Colorado Head Coach Post-Game Press Conference
The Colorado Buffaloes have seen quite the three-week stretch.
Two weeks ago, the Buffaloes nearly upset a top-five ranked team in the country in Texas A&M. Last week, Colorado was run out of its own back yard 30-0 by a Minnesota team that would eventually lose to Bowling Green Saturday. The Buffaloes set a new Pac-12 record after going scoreless for 20 consecutive drives.
This week saw a bag of mixed results, as the team lost 35-13 to Arizona State despite hanging around for a good portion of the game.
Colorado looked capable at times, especially firing out of halftime and scoring on a second-half opening drive that saw the Buffaloes hit plays of 10 yards or more on four separate occasions.
Yet their efforts weren't enough, as the Sun Devils eventually scored 14 unanswered points and put the game out of reach in the fourth quarter.
Following is Buffs head coach Karl Dorrell's press conference following the game :
Colorado Head Coach Karl Dorrell
Opening Statement
“Well, what a shame. It was a competitive game for at least the initial quarter and a half. I think things were going decently defensively. I thought we did some really positive things in the first half. Those things were negated with the penalties, the personal foul penalties that extended drives and they ended up getting points. Those guys played hard and did some really good things in the first half. In the second half it was a little bit of a challenge. I think offensively, the first half there were some struggles as we all know. I was really encouraged that we came out of halftime with the ball and we went down the field and scored. That was kind of more reminiscent of what we saw a year ago with how we played with the rushing game really leading the way so to speak. I thought Brenden (Lewis) played okay. I thought he had a couple steps of progress this week. We need to continue to bring him along with our passing game. I thought he hit some opportunities for some throws and a couple receivers dropped the ball so that was something that negated some of that productivity on the passing game side of it. We have to keep bringing this team along. It's a lot of young players that are playing and a lot of new players playing and it's challenging each and every week now that we’re in season. There are no preseason games. All these games count, unfortunately. But we have to keep working at getting better each week and hopefully that light bulb starts to glow a little bit brighter for us to be much more productive and score more points next week and do as well as we need to do defensively as well. So, we'll keep plugging at it.”
On difficulty of fixing multiple issues:
“I felt from a pass protection standpoint, we did okay. We did better than it was the previous week. I thought Brenden held the ball a couple of times there that made it a couple sacks in there. I thought he threw some good passes today. I thought a couple drops in key third-down situations hurt us, where I thought he was on target and we didn't come finish the play. I think the biggest thing was . . . I think we had eight penalties, another one of those things where they had seven and we had eight, and a lot of those were critical penalties on both sides of the ball because offense had their share. But defense, we had a stop on third down but it was a late hit or something like that that caused an extension of the drive. And a lot of those extensions of the drive led to points and that's unfortunate.”
On halftime adjustment:
“I think things just kind of started working. We went to the stuff we think we do well, and I think those guys are motivated to come out in the second half and put some points on the board. So, that was a glimpse of what we talked about at halftime and they orchestrated and made it work, so that’s a positive step. So those are the things that we really have to gather from this game, all the things we did in a positive way and try to build on those things as we go into the next week. There’s still plenty of work to do in every phase. We almost had a punt block today, we missed a field goal, we had a lot of return yards by their returner against our coverage teams, so that’s special teams. And defense . . . it’s a lot of work that we have to work on, and we’ll get back after it on Monday.”
On focusing on progress:
“Progress doesn’t keep you stable. We’re all frustrated. They’re frustrated, coaches, everybody is, but that is kind of the nature of the beast and is something we signed up for in this profession as coaches and playing college level football and we have to be big men and grow up and try to get some things fixed in a hurry so we can be productive. I think we’re pretty close, I don't think we’re that far away and I just told them that in the locker room. We have to play smarter and we have to make sure we’re locked in on what we need to do. I told those guys . . . we've made some mistakes. They have to own up to their mistakes and get better, so those things don't happen again. We’re all going through that trial by fire right now. And we’ll come out of it okay if we keep our head and our attitude the way it should be. We’ll come out of this okay.”