University of Colorado Athletics
Behind the Walls: What Chris Marve Did With a Year Away
August 07, 2026 | Football
FOUNTAIN — There is a book about the year Chris Marve spent out of coaching.
Before he gets to that, his focus is on the 2026 version of the Colorado defense, which the Buffaloes' coordinator built out of what he gathered while he had no team to go back to. For one season, Marve did not have a logo on his chest, and that turned out to be the useful part.
"You may be friends with colleagues or peers in your profession, but because you're at a particular institution, they can't let you behind the walls," he said. "I had access to pretty much anywhere I wanted to go, so I got to really be in the rooms for some innovative coaching and teaching and leading."
Marve joined the Colorado Buffaloes football staff in January to coach linebackers, then took over as defensive coordinator just before spring practice opened. He still has the linebacker room. What he did not have was much time between the promotion and the first install.
He describes the year that preceded all of it in two halves. The first was confirmation.
"A lot of things I fundamentally believe as a football coach were reinforced," Marve said. "And I had access to things that are innovative or cutting edge that you typically don't when you work at an institution."
The second half was harder, and it did not happen until he had a defense of his own to answer for. Marve considers himself a teacher, and he reached for that vocabulary to explain what he did with what he had collected.
"When I'm teaching, I was taught the framework of lesson planning in terms of backwards planning: Where do you want to end up?" he said. "Then you take the incremental steps backwards to figure out what the boxes are that you need to check, and what the boxes are that you don't even realize are there yet that you need to check. So we did that."
What that looked like in practice was April and May spent almost entirely in the building. Marve said he went out on the road for a single day. The rest of it was spent with his staff taking the defense apart.
"The majority of the time I was there with a bunch of our staff evaluating and asking the questions as it relates to why are we doing this, how are we teaching this, is this the best way — not just because I've done it before or we have tape and examples of it, but does it suit the personnel that we have to help us deploy the most effective defense?" Marve said. "So it's not about what I've done in the past. It's about what our players can do."
Two ideas came out of the audit. One is the standard he set in a team meeting Sunday, when he told the Buffs he was looking for the best 11 rather than the 11 best.
"Think about the human body: the ear does something different than the foot," Marve said. "So we don't necessarily need 10 hands or 11 hands. You don't need 11 sets of eyes. What you need is a functioning unit that can function at a high level consistently. You can have 11 elite athletes, but if they don't function in tandem or in unison, you don't have an effective unit."
The other is that the answer to who those 11 are will be settled by data rather than by feel. Marve said the staff logs one-on-one win rates, effort to the ball, including a specific example of whether a player shows up on the end zone camera and at what rate.
"We track everything, so we have objective data that says, 'Hey, either you're getting it done or you aren't,'" he said. Asked whether the resulting decisions would be difficult, he said the data is objective, then added that he hopes they are difficult.
The players have felt the install more than the philosophy. Sixth-year defensive back Ben Finneseth said the timing of the coordinator change meant learning coverages the group had never run, under a different identity than it had played with before.
"Getting everyone used to the playbook and being able to rep these calls over and over and over — now, all of a sudden, we don't have to think about the defense anymore, and we can pay attention to what the offense is giving us," Finneseth said.
Linebacker Gideon Lampron, who has Marve twice over as coordinator and position coach, said the message has not moved since spring.
"Coming from Coach Marve, it's establishing our identity — being fast and relentless and playing very physical," Lampron said. "That's the way he wants us to play."
Marve has been careful about how much he will claim four practices in. He has declined to grade the group before pads, saying the Buffs had not yet played real football.
He has been less careful about how much the year away mattered. Asked what he took from it, he started by conceding the question was too big for the room.
"I could write a book about that," he said. "I plan to one day, actually."
Before he gets to that, his focus is on the 2026 version of the Colorado defense, which the Buffaloes' coordinator built out of what he gathered while he had no team to go back to. For one season, Marve did not have a logo on his chest, and that turned out to be the useful part.
"You may be friends with colleagues or peers in your profession, but because you're at a particular institution, they can't let you behind the walls," he said. "I had access to pretty much anywhere I wanted to go, so I got to really be in the rooms for some innovative coaching and teaching and leading."
Marve joined the Colorado Buffaloes football staff in January to coach linebackers, then took over as defensive coordinator just before spring practice opened. He still has the linebacker room. What he did not have was much time between the promotion and the first install.
He describes the year that preceded all of it in two halves. The first was confirmation.
"A lot of things I fundamentally believe as a football coach were reinforced," Marve said. "And I had access to things that are innovative or cutting edge that you typically don't when you work at an institution."
The second half was harder, and it did not happen until he had a defense of his own to answer for. Marve considers himself a teacher, and he reached for that vocabulary to explain what he did with what he had collected.
"When I'm teaching, I was taught the framework of lesson planning in terms of backwards planning: Where do you want to end up?" he said. "Then you take the incremental steps backwards to figure out what the boxes are that you need to check, and what the boxes are that you don't even realize are there yet that you need to check. So we did that."
What that looked like in practice was April and May spent almost entirely in the building. Marve said he went out on the road for a single day. The rest of it was spent with his staff taking the defense apart.
"The majority of the time I was there with a bunch of our staff evaluating and asking the questions as it relates to why are we doing this, how are we teaching this, is this the best way — not just because I've done it before or we have tape and examples of it, but does it suit the personnel that we have to help us deploy the most effective defense?" Marve said. "So it's not about what I've done in the past. It's about what our players can do."
Two ideas came out of the audit. One is the standard he set in a team meeting Sunday, when he told the Buffs he was looking for the best 11 rather than the 11 best.
"Think about the human body: the ear does something different than the foot," Marve said. "So we don't necessarily need 10 hands or 11 hands. You don't need 11 sets of eyes. What you need is a functioning unit that can function at a high level consistently. You can have 11 elite athletes, but if they don't function in tandem or in unison, you don't have an effective unit."
The other is that the answer to who those 11 are will be settled by data rather than by feel. Marve said the staff logs one-on-one win rates, effort to the ball, including a specific example of whether a player shows up on the end zone camera and at what rate.
"We track everything, so we have objective data that says, 'Hey, either you're getting it done or you aren't,'" he said. Asked whether the resulting decisions would be difficult, he said the data is objective, then added that he hopes they are difficult.
The players have felt the install more than the philosophy. Sixth-year defensive back Ben Finneseth said the timing of the coordinator change meant learning coverages the group had never run, under a different identity than it had played with before.
"Getting everyone used to the playbook and being able to rep these calls over and over and over — now, all of a sudden, we don't have to think about the defense anymore, and we can pay attention to what the offense is giving us," Finneseth said.
Linebacker Gideon Lampron, who has Marve twice over as coordinator and position coach, said the message has not moved since spring.
"Coming from Coach Marve, it's establishing our identity — being fast and relentless and playing very physical," Lampron said. "That's the way he wants us to play."
Marve has been careful about how much he will claim four practices in. He has declined to grade the group before pads, saying the Buffs had not yet played real football.
He has been less careful about how much the year away mattered. Asked what he took from it, he started by conceding the question was too big for the room.
"I could write a book about that," he said. "I plan to one day, actually."
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