It was difficult to imagine an even worse outcome after the 4-8 finish last season, especially after making significant staff changes, but that's looking like the unfortunate reality for coach Karl Dorrell and Colorado.
The Buffaloes have been outscored 128-30 while losing three consecutive games by at least 25 points, have no answer at quarterback a quarter of the way through the season, rank bottom-5 in the FBS in total offense and also have a defense giving up 452 yards per game.
The reality is Colorado has put on three job-threatening performances during its nonconference games.
Elsewhere in college football, the coaching carousel has already begun spinning with Nebraska's Scott Frost and most recently Arizona State's Herm Edwards among the early notable firings.
Right around the time the Sun Devils were announcing their decision to move on from Edwards on Sunday, Colorado athletic director Rick George put out a statement saying he understands fans' "disappointment and frustration and perhaps, even anger" while adding that Dorrell is working hard to get the program on track and asking fans for support.
On Monday, Dorrell spoke for himself.
“There is a tension and an urgency that we have in our program right now with our coaches and with our players about getting things addressed and shored up as quickly as possible,” Dorrell said. “There is an urgency about getting things fixed, getting things addressed. There's a number of issues, as we all know. We feel we have the time to get those things done. … It's really the same pattern of practices of what we've been doing, but we need to transform that work on the Saturday opportunities.”
Athletic director Rick George stepped in yesterday acknowledging the program’s gruesome reality, but his blanket statement was far from reassuring as a message of complacency and disregard of an obvious solution, removing Karl Dorrell, was made (in)directly clear.
While Nebraska and Arizona State moved relatively quickly after discouraging starts this fall, Colorado has other matters to consider with a $17.5 million deficit (see page 81) reported for the fiscal year of 2021 by the athletic department.
Dorrell’s contract states that if he is fired after Dec. 31, 2021, but before Dec. 31, 2022 the university owes him an $11.4 million buyout minus what he already earned throughout 2022 in his base salary, supplemental salary and incentive salary. The Daily Camera’s Brian Howell estimated that if Colorado were to buyout his contract now, it would owe him approximately $8.7 million.
While George asks for (financial) “cheers, encouragement and support” from the fan base, Dorrell continues his attempts to improve the team.
“He put out that [statement]. He told me about it, we both shared some thoughts yesterday,” Dorrell said. “We’re kind of cleaning up the tape and stuff like that. So we're on the same page. We know we've got a lot of work to do. We know that we can do it. We know we have the capability of really having successful offense and defense and really doing things well.”
The Monday media talks consistently include repetitive statements from Dorrell mentioning improvement, the need to play better football and addressing those necessities in practice, but the results on game day conclude Colorado’s inability to make positive strides.
The Buffs play Dorrell’s previous school, UCLA, at home on Saturday at noon. Colorado is a 21.5-point underdog against the 3-0 Bruins.
This week he has no time to reminisce on the UCLA days and he is focused on the work ahead.
However, memories of coaching adversity are probably coming forth as he finds himself in a similar scenario as he was in 2007, when he went 6-6 amid mounting pressure in his final season coaching the Bruins.
“We've been through this before, I've been through this before,” he said. “That's part of the job. I think when you go into coaching, we know that there's risk, right? So it's not like the Coach show where, you remember the Coach show, where they're kind of eating bonbons and their feet are up on the table? They're just sitting in the office and just waiting for practice to begin. That's completely different than what real coaching is. [We] got a lot of guys who have spent a lot of hours trying to get things right. And there's that expectation about people work harder when things are hard, right? And that's what we do.”
