Quote: Here’s my question about Colorado hiring Karl Dorrell: How? How do you even get to the point where his name comes up? I understand being turned down by a bunch of other coaches, but I could get through 100 names without even thinking about Karl Dorrell in the year of our Lord 2020. I’m genuinely mystified about this. — Andrew, Boulder, Colo.

Aren’t we all?

I’ve seen some strange/questionable hires in my day — Kansas/Charlie Weis, UConn/Paul Pasqualoni, Nebraska/Mike Riley … heck, I’ll throw Colorado State/Steve Adazzio in there — but this one may take the cake. Not because Dorrell was necessarily an awful coach at UCLA (mediocre is the more accurate word), but because it was just … so … long ago. Current recruits were in preschool the last time Dorrell was a college head coach in 2007.

And it’s not like he’s been soaring up the NFL assistant ranks since then. By all accounts he’s just been your regular old journeyman position coach for three different franchises (including two stints with the Dolphins), save for one season in 2014 when he returned to college as Vanderbilt’s offensive coordinator and got fired after producing the nation’s 119th-ranked offense.