Monday is a designated off day for the Colorado football team, but as Gerald Chatman, Terrance Lang and others walked through the team’s facility earlier this week, what they saw wasn’t indicative of a team taking any time off.

About half of the Buffs’ defense was on the fourth floor of the Champions Center breaking down film, asking coaches to explain different aspects of the team’s new defense and getting some early preparatory work in for Arizona State, their opponent Saturday. Players were taking diligent notes. Linebacker Robert Barnes even brought his dog with him.

And, to think, all of this was coming fewer than 48 hours after a 33-point loss.

“People are just hungry to get the information early,” Lang said. “That just shows we’ve still got the desire to win deep down inside.”

The process of learning a new defense in the middle of the season hasn’t been easy, but it has showcased some of the silver linings to be found on a roster that has combined to win just one of its first seven games.

As Colorado’s defense prepares for its third game under the guidance of Chatman, the defensive line coach and interim defensive coordinator, it’s still very much a work in progress, a group doing what it can to make the best of an unenviable situation.

Some Buffs players had spent much of the past two years learning Chris Wilson’s defense. Others who arrived in time for this season at least had a spring or summer to pick up on it. But when Wilson and head coach Karl Dorrell were fired on Oct. 2 after a 0-5 start to the season, Chatman took over and with that came a whole new system and set of concepts to learn. That tedious process started anew – and in an accelerated form.

“You’ve got to be realistic, but I'm amazed at how much they can do,” Chatman said. “These kids are smart and talented. We’ve got some talented guys. They are smart enough to where if you teach it the right way to them, they can learn if they put the work in to learn it.”

The results so far have been mixed.

In its first game, Chatman’s new defense looked like a revelation, one that transformed a previously hapless defense into an aggressive, formidable unit. In an overtime victory against Cal on Oct. 15, the Buffs held their opponent to 297 total yards, four yards per play and 1.6 yards per rush while forcing two turnovers, finishing with 10 tackles for loss and regularly getting pressure in the quarterback’s face. While their offense continued to struggle to score, their defense helped deliver them their long-awaited first win of the season.

The encore wasn’t nearly as encouraging. In a 42-9 loss last Saturday at Oregon State, the defense looked much like it did in Colorado’s first five games, each of which it lost by at least 23 points. In the drubbing, it gave up 472 yards, 7.2 yards per play and 6.1 yards per carry, all while surrendering more than for the fourth time in seven games. Following that loss, the Buffs are 130th of 131 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in yards per carry allowed (6.2) and 129th in scoring defense (38.7 points per game).

While the argument could be made that Oregon State was more prepared than Cal by having the advantage of a full game’s worth of tape on Chatman’s new schemes and arrangements – a point made by linebacker Josh Chandler-Semedo following the Oregon State loss – Chatman attributed most of the Buffs’ shortcomings to a lack of proper technique, which put them in unfavorable positions against a strong Beavers offensive line. It’s something for which he takes responsibility, saying “it’s not the kids’ fault.”

“If you're going to install something new or you're trying to get guys to understand and you’ve got guys in different positions, it's a little bit harder in terms of time to work on tackling or work on base fundamentals like footwork,” he said. “That's kind of where we failed.”

Chatman understands the difficult position his players find themselves in and, as a coach, he has adjusted accordingly.

Rather than try to cram and potentially overload the players by stuffing several months worth of preparation into only a handful of weeks, he has presented things piece by piece. There are priorities to implement, but in some cases, the coaches will try to install something, the players will struggle with executing it and, with little time to perfect it, the coaches will simply scrap it and move along to other lessons.

“Time is not in our favor, but we’ve got to be strategic about utilizing our time the right way, overloading them a little bit and trimming it down as we see fit,” Chatman said. “If they can’t do it, then take it out.”

Trying to neutralize Arizona State won’t be the same kind of challenge Oregon State was, if only because the Sun Devils’ offensive line isn’t nearly as effective. Chatman said that while Colorado prepares for its upcoming opponent offensively, it tries to focus just as much on itself and its progress.

In the first two games, players got the chance to play in new positions and utilize different strengths. It’s a change the Buffs are still embracing, even after a loss.

“That’s the whole energy around the room,” Lang said. “You wouldn't have even thought we lost if you came in here. The energy today at practice was there. We were flying around.”