The Pac-12 announced the dates of its football schedule for this upcoming fall Tuesday morning, and Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell joined the unveiling program on the Pac-12 Network to share his thoughts.

Below are some key quotes from Dorrell regarding Colorado's 2021 schedule and upcoming spring practices.

“I’m excited. I’m just excited that we're getting a normal, 12-game schedule slate that’s telling us this year we’re shooting for normalcy and planning that way. We’re Jedi-mind-tricking ourselves about the process and we’re sticking to it. I’m excited. We were supposed to play A&M last year and obviously the game was postponed and is being revisited this year with them coming to Denver."

"That’s one of those games that we hopefully play well (in) during the beginning of the season, that hopefully will shed some light on us in the conference, that we’re a conference that’s deserving some recognition across the country. I do like the slate of the non-conference."

“With a really good A&M program that finished the season at fifth in the CFP, coming off of the really great season that they had, that’s going to draw our attention right away, understanding that we’ve got to play well early in the season. We are talking about those things.”

"We’re playing A&M, we're playing Minnesota, which has been a good program as of late and then obviously, our normal schedule of conference opponents, I think it’s a good step and an impressive schedule. I (coached) one year in the SEC and I think we only played seven or eight conference teams, and there’s like 14 or 16 teams in the conference. Whereas, we play an aggressive nine-game schedule of conference play, which is probably more than most of the conferences out there. We like it that way. It’s a really competitive league.”

“Even though we’re going into spring and getting ready for the spring practices, we’re actually, from time to time, talking about our vision on how the season will play out and showing the progress we’ve made as a program from last year to this year. We want to make sure that’s evident. How we play that first game and that second game is a big measuring stick. The last measuring stick we had was Texas (in the Alamo Bowl) and we fell way short, so that’s driving us this offseason. The last game of our old season is really driving our momentum right now to move forward as a program.”

“We’re excited about getting back on the field, for one. We have a young team that needs a lot of work. We had about eight guys that came in mid-year in January and we’re anxious to have some spring practices to get experience under their belts. We’re counting a lot of those guys that came in mid-year to actually be a factor in what we are in the fall."

"It’s an important spring. I would say, when you look at it from a quarterback perspective, with Sam Noyer having postseason surgery and being out until the summer, it’s a big spring for Brendon Lewis and the other guys that are going to be competing at the quarterback position."

"There’s a number of, I call them ‘soap opera scenarios’ of how this is going to work out, and this competition and this and that — that’s the fun part. We get to compete hard against each other, even though there’s no games on the line, but there is first and second and third on the depth chart that’s on the line. There's definitely some things that we need to work on.”