Chase Garbers, Cal Berkeley's redshirt senior quarterback, enters this Saturday's game against the Buffaloes with 28 career starts under his belt.
The 6-foot-2, 225-pound veteran currently ranks seventh all-time at California in total offense and ninth in touchdown passes.
Garbers has faced Colorado just once, in both teams' 2018 regular season finale, a time when the Buffs were led by interim head coach Kurt Roper following the dismissal of Mike MacIntyre.
In that game, a 33-21 win for Cal that likely feels as if it were a lifetime ago to CU fans, given the two coaching searches and hires that have transpired since in Boulder, Garbers went 14-of-26 with 116 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Not exactly the flashiest of stat lines but an efficient day at the office nonetheless.
While the Bears currently sit at 1-5 (0-3 Pac-12) on the year, Garbers has turned in a 2021 campaign largely in line with what he's done in the past: nine touchdowns, five picks, 1,492 yards and a 62% completion percentage.
Garbers very well may not be the best veteran quarterback that Colorado has faced to date or will see by season's end — with Minnesota's Tanner Morgan, ASU's Jayden Daniels, Oregon's Anthony Brown, UCLA's Dorian Thompson-Robinson coming to mind — yet his experience is something CU has made special note of.
"I think that’s always an advantage for a team because they’ve seen a lot of things and they’ve been able to put their team in the right place, the right situations and they’ve experienced a lot of different stuff," CU quarterbacks coach Danny Langsdorf said.
"Continuing to change up looks and make it hard for those guys is key because like I said, they’ve seen a lot of different looks to this point. Nothing’s all that new or that much of a surprise to them because they’ve experienced quite a bit of football.”
While Garbers' college football experience commands respect, Karl Dorrell is hopeful that his own veterans on defense can help level the playing field.
After all, eight of Colorado's 11 defensive starters are upperclassmen, with juniors Isaiah Lewis and Mekhi Blackmon having played particularly well in the secondary so far this season and Nate Landman and Carson Wells continuing to form one of the better linebacker partnerships in the nation.
That said, with three of Garbers' wide receivers, Trevon Clark, Jeremiah Hunter and Kekoa Crawford, all averaging north of 50 receiving yards per game, Dorrell sees Saturday's game against the Bears as a test for CU's veterans and defense in general.
“It’s a challenge," Dorrell said. "It’s alway challenging — the best thing is when you have a veteran defense going up against a veteran quarterback, that kind of neutralizes some of that but (Garbers is) a really good player."
"I think he manages their system really well. I think sometimes you can disregard how athletic he is just because he’s a pocket passer. But he can make some plays with his legs."
At this point in the 2021 season, Garbers has ran the ball 54 times, second on the Bears only to tailback Damien Moore.
A few weeks ago, when CU played and lost to Arizona State, Daniels threw for 236 yards through the air but also gashed the Buffs on the ground, rushing seven times for 75 yards, with both of his touchdowns on the day coming via his legs.
Needless to say, Colorado and Dorrell personally would like to avoid something similar happening Saturday in Berkeley.
"(Cal) does feature him at times doing some quarterback runs, so, he’s multi-faceted," Dorrell said. "If you give him time in the pocket to really go through his progressions, he’ll find the open guy. He’s a seasoned player.”
