At his Monday afternoon press conference live from San Antonio, Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell gave a final series of remarks to reporters before the Buffaloes face No. 20 Texas tomorrow night in the Valero Alamo Bowl.

The Buffs and Longhorns will kickoff from the Alamodome at 7:05 p.m. MST. The game will be televised on ESPN.

Dorrell noted last week before the team travelled to San Antonio that there were a few positive COVID cases within the program. At the time, he expressed confidence that Colorado would be well over the 53-man threshold of healthy players needed to conduct a game and on Monday, he reaffirmed that belief.

Without going into further specifics, Dorrell said that the main hit the team has taken with respect to players being out due to COVID is in terms of depth, but not starters.

"We have a few positives that are in the program but not enough to warrant us not playing the game," he said. "We're still on schedule to play. We've been in relatively food health since we've been here. Our policy is to play our 53 scholarship players, you've got to have four defensive linemen, seven offensive linemen, a quarterback — those base parameters of being able to play are intact."

"We're in pretty good shape. We did lose some depth in some areas, but everybody's dealt with that over the course of the season."

It's probably fair to say that for Dorrell and his staff, they long gave up on the possibility of having no COVID issues within the program whatsoever. That's just not feasible, given the circumstances.

As Dorrell has said before, the Buffs continue to take things day by day, with one final cross-team set of COVID tests the final health precaution standing in the way of the them and the Alamo Bowl.

"It's one of those things that we continue to battle until the season gets over," Dorrell said. "We're healthy enough today — at leas after this morning's test results — and we'll be able to roll tomorrow night. We've got one more test tomorrow and that will give us the clarity to give us a final go for the game, so we're hopeful and we feel like we're in pretty good health for that to not be disruptive for that to happen to us tomorrow."

Russell has not played since early in Colorado's second game of the year against Stanford, during which he went down with a "loser leg injury" that has sidelined him since.

Dorrell mentioned last week that Russell had a chance to play in the Alamo Bowl, but needed to show coaches that he was at 100% health and speed.

Unfortunately for Russell, despite his best efforts, he just wasn't able to do so and out of an abundance of caution, Dorrell won't play him Tuesday night.

"He was trying like crazy to get back healthy and right, doing everything he can," Dorrell said. "He's running and doing things that are progressing well, but not well enough. He's not full speed, so I'm not going to put him at risk to be in a game and just throw him out there."

"He is disappointed, as you can imagine, but it's the best thing for him."

As has been the case for the last few weeks, sophomore walk-on CJ Schmanski will handle much of the tight end duties for Colorado, with converted defensive linemen Nico Magri likely seeing action on the goal line in run block packages.

Grad transfer walk-on Matt Lynch is also back to full health and should be a go Tuesday.

Shenault, due to a violation of Colorado athletic department policies, has been suspended and did not travel with the team to the Alamo Bowl.

The younger brother of former Buffalo Laviska Shenault had been suspended for the Buffs' home opener against UCLA due to an arrest on July 7 in Fort Collins due to driving under the influence.

"Vontae was suspended for a violation of our department policy — not just football, but athletics in general. When you're ineligible for that suspension, you're not allowed to come to the bowl," Dorrell said. "Vontae was with us through Wednesday of the week before we travelled over the weekend, so yeah, he was down at his older brother's game (in Jacksonville) but that's the reason why he was there."

Lewis was one of the most highly-anticipated recruits to sign with Colorado's Class of 2020. The dual-threat signal caller from Melissa, Texas has been with the program since January and earned the praise of Dorrell and QBs coach Danny Langsdorf for his abilities, albeit him being "raw."

With senior Sam Noyer set to handle the vast majority of the action at quarterback and given junior Tyler Lytle is in the transfer portal and not with the team in San Antonio, Lewis will serve as Colorado's primary backup at QB.

Dorrell indicated that it was his intention and desire to get Lewis into the game at some point on Tuesday.

"We're excited about Brendon," Dorrell said. "I'd like to get him a chance to get in the game and get a series in the first half — I'd like to be able to do that because I think he's earned that. He's worked really hard these last couple weeks and he has a pretty good feel of our game plan."

"It'd be good to try to get him some experience, give him at least a series in the game so he can feel the speed of it and all that stuff and take that and register it for going into next year."

Colorado's offensive line (from left to right) of Will Sherman, Kary Kutsch, Colby Pursell, Casey Roddick and Frank Fillip will by all indications be back in action against Texas.

Fillip, Roddick and Sherman are the Colorado offensive linemen to have played all five regular season games, with Fillip playing in every offensive snap while Sherman played in all but four. Roddick missed 10 snaps against Stanford.

Pursell went down late in the UCLA game with an injury and was out until returning against Utah on Dec.11 while Kutsch subbed in at center for him before missing the last two games of the year due to a positive COVID test.

Tuesday is set to mark the first time all five of them have started a game together since Nov. 7.

"It's the first time we've had these guys all back since the first game," Dorrell said. "We lost Colby against UCLA — Colby's back, Kary's back at left guard, Casey is at right guard and the two tackles (Sherman & Fillip) who have been healthy all season — those guys are all intact. It's good to finish the season in a healthier fashion upfront."