Colby Pursell loves when it rains, especially when it’s a thunderstorm. It’s a natural response for someone who moved to Colorado after living in the Santa Clarita for most of his life.
“My roommates think I’m weird because I get excited when it starts raining,” the Hart alumnus said.
Pursell himself has taken the University of Colorado football team by storm after grayshirting, then redshirting for his freshman year. Based on his performance in spring ball, he’s slotted to be the starting center for the Buffaloes.
“Hopefully he does well in fall camp and keeps that,” said Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre said at Pac-12 Football Media Day on July 25.
“…I’m really excited about – (I’m) trying to temper my excitement – but he’s an excellent player and hasn’t even played a college snap yet in a real game.”
Pursell will be part of an offensive line that will need to replace three senior linemen while protecting junior quarterback Steven Montez, whose 3,992 career passing yards rank him ninth in program history.
In addition to catching the eye of MacIntyre and earning a potential starting spot, Pursell won the John Wooten Award, an accolade given to a single Colorado player who exhibits unmatched work ethic.
In strength and conditioning testing, he power cleaned 325 pounds and squatted 500 pounds, the latter of which was the third-best on the team.
“He goes in, doesn’t really say too much, he works like crazy every single day,” Montez said at Pac-12 Media Day. “He doesn’t go out and party and doesn’t do any of that stuff that can get you in trouble.”
In addition to his advancements on the field, Pursell has made progress off the field, too. He’s decided to pursue a degree in integrative physiology, a field that explores whole-body function, based on his love for an anatomy class at Hart taught by Cynthia Godwin.
The major has made his daily class schedule significantly busier. Over the summer, he took a biology lab and is currently enrolled in an upper-division writing class.
Despite the packed schedule, Pursell remains focused on locking down that starting position. He’s excited about a Buffalo forecast that doesn’t just include rain, but winning, too.
“Bowl games, Pac-12 championship,” he said. “That’s the ultimate goal, but I mean, we know that we kind of take it week by week here … we know there’s a lot of work that has to be done first before we can even get there. But we want to win. That is for sure.”
