Boulder — Colorado defensive coordinator Ron Collins could joke today that reviewing the game film of Sunday’s scrimmage was like sitting through a horror show — what with the offense getting 609 yards and five touchdowns on 102 offensive plays against his guys.
Rather than hide, Collins was more upbeat today than anyone could have imagined.
“We’ve got to do better on the run sets, which is correctable,” Collins explained. “We played a lot of young kids. Our freshman defensive linemen played about 60-some snaps. So that was a factor.
“When the first-team guys were in there, we gave up the touchdown (54-yard pass from Nick Nelson to Josh Smith) on the scramble. But other than that, it was not a bad scrimmage for those guys.”
Breakdowns can be corrected.
“The beautiful thing is, when you watch the film it was all mental mistakes,” junior defensive tackle George Hypolite said. “You can’t coach effort. You can never do that. But you can fix a guy by lining him up in the right gap or do the right techniques.”
Many of the yards were gained by the first-team offense against the second-string defense. Coach Dan Hawkins wanted his offense to gain some confidence.
“I will say this, the offense did a great job,” Collins said. “I’m not taking away anything from those guys. They did a great job with the play-action pass and the running game.”
For both sides of scrimmage, Hawkins said the game film “was kind of like we thought. It’s never as good as you think. It’s never as bad as you think.
“There are a lot of little details to iron out. With the structure and the way we did it, and having more of a game kind of thing, I think they did pretty well.”
Staff Writer Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
