Published Dec 14, 2020
Karl Dorrell's full post-Monday practice remarks
Justin Guerriero  •  CUSportsReport
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Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell fielded questions from reporters following Monday's practice in Boulder, where he spoke about junior QB Tyler Lytle's decision to hit the transfer portal as well as transfer defensive lineman Antonio Alfano's ongoing struggles with epilepsy.

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Karl Dorrell responds to Antonio Alfano's tweet:

On Monday morning, shortly before Dorrell joined reporters for his weekly Zoom press conference, Alfano sent out a tweet detailing his struggle to manage epileptic seizures that have plagued him since mid-February.

Alfano indicated that he's been displeased of late with the medical aid and resources provided to him by Colorado, stating that "it has been about two months since anyone from CU Boulder has asked me about my epilepsy or how my health is in general."

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Dorrell responded as follows:

"A lot of what he posted is very truthful, since February. It's one of those unfortunate situations as a football coach, you know this player and the capabilities of this player and you've heard really good things about him — but really, I haven't had a chance to see any of his attributes that actually brought him here. The seizures started to happen like he said, back in February and it had never occurred before. So why now? There's a lot of questions out there about why are these things occurring, why we haven't ad solutions or progressive solutions to have this under control.

We've had a number of people that have tried to reach out to him over this fall. I had a meeting with him earlier this fall in October. He's in school, he's trying to deal with school and deal with these things that he's dealing with from a personal side and it's hard. It really is. And then COVID hits. He was scheduled to do some testing and then that gets postponed.

From my perspective, it's hard for me to comment more than what I just said, because a lot of it's out of our control — it's out of the football area of control. It's more of a medical issue for his health and safety t play football. That's why it's been taken away from me in being able to comment or show you more about what his progress and all that stuff is — medical information is very confidential.

But he put a lot of that out there so that everybody knows where he's dealing with and it's unfortunate. It really is. And again, we need to find a way to get him to where he feels good about his life. I think that's the most important thing — that's where I am, because I haven't seen him play a down of football. But I'm more concerned about just him as a normal human being to live a normal life and get things under control. That's first and foremost to me and it is unfortunate that we haven't found the right solution or done the right things to work down that path.

A lot of our communication has to be both ways. It has to be him being responsive to us and then obviously he's seeking for us to be more responsive to him. We've responded — believe me, we have. Chris Wilson has been trying to stay in contact with him, our academic coordinators and all the other people that deal with school have tried to keep in contact with him. Our mental health services area have been trying to do things to keep him in the loop of things because we're all concerned about what this does to a young man mentally.

He's not playing football, something he loves to do. He doesn't understand why he's having the issues he's having. Can you imagine what he's going through? It's frustrating. So, I get it — I' deeply concerned. But we have to be better at trying to get some solution here and we just haven't been able to do that yet."

Karl Dorrell on Tyler Lytle opting to transfer:

Shortly after Colorado's loss to Utah on Satrday, there was some unexpected news from Tyler Lytle, as the Buffs' junior signal caller announced via Twitter that he would transfer.

Dorrell indicated that he and Lytle had discussed the matter and that there was no love lost. With Lytle out of the equation, true freshman Brendon Lewis will now serve as Sam Noyer's primary backup.

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"Brendon Lewis is our backup. Tyler, for his personal situation and what he wants to accomplish, I gave him my — you know, I'm going to encourage him in anyway way I can for him to find success for himself. Dealing with the situation he's in right now, I understand where he's coming from. I want to be part of getting him an opportunity to finish up in any way I can.

We had that conversation but now that he's not here, Brendon Lewis, who'd had a lot of really good reps for us, and we'll keep bringing him along, he's now our No. 2. So, I do understand where Tyler's coming from and we both had a really good discussion. about it. He's a great kid and I want him to end out his career on his terms. I think that's what he's looking to do."

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Karl Dorrell's full Monday press conference:

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