Colorado Hires Dolphins Assistant and Former UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell As Head Coach

Colorado still isn't happy about the fact that Mel Tucker left Boulder at the 11th hour to take the Michigan State job, but they did manage to fill the void he left in a pretty noticeable way.

56-year-old Karl Dorrell, who spent last year as the assistant head coach and wide receivers coach under Brian Flores with the Miami Dolphins, is leaving South Beach to take the job in Boulder.

#Dolphins WRs coach and assistant head coach Karl Dorrell is getting the job of University of Colorado head coach, sources say. Miami loses an assistant but Dorrell gets to be a head coach again. @PeteThamel reported he was a favorite.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 22, 2020

Dorrell, a former UCLA wide receiver, was a college offensive coordinator or wide receiver coach from 1990-1999, even coaching in Boulder from 1992-1995 and from 1995-1998 as OC. After a two-year stint with the Broncos as an assistant coach, he took the UCLA head coaching job. He went 35-27 in five seasons as Bruins head coach, but he always won at least six games every year and even went 10-2 in 2005.

Dorrell then went back to the NFL, where he served as either a wide receiver coach or quarterbacks coach from 2008-2019. During that time, he made stops with the Dolphins, Texans, and Jets, before returning to Miami in 2019.

.@DanWolken reports that Colorado is hiring Karl Dorrell as its head coach, replacing Mel Tucker. https://t.co/His9CZh0dx
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) February 22, 2020

Dorrell isn't a flashy hire like Eric Bieniemy would have been, but he's proven he can win out west at a school that isn't USC or Oregon, helped the Dolphins wide receivers improve considerably from 2018 to 2019, and has prior experience at Colorado. Given how late and how suddenly Tucker left them, Dorrell is a fantastic hire for the Buffaloes.