Dorrell wants a fundamentally sound and physical football team

After evaluating the team last season, head coach Karl Dorrell wants to see his team play with more physicality and be more fundamentally sound.

Karl Dorrell said since being hired, he has watched all twelve games from last season.

Dorrell in his press conference Monday said the 2019-2020 football team had some core flaws.

“Fundamentally, both sides of our front offensively and defensively, we can play a lot better. We didn't play as well as we could,” Dorrell said.

When Mel Tucker was introduced as the head coach in December 2018, Tucker said his team would be strong fundamentally and was ready to win immediately.

“We will be technically and fundamentally sound, on both sides of the ball and special teams. We will play smart. We won't beat ourselves," Tucker said in his introductory press conference.

He also preached running the ball on their own terms on offense and stopping the run on defense. 

But high hopes and expectations turned into a loss to Air Force, and five straight losses in conference play. Dorrell says the team didn’t have a handle on the previous coaching staff’s system.

“They had a few games where they showed that soundness about their system well, but there's a great majority of the season, that didn't occur,” Dorrell said.

Dorrell has already spoken to his team about several changes they need to make moving forward.

“They showed signs, particularly on defense, where it was hard to run the ball against,” Dorrell said. “The same thing offensively, we have to create better run efficiency for our running game. And we did at times but we just didn't do it at a consistent level. So those two areas we can continue to get better at.”

Next season, Dorrell says the team will be more fundamentally sound and play tougher than they did this season.

"We can play a lot better football if we can get ourselves to be more fundamentally sound," Dorrell said. "And play with a little bit more aggressive attitude on both sides of the ball and just be certain of our role and understanding the details of how we do things."

 Buffs fans have heard it before. Can Dorrell make it happen?