Charles Kelly evaluates how close Colorado is to competing for championships

Colorado might be the champions of the offseason when it comes to all the storylines out of Boulder from the hire of Deion Sanders as head coach to the school’s recent decision to leave the Pac-12 for the Big 12. At some point, though, the attention returns to the field with several eyes looking right at the Buffaloes.

In an interview with RJ Young on The Number One College Football Show, Colorado defensive coordinator Charles Kelly, subbing in place of the still-ailing Sanders at Pac-12 Media Days last week, explained what it’s going to take for them to bring the program to a championship level. In doing so, he explained their three-step process which, firstly, starts with constant evaluation of themselves.

“The thing that we have to do on an everyday basis to be successful? We, first of all, have to evaluate everything that we do,” said Kelly. “Coach Prime makes sure, in every situation of our football team, we’re evaluating what we have every day.”

Secondly, Kelly said the following step is recruiting. He understands that a lot has been made about how Colorado has retooled their roster. Even so, he says it has been a positive because it has allowed them to bring in players who see Sanders’ vision and are going to help them accomplish their goals of winning titles.

“The next thing you have to do is you have to recruit. You have to recruit and you have to get people in here that can live up to the standard and the vision that Coach Prime has set,” Kelly said. “Coach is so talented in so many ways but one of the gifts that he has is he has a crystal clear vision of what he wants a team to look like and he has an innate ability to make everybody in the organization see that vision. So we have to recruit people that can match his vision.

“When you accumulate a lot of people going in the same direction? Now you can create a championship team and that’s what we came to Colorado to do,” continued Kelly. “As you all know, as it’s been well-documented, there’s been a lot of turnover on the roster. Listen, the rules are what they are in college football. Coach Prime made it very clear when he came in of what our job was, what we had to do. I think he attacked roster management probably in one of the better ways that I’ve ever seen.”

Finally, Kelly closed with the final point of development. He reminded everyone that, in the end, it doesn’t matter who they bring to Boulder if they can’t make them a better player, person, and brand by the time that they leave.

“We have to develop. It’s not one thing just to have the players there. You have to develop them,” said Kelly. “You have to develop them, on and off the field, and help them be able to create value for themselves.”

To be fair, it’s going to take more than just that to get Colorado, who finished 1-11 in 2022, to the point of winning championships, regardless of what conference they find themselves in. Still, this is the blueprint that Sanders has laid out and it’s the one that Kelly says they’re going to follow all the way through.

“That’s what it takes,” Kelly said. “We have to have good players, we have to develop them. And when we do that and we’re pulling in the same direction? Then we’ve got a chance to win championships.”