FORT COLLINS — Praise for new Colorado quarterback Jordan Webb has already streamed out of Boulder, and now it is coming from the Colorado State campus.
CSU coach Jim McElwain was complimentary of the Buffs’ quarterback, who his team will try and slow down in Saturday’s Rocky Mountain Showdown.
“He’s got a quick release… got a very strong arm,” McElwain said today in the first of his weekly Monday press conferences. “Now how does it fit in their system is kind of to be determined.”
Webb, who just transferred to Colorado from Kansas in July, won the starting nod over Connor Wood and Nick Hirschman in a competition decided by his ability to consistently make plays and move the team in practice.
“Here’s a guy that’s played at a high level in a very good conference,” McElwain said.
“And we’re starting a quarterback that, yeah, he got some reps last year but how valuable were they? He hadn’t played in this rivalry game. Obviously their quarterback has played in rivalry games. And it sounds like he has done a great job rallying and becoming a leader of that team, and that’s a credit to him, to be able to come in like that and take over from a leadership standpoint, that speaks volumes about who he is.”
McElwain danced around the question of what specifically concerns him about the Buffs, but offered:
“They’ve brought an NFL mentality, they’ve brought a physical mentality. They’ve got very good coaches on both sides of the ball and in special teams. I think they are very sound in what they do. They are not going to try to beat themselves, yet pick their spots to take their shots. You break down all of last year’s stuff, but they may have totally changed who they are offensively and defensively.
“In that standpoint, that’s where you need to have the foundation of you plan to adjust to whatever. Because they had summer studies, so they’ve got new wrinkles. It isn’t just what they did last year. That’s where as a coach we’ve got to be able to make game-time changes, game-time adjustments based on the things we haven’t seen. And that’s all part of that first game.”
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Christopher Dempsey: 303-954-1279, cdempsey@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dempseypost
