Dorrell Aim For Strong Finish To Spring

BOULDER — Colorado coach Karl Dorrell wants his Buffaloes to finish the spring with some momentum heading into the summer.

The Buffs wrapped up their 13th practice of the spring on Monday, leaving Wednesday's workout and Friday's Spring Showcase (Pac-12 Network) to close out the session.

Finishing strong, Dorrell said, is critical.

"I want to come out of spring practice feeling that our young players and our players that have gotten a ton of reps this spring feel like they're very comfortable and confident that they can perform their role on offense and defense and special teams," Dorrell said. "That's really what the refocus is — going back and cleaning up the whole course of what's happened this spring so we finish this spring feeling like we have a great foundation."

Developing depth has been a top priority for Dorrell and his staff this spring. Thus far, they believe they have hit that goal, as a long list of young players and veterans without much experience have received plenty of repetitions.

Now, Dorrell wants a strong finish so the Buffs can take the confidence they have gained while learning a new defense and a revamped offense into their summer session.

"The confidence factor is really important," Dorrell said. "When you feel like you know what you're doing from an assignment standpoint and you know what you're looking at in terms of how to execute that assigment, that makes a player play faster."

That confidence, Dorrell said, will allow every player to hone his individual skills in the summer — while also operating with the comfort level of knowing their schemes and assignments.

"They can still work on the tools and technique that they can do on their own, but they can feel like know our offense, they know our defense and they know what they need to do," Dorrell said. "Then they're physically getting ready to play. That's the goal out of spring, to make sure everybody is confident that they've made a tremendous amount of progress. Now we're going to go into summer and there's some things they can work on through individual drill technique or the player-led practices in the summer. There's a lot of stuff they can cover to really sharpen themselves up."

Dorrell has mentioned a number of young player throughout the spring that have made good progress in learning the system, becoming comfortable with their assignments — and then making plays in practices and scrimmages.

Among those he noted Monday were left tackle Gerad Christian-Lichtenhan, tight end Caleb Fauria, running back Ashaad Clayton, quarterbacks Drew Carter and J.T. Shrout, defensive lineman Na'im Rodman, linebackers Joshka Gustav and Devin Grant, and safety Mark Perry.

By no means will all of those players be in starting positions in the fall. But they will add crucial depth and be ready to perform when needed.

"There's a number of young guys who have improved their knowledge base and improved their skill set," Dorrell said. "We need to continue to build on that as we move forward."

VAN DIEST DIALING IN: One veteran that Dorrell mentioned as making big strides is inside linebacker Jonathan Van Diest.

A junior, Van Diest has played mostly a reserve role in his career thus far, although he did get one start in the regular season last year and also started the Alamo Bowl.

But this spring, he's been running with the No. 1 defense and Dorrell said he's seen solid improvement.

"He has a real good grasp of what we're trying to do defensively so he's helping other people get lined up and checking calls and making sure it's the right calls," Dorrell said. "He's done a great job in pass coverage, too. He's had his hands on a lot of footballs."

Dorrell said Van Diest's coverage skills in CU's new defense has been stellar, and noted that he had an interception in last Friday's scrimmage.

"He's doing a really nice job of reading the quarterback and just being around the football," Dorrell said. "He's getting all of these reps and it's really helping his game."

BACK TO MORNINGS FOR FALL: Dorrell switched up the practice schedule this spring, moving the workouts to the afternoon. He said he did so in order to give his players a chance for a little more sleep as well as take advantage of warmer weather in the afternoons.

But next fall, the Buffs will return to a morning practice schedule. One reason, he said, is the Pac-12's agreement to take an ESPN early kickoff slot — noon on the East Coast, but 10 a.m. in Colorado and 9 a.m. on the West Coast.

"I want to make sure our team is always in rhythm to play early in case we're playing well and we get some TV slots and ESPN picks us up," he said. "If we're playing a 10 o'clock game, it's no sweat off our backs."

Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu