Colorado football head coach Deion Sanders announced numerous changes to his coaching staff on Friday and Pat Shurmur officially being named offensive coordinator was no surprise.
Shurmur has moved around quite a bit in his coaching career, spending time with several NFL teams, including the Denver Broncos. So, what can this NFL mind bring to Boulder? Midseason coaching changes are always hard to grade because wholesale changes can’t be made. After Shurmur took over play-calling duties late last season, Colorado still ran Sean Lewis’ system.
Passing-wise, Colorado will still likely lean on the short game while taking the occasional shot downfield. As quarterback Shedeur Sanders said on the DNVR Buffs Podcast, we’ll see fewer option routes, meaning CU’s wide receivers won’t have as much freedom to change their routes based on the opposing defense.
Another substantial change comes in the play-action game. Expect max protection/three-man routes off of play action that should get receivers downfield.
In the run game, Shurmur has traditionally attacked the edges using an outside zone running attack. In this attack, running backs must read their blocks to the outside or cut the ball inside if a lane presents itself. Colorado will almost certainly run the ball more next season, especially on first down, as this is a stable of Shurmur’s attack.
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