Kansas City, Mo. – The Colorado Buffaloes lately have become a unit that preaches from both sides of the pulpit: passion and patience, courage and cautiousness.
But caution has little presence in preseason news conferences, where dreaming big is the standard. And the Buffs fell right in line Tuesday when they hit the podium and broadcast airwaves to talk about expectations for 2006.
“I think we’re going to surprise some people,” senior guard Brian Daniels said. “But we’ve got to earn every bit of respect we get this year.”
In reality, the Buffs weren’t exactly picked as the bottom-feeders of the Big 12. In fact, after a season in which they lost a record-setting quarterback, four players to the NFL draft and a coach who took them to four Big 12 title games in five years, league media still selected them third in the North Division.
But most of those media didn’t see the confused, glassy-eyed looks on offensive players learning new plays, calls and schemes in the spring.
“That happens,” Daniels said. “You throw a whole new playbook at guys that have been running the same plays for three years and you call things different and defenses are different, it’s a lot of stuff to learn.”
And Daniels is happy to report progress on the comprehension front.
“It comes fast,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of smart guys who have picked it up. Summer was crucial to us. We had to go out there and work our plays without the coaches. If we want to be good and know this offense, that’s something we needed to do and did do.”
Linebacker Thaddaeus Washington backed up Daniels’ point.
“We’re going to be real good on offense, better than people think we are,” he said. “I know we’re going to be able to run the ball this year. I’m looking for great things from our team.”
Still, Dan Hawkins needs to see it – and more.
The first-year CU coach wants to see better leadership. He wants to see a tougher, more “steely-eyed” bunch.
“We have to sort of find ourselves, find our mission, have some resolve and come out ready to go,” Hawkins said. “We have to become steely-eyed and develop a mentality and be able to come out in the opening game and get going in a fast way.”
He expressed a desire to be physical in the running game, but acknowledged there will be some “smoke and mirrors” to the Buffs’ attack. Hawkins has been encouraged by the players’ willingness to learn. He said they have embraced what the coaches have tried to implement.
“It’s not like we had to really hammer away or change or do things differently,” Hawkins said. “Gary (Barnett) did a lot of awesome things in Colorado. Colorado has had a good football team. It’s not like we’re trying to bring a team up the ladder that hasn’t won games and doesn’t do things right.”
But against the tenor of media days, Hawkins did allow a cautious moment, saying it took time to implement a similar offense when he arrived at Boise State with then-head coach Dirk Koetter in 1998.
“It did take awhile, it really did,” he said. “It probably took the better part of that first year, really, for it to all sort of sink in.”
Staff writer Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-820-5455 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
