The argument that Karl Dorrell, being a new coach who was deprived of Spring ball and the ability to get to know his new team much thanks to COVID, had the biggest challenge ahead of him of all Power Five coaches got a lot stronger with the Pac-12's recent postponement of all fall sports competitions through Jan. 1, 2021 at the earliest.

The laundry list of tasks Dorrell had in front of him is now far more complex and unprecedented, as he'll look to navigate through the next few months leading up to a prospective make up season in the spring.

This past Thursday, every Colorado football player, coach and staff member was tested for COVID-19 and this weekend, the results showed zero positive cases.

Dorrell thus must aim to keep the COVID numbers as close to zero as possible over the ensuing couple months as well as continue to get his guys ready for whenever and whatever the next steps on this strange, pandemic-themed journey.

The game plan? Utilize the NCAA-mandated 20 hours of "countable athletically related activities per week."

The Pac-12 has postponed all competitions for this fall; teams can essentially continue to operate as they have been this summer, albeit minus fall camp with pads, which was due to begin after this weekend.

“We’re going to be moving forward but in a much more controlled fashion," Dorrell said. "We were in a walk-through phase and getting ready for training camp, which was supposed to start on Monday the 17th but there will be no training camp, so we’ve had a process of information we’re trying to jam in prior to training camp. I think all of that will be extended now."

While the fall season is a no-go, Dorrell intends to keep the Buffs sharp in the event that they and in turn their Pac-12 colleagues are granted the opportunity for organized practices sometime before the end of 2020.

"We’ve got a pretty good plan that we’re working on for our guys that we’re going to be talking about with our staff over the next few days to try to iron out a pretty big plan for this point in August through the end of November. That’s something we’re trying to create with a potential of spring practice. There could be a spring practice session somewhere in that realm towards the end of the year, so there’s a lot of planning that we’re starting to process looking into right now.”

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As for safety protocols, Dorrell doesn't anticipate much change in direction, given the success Colorado's procedures have had coupled with the players themselves being diligent about avoiding large social gatherings or going out in public for frivolous reasons.

“I think we stay with the current policy standards," Dorrell said. "We’re constantly enforcing social distancing and code policies that are here on campus. I’m very, very proud of my football team for how they’ve responded to that and been responsible about using safe practices."

"Yes, the whole team was tested as recently as Thursday of last week and those results came in over the weekend — all the coaches, players, staff and everybody was negative, so we feel good that we’re creating a very safe environment to train and get ready through our preparation. I think our plan doesn’t change."

While much attention has surrounded Dorrell since he was hired by Colorado and the constant laundry list of challenges he's faced as a first-year head coach, he had praise to dish out to the players themselves for how they've handled things since mid-February.

"They kept trudging forward...I’m very proud of this football team," he said. "They’ve given us a chance to be successful this fall, but there’s no fall. Our next step is to continue to be resilient to our next level of scheduling, which is preparing for potential spring practices, organized practices — anything that we can get."

While Dorrell and Co. remain optimistic that they could at least get some practice time in at a later date before the end of 2020, in terms of the feasibility of playing a make up season in 2021 followed by the traditional fall 2021 season, Dorrell has his concerns.

“It will be challenging just because it’s an unknown experience — we just haven’t done it," he said. "I haven’t done it in my 33 years (of coaching). I understand the reasonings to do it but it’s particularly challenging, I would think. There’s a recovery period when you play a football season, and I’m concerned a little bit about that with this potential situation, but that’s not to say that it couldn’t happen, though."

The player safety element of doing two seasons in one calendar year is what gives Dorrell some second thoughts.

"If you think about it, the offensive and defensive linemen, they do a lot of pounding on each other," he said. "That’s their position by nature so normally, the injuries they incur over a season — there’s neck issues, back issues, knee issues — there’s a lot to be thinking about with the long term health of those guys."

As Darrin Chiaverini likes to say: "control the controllables." Right now, for Dorrell and the Buffs, that seems to be the best course of action, despite the obvious let down of there being no fall 2020 season.

“As you guys can well imagine, there’s a level of disappointment when I spoke to the team yesterday afternoon," he said. "...But it’s definitely something we can recover from, be resilient about and continue to look forward. I know there’s models of possibly doing some football preparation, potentially some spring practices (this fall). But we’re going to adjust and continue to move forward as a program, but there was definitely some disappointment and so that was the initial feeling. The next step is ‘where do we go from here?’”