Karl Dorrell joined reporters on Zoom for a Friday morning conference, where he took time to review the 2020 season and begin looking ahead to this upcoming fall.
Dorrell also addressed how the Buffs' searches for a new defensive coordinator and strength & conditioning coordinator are coming along. Below are some highlights of his full remarks.
Dorrell on the timeframes of making both hires:
“We’re close to being done with the strength coach to answer your question. That’s first and foremost right now, because our offseason program is going to start up here quickly. We need to have that in place and that’s close to being done. Obviously, the defensive coordinator position is not and that’s going to take a little bit more time. We went through a pretty good process of trying to hire the right coach for our strength and conditioning and we’re pretty close on that. We’re probably within days of getting that done.”
Dorrell comments on how he came to decide a change at defensive coordinator was necessary along with what the eventual hire will immediately have on his plate:
“We’re going to make sure that the next person who’s in that position will do a great job of bringing our defense forward. We’ve done some positive things this year but there’s a number of things we need to fix, reexamine and really try to tailor to the skill set of the players that are in the program. Those are things we’re going to work on and continue to be a driving force for us to be as good as we can be defensively. Was there a point in the season that led me to this decision? No, not necessarily. I reflected on a lot of the stuff after the season ended and flying back from Texas coming home. I went through about 10 days of evaluation — just me going through a lot of things I saw this year that I want to move forward to and that’s going to help us in 2021. I’m still going through it right now."
"I’m going to comb through this, there’s no time frame in terms of what I’m feeling right now and I just want to make sure that when we come out and line up in 2021, I want to be different than what we were in 2020. Like I said, 2020, we’re going to use that as a reference point, but 2021 is a whole new year with a whole new objective and a whole new standard on how we do things. For us to get those things accomplished, it’s going to take a great level of commitment from both our staff and from our players.”
Dorrell on the areas of improvement, on both sides of the ball, that need to happen for the Buffs moving forward:
“It’s really every area. I thought offensively, we came out like gangbusters and played really well the first few games. I’d say the last few it started tailing off a bit towards the end of the year. We’re going through that, evaluating that and so there’s a number of things that we can clean up offensively even though there were some real positive things that occurred and we all know what those things were and who those people were. Offensively, we have enough on our plate to continue to improve."
"Defensively, it’s really a very similar thing. It hurt us towards the end of the year. I thought we played really well in a number of places and we did a good job in most circumstances until the latter two games of the season. Some of it was (due) to we lost some people along the way and COVID hit — things like that. We came in kind of limping from that perspective, too."
"But on both sides of the ball there were some real positive things done and I know that there are some things that we can build on and, hopefully learn from, from last season. We definitely have a lot of work to do. There;’s a tremendous amount of work to do. There’s a lot of different areas. It’s not just one thing on either side of the ball. There's schemes we have to evaluate, players we have to evaluate, and so it’s one of those things that I’m going to make sure our staff does a really good job of —going through with a fine tooth comb, going through everything that we’ve done and scrutinize the good, the bad and the ugly. That's' what we’re going through right now.”
Dorrell on if he anticipates making any more coaching staff changes in the near future:
"I want to keep working through that in every facet of our program. I'm going to continue to try to put what's best fr us moving forward and that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get our program to be as good as it can be, at a level that it should be. I'm evaluating every area that's in, around and supports our football team and trying to make the best results come out and have the best results for our players when we line up and play. That's all I can really say. That's an ongoing process right now."
