part of the process, a lot of these rookies are that way. They're not coming into the NFL just polished and ready to go, and as long as they understand that they have a lot to learn as they play, they usually make the adjustment pretty quick."

On Getting To Know The Players During The Break
"I would say it's more difficult doing this not in person. With the players, we're all off to a really good start with my interviews that I made my first week when I was on the job, which was to interview all the players in a get to know you type of setting. What are their hobbies, their family lives, things like that. Those are kind of the icebreaker moments that I started early and then as we continue to work together and I watch workouts and stuff like that it kind of helps the process too. So, this kind of puts things on hold. I won't say it's a hindrance but I would say it's on hold because we're not together where I'm able to see all of those guys face to face. But we are in constant contact and our coaches are in constant contact as well. I've mentioned this to the team and said, 'Men, whatever we're dealing with we're going to use this as a challenge and as a great opportunity. Not as something that's going to set us back', so right now that's the mindset we're trying to build with our team. What are we doing to maximize this time that might be better than what everybody else is doing. We're looking at it as what can we do better and I know our players are creating that mindset and are talking to each other about making sure they're doing their workouts and handling their academic situations. This is a good challenge for us to kind of wait and see how when this is all said and done and we're back on campus, what good a shape are we in."

On If The Delay On Spring Ball Is A Silver Lining For Meshing The Staff Together
"I'm going to say this delicately because I think this is where coaches can be in the laboratory too long and then they can be a problem. So, I would say yes in general. We are spending time as a staff offensively, defensively, special teams, kind of just working on our systems, what our philosophy is, who we think are going to be, the certain players in certain positions, all that stuff. That's all that stuff that we're getting together right now as a staff. My biggest thing, and I learned this years ago, is that we have to be really careful about how much we're in the laboratory devising too many things just because it's not about what we know it's what our players know. That's the biggest thing that we have to be smart about is as much as we spend all this time creating new avenues, ideas, things like that, if it's too much for our players to handle then they're not going to play as effectively and fast and explosive and physical if they have too much on their plate. So, sometimes having this type of time as a staff can be a detriment because we're not on the field, we're not evaluating them daily, and we're not maximizing their abilities because we're not seeing it face to face and in person. Those are the things that I remind the staff is that 'Man it's not how many different ways I can skin the cat, it's really those guys that are doing it, can they do it?'. Those are the things that are more important. We can't be too crazy about getting too much ahead of ourselves but we have to be prepared about being ready to go at any moment."

On The Quarterback Battle
"That's the biggest question in my mind offensively. We want to make sure we're maximizing the abilities of what our quarterbacks can do more so than what I think from a scheme perspective that an offensive coach wants to do. That's the biggest example I can tell you is we've got to make a thorough evaluation there. We have two quarterbacks on campus currently. One is a true freshmen here and one is a veteran player that was a backup. We have to figure out what their skill sets are and what they can be productive at on a consistent level and kind of build it from there. Yet alone they've got to compete because we don't have a starter right now. That's the one position that we have to be really smart about because he's the one that's going to engineer our offense. It's still undecided as to how much you go in a particular direction because we don't have a starter there yet."

On The Players Staying Connected Throughout This Process
"That's really the most important part in my opinion. As coaches we're trying to create those lines of communication with our players and with coaches to coaches and players to coaches and coaches to players. We're trying to create all those lines of communication, but the most important line of communication I believe is the peer to peer communication that's going on between your team. We're trying to cultivate that and that's not an easy thing to do, but we are encouraging that with our players from a coaching perspective. We're trying to create these group chats and these group opportunities to kind of do things together in terms of the workouts. They're not all in the same place so sometimes it's hard but at least the communication piece I think is critical. And if we can continue to build on that in this particular time and circumstances we're dealing with and continue to get better at those things, even though we're not together as a team, I think it gives us that much more of an edge."

Players Mentioned

Laviska Shenault Jr.

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