CU Buffs Head Coach Karl Dorrell Looking Ahead, Not At What's Behind

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4)- If there is going to be a college football season this fall, new University of Colorado Boulder head coach Karl Dorrell has a good idea of how much time he would prefer to have to get the Buffs ready.

"I might be the only one who thinks this but I'd want 8 weeks given the status we're in," said Dorrell during a conference call on Tuesday with fellow PA-12 coaches Kyle Whittingham and Jimmy Lake. "That would be a month of training and conditioning and a month of camp. I don't think we'll get anything close to that. I know it will be a little faster process."

Of course, right now nobody knows when or even if the college football season will happen and what it might look like. Dorrell realizes that and in meetings with the PAC-12 conference and its coaches, it appears 6 weeks of preparations would be the minimum.

"If you discount spring ball, we normally get 8 weeks of training in the summer and then another 4 weeks of camp in the fall," said Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham."That's 12 weeks so if we could get half of that, that would be great. The consensus (among coaches) is 6 weeks would be adequate."

"Eight weeks would be great," said new Washington head coach Jimmy Lake. Anything more would be moving in a positive direction. 6 weeks however would be the minimum."

Of course, Dorrell comes at this from a different vantage point than most of his colleagues in the conference. Dorrell is a first year coach who has never seen his team on the field in a practice let alone a game.

"I haven't been in this program before so in my mind I have 22 new positions," said the former Miami Dolphins assistant coach. "My eyes will be wide open when the time comes and we can do stuff on the field. We're doing our 8 hours of virtual meetings and being patient in the process right now. We haven't even talked about spring practice since it never even occurred. We've let that go and look forward to what's in front of us."

One of the biggest questions facing Dorrell is who will be the Buffs quarterback in 2020. It appears to be a 3-man race between junior Tyler Lytle, who has thrown only 6 passes in his CU career. Senior Sam Noyer who has more experience but played safety last season and true freshman Brandon Lewis.

"All 3 of those guys when it's all said and done haven't had much time," Dorrell said. "It's really wide open and we're coaching them all hard and we'll see how things fall into place but we still have a long way to go."

The Buffs are currently scheduled to open the 2020 season on Sept. 5 in Fort Collins against their in-state rival Colorado State.