Setting the Stage: Tracy Has Built to This Moment

This is the moment to which Pryce Tracy has been building. To become an offensive coordinator. To call his own game.

He's done it at practice and during scrimmages. He's performed the duties watching games and combing through game film. Tracy said thinking about it has been all-consuming, thinking about it during lunch, at 10 p.m. at night or even 2 a.m. when trying to get some sleep.

It's something he's never done, but in a way, he's done it over and over. Essentially, he does it while he's building this week's game plan for Wyoming, knowing what plays he likes in certain situations.

Saturday, it becomes real.

"It's a leap, I don't know if it's that much; I've never done it, so I don't know the answer truly," Tracy said. "But I think throughout my 16 years, I've always sat in the film room, in game plan meetings and thought about the game at that level and what would I call if I were in this situation. So I feel like I've done the work for 16 years for the opportunity, so how much different will it be?

"I'll find out Saturday, I'm sure it'll be more sped up and it'll be you've got to make split decisions and it's obviously going to be different some way, shape or form, but a lot of it will be the same as well."

Coach Jim Mora is curious too. Obviously, he has faith in the man who was his quarterbacks coach at UConn a season ago, or he wouldn't have given him the chance to be the offensive coordinator.

There's no guarantee what he will see from Tracy on Saturday, but Mora does have a strong hunch.

"I can only go based on what I know of Pryce, which is Pryce is an aggressive personality. He likes to attack, but he's very intelligent," coach Jim Mora said. "He just doesn't attack to attack. He has a reason for everything he does. I think he's a really good game planner. What I've seen in practice, because a lot of our practices are just unscripted and we're calling it.

"Now, it's a practice which is different than a game, but I've seen someone who's very intelligent in terms of how he sets plays up, how he uses personnel groups, things like that. So I think he'll be conscientiously aggressive."

Tracy said his full personality will be on display during the game, but not everything about his life is aggressive. Aggressive is good when needed, and a football game is one of those places. Just not always. To Tracy, there will be a time and place.
While Saturday will be new to him, he said in someways it will not be. When you set your mind on something and prepare for the day, it's simply the place where preparation intersects with opportunity.

Saturday will be a first, but not unexpected.

"I've kind of always envisioned that I would get to this point. It just feels like I've already been here before because I've visualized this for years and years and years and years," Tracy said. "Honestly – not to sound arrogant or anything -- I've expected to be in this moment."

History Aside

The fans know.

That the Border War series has stretched three centuries. It is one of the oldest on the books in terms of length and consecutivity out West. They know the story of the Bronze Boot and who wore it during Vietnam.

The history matters.

To some of the players, too. Just not all of them. On the field, a rivalry is just a game against a team you dislike the most. The why isn't important.

"You know, when I got here, it was made clear," California native Phillip Ocon said. "We play the guys up there, we do what we gotta do, and we handle business."

Even somewhat for Colorado kids. Linebacker Jaseim Mitchell knew of the rivalry and had picked up bits and pieces of the lore surrounding it. He's glad he knows some of it, too.

But honestly, on Saturday, it's the basics.

"I mean, to be honest, we hate them," he said. "We just gotta play our hardest, just do our job and let the results take care of it. (The history) is cool, for me being from Colorado, but we just gotta win. We can't worry about how important it is -- we do know it's very special -- but we just gotta worry about our plays and our assignment and just getting the win."

Game Prep

After three weeks of camp leading up to school starting, Mora and his staff started the transition to game-week preparation, a process the veteran coach felt went smoothly.

"We do it in a slow progression. So we'll have some practices where you combine camp with prep for the season," Mora said at the close of Wednesday's practice. "So it's pretty seamless. I think the most difficult thing is you've got these really good high school players who have never had to play on the service team, where they're emulating the opponent's look, and all of a sudden they're coming out here and they're asked to do something they've never done, which is look at a card, see a line on it, who to block, terminology they haven't heard before, and then go out and execute it like five seconds later. So that transition is always a little bit difficult, but our guys have done a really good job with it.

"It's just about focus and intensity, and we meet with the service team. But I think that's always the hardest part of it."

The tough part has become easier through the years. When Mora first coached in college, there were 12 coaches on staff and a couple of graduate assistants. Now, staffs are closer to 30 in number, with assistants for the main position coaches.

When it comes to preparing part of the team for scout work, there are more people to help teach what comes with the task to make it better. He said it's not only beneficial to the players but the assistants as well. Everybody gets a chance to grow.

"It absolutely does because you can cover more ground with more people. So we can assign someone a tight end, assign a couple people to the wide outs, assign someone to the offensive line, assign someone to the running backs," Mora said. "I'm just talking about offense there.

"And then we can swarm them, and that allows us to move faster. I think it's also really critical that young coaches get an opportunity to coach. So it's not only good for the players, but it's great for the development of the young coaches."

Calendar

Upcoming Events

Recent Results