Colorado University Athletics
CU's Dorrell And Staff Continue To Move Forward Despite Shutdown
March 26, 2020 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — New Colorado football coach Karl Dorrell and his staff are doing their best to move forward in the face of unprecedented circumstances.
Dorrell — like all other residents of Colorado — is abiding to a "shelter in place" order as the state, nation and world battle the coronavirus. But that doesn't mean he and his assistants can't continue to work on recruiting, offensive and defensive schemes and other areas that don't require actually having players on the field for a practice.
Dorrell, who spoke to the media via conference call Thursday afternoon, made it clear that dealing with the pandemic and doing everything necessary to battle the issue is paramount. "The health and safety of our country is at stake and so we need to do what's right," he said.
But he and his staff are also using every means possible to continue to communicate daily and move forward.
"We're still trying to find a way to be productive," he said. "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. There's plenty of stuff on our plate … So we're just moving forward and taking it day by day."
CU students are currently on spring break this week, with online classes scheduled to resume next week for the rest of the semester. Spring football was originally scheduled to begin March 16 for a week and then resume again next week, but that is now obviously not going to happen.
Thus, Dorrell and his staff are holding online meetings with players and position groups as often as NCAA rules allow to continue to familiarize them with the new offensive and defensive schemes.
"Now that we're completely remote, the Zoom meetings are critical," he said. "I think everybody's starting to do that right now. That's something we started a little bit of prior to spring break and now we know it's the best means for us to do it right now … They're on spring break this week, so we gave them the week off. But as soon as school is back in session next week along with our meeting times we've already registered, we're going to keep those meeting times and do it from a Zoom meeting standpoint."
Meanwhile, director of strength and conditioning Drew Wilson maintains regular contact with players as well by sending them modified workout plans they can achieve at home. The Buffs had just wrapped up a nine-week spring strength and conditioning session when the coronavirus shutdown hit, and CU coaches want players to maintain as much of those gains as possible.
"Our strength staff has done a really fantastic job," Dorrell said. "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 on 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 … I think our players at least have an idea of what they can do to stay in shape."
But while coaches are maintaining contact with players, Dorrell said the most critical part of the equation will be how well the players stay in contact with each other until they are once again allowed to gather together and practice.
"That's really the most important part in my opinion," Dorrell said. "As coaches we're trying to create those lines of communication with our players and with coaches … 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."
Dorrell said that player-to-player communication can maintain motivation as well as the learning process — even when the players can't be together.
"We're trying to create these group chats and these group opportunities to kind of do things together in terms of the workouts," he said. "They're not all in the same place so sometimes it's hard but 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."
Dorrell admits that taking the reins of a program — he was hired Feb. 23 — just before the coronavirus shutdown makes the challenge a little more difficult, but he also noted that virtually every program in America today is facing the same obstacles as far as the shutdown goes.
It means the CU staff wants to be prepared as possible when teams are allowed to practice again.
"I'm not looking at it as a detriment just because I'm new," he said "Everybody's dealing with this … I know 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."
Dorrell also acknowledged that the possibility of a shortened season next fall — or no season at all — exists.
"Those thoughts have crossed my mind," he said. "It's hard to fathom at this point, being that we're still in March, but we're hopeful. I know it's going to take some time for this pandemic to calm down and be under control. 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."
But, he stressed, the country's welfare is far more crucial than a football season.
"Our country's health is more important than anything right now, just to kind of get that under wraps and under control," he said. "I think those are the things that in our minds we need to create the understanding are more important. The other parts, we'll figure out those things when the time comes."
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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