Karl Dorrell remains poised as curveballs get thrown at him
Karl Dorrell has had an absolute whirlwind of a head coaching tenure since taking the helm in February. No coach in history has had to deal with what Dorrell has gone through during their first few months as the head coach.
He recently spoke with Michael Spencer of CBS4 about his experience so far.
"I don't think I could have dreamt this up or made this up in terms of what has happened in the last five months but I'm still on cloud nine being here though," Dorrell told Spencer, keeping that positive attitude.
Dorrell has inherited a football team that has seen a lot of adversity. Most of the players have dealt with three different head coaches over the last three years. But they've never dealt with something as drastic as a pandemic.
"This team is very resilient," Dorrell said on CBS4. "I'm so excited about how they've handled everything: me being new, getting kicked off of campus, finishing the semester with one of our best semesters ever, we had a 3.2-something team average GPA over the spring semester."
Dorrell said he's watched every snap from every game from the last season at least twice and believes they're not far away from being a very good football team.
"I really feel that we're close," Dorrell told Spencer. "We're really close to doing some really good things and getting this program to where it should be in a short period of time."
He discussed how he was impressed with the improvements on the defensive side of the ball as the season went on. And the pieces they have on the offensive side of the ball.
But the man in charge admits the missing piece on the offensive side of the ball, especially at the quarterback position, is experience.
And that's just something they haven't been able to provide. Dorrell still hasn't been able to get on the grass with his players yet. But that could come in the next few weeks as it appears the NCAA will allow the schools in conferences not playing fall sports to hold practices in a spring ball-type fashion.
Even as that goes on, he plans on paying attention to the conferences that are playing with a watchful eye.
"We're curious as to how they're going to handle the pandemic in terms of some issues that come up," Dorrell told CBS4. "To see if it's something that can be isolated and be controlled. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how they respond with some of these things that can occur."
What will the next curveball thrown at Dorrell be? We've already seen his ability to handle them with ease.
Watch the extended version of the interview here.
