HELLO! CHAUNCEY GOODEN — WELCOME TO THE BLACK AND GOLD

This is a post in the series introducing CU fans to CU’s freshman enrollees.  To see the previous Hello post, see 

Position:

Guard

Size:

6’4” 320 pounds.  The altitude shrunk him an inch, however, as he is listed at 6’3” on the CU roster.  He’s listed on the CU roster at 360 pounds, which makes him — officially – a #WideLoad.  

Offers:

Gooden committed to the Buffs over a who’s who of blue blood football program, including USC, Michigan, Tennessee, Oregon, Penn State, LSU, George, Florida, Florida State, and Clemson.  

Last Summer, Gooden cut his list to 2 – Colorado and Clemson and, after visiting both, committed to the Buffs.  

Ranking:

Composite ranking of four stars, the #355 player nationally and the #11 interior offensive lineman.  A couple of additional recruiting tidbits:

• 247 ranked him the #192 overall player in the country.
• On ESPN, Gooden is listed as the #12 interior offensive lineman in the country.  
• Rivals initially had Gooden ranked as a top 250 player nationally, but he fell to an unranked 3-star player by the end of his senior season.   This is a development that we’ll talk about below.

High School:

Gooden played for Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, TN.  Lipscomb Academy is a private Christian school that was coached by the worst Super Bowl winning quarterback of all-time, Trent Dilfer, from 2020 through the 2022 season. In the 2022 season, Gooden’s sophomore year, the team went 13-0 and won the Division II Class 4A championship in the finals by a score of 52-0.  Dilfer used his NFL experience and his high profile from his time as an ESPN analyst to drive a lot of attention to Lipscomb Academy, which quickly because a Tennessee high school powerhouse.

On November 30, 2022, Dilfer was named the head football coach at the University of Alabama Birmingham. Dilfer only had high school coaching experience when hired.  It’s clear that UAB was looking to mimic the success of Deion Sanders at Jackson State with the hiring of Dilfer.  Unfortunately for the Dragons, Dilfer has not mimicked Sanders’ success at Jackson State and is 7-17 over 2 seasons.   If the college coaching thing doesn’t work out for Dilfer, he was a suprisingly good analyst at ESPN and should land on his feet.

Dilfer was replaced at Lipscomb Academy by NFL Hall of Famer Kevin Mawae.  Mawae lasted one season on the job, and was the head coach for Gooden’s junior season.  Hopefully Mawae was able to teach Gooden some offensive line play dark arts.  There aren’t many high school offensive linemen that are coached by NFL Hall of Famers. 

Lipscomb plays in the highest classification in Tennessee high school football.  

The Scoooooooooooop:

Gooden committed to the Buffs in June and was extremely active on social media with other CU recruits. Gooden has had a relationship with Colorado recruiting staff members Darrius Darden-Box and Corey Philips since his freshman year of high school, and they both increased their relationship with him over the last year.

Gooden was initially named to the Rivals 250. In connection with this honor, Clint Cosgrove at rivals wrote the following:

It’s not often that you see a 6-foot-4, 315 pound offensive lineman lined up in the backfield to both carry the ball and deliver punishing blocks, but that is exactly what you see when you turn on Gordon’s highlight tape. This is a big and bad man who is twitched up, physical and has every intention of bringing the hammer down on defenders

Over the course of the last year, however, Rivals moved him out of the top 250 presumably in part due to the fact that Gooden grew to 360 pounds. It’s possible that this is going to slow down his development and chance to play early at CU. Still, he has remained dominant at the high school level even at the higher weight. At the Nashville Under Armour camp last April. Sean Williams from rivals wrote the following:

“Gooden proved why he should be considered one of the top interior lineman in the country with Sunday’s MVP performance. He dominated on all of his reps, which included two against Kevin Oatis, where Gooden overpowered and outclassed the No. 133 player in the country.”

Tom Loy at 247 was also impressed with Gooden at the same camp, and 247 named him “Alpha Dog” of the camp. Loy said:

“The event got started with some individual drills and testing, both of which Gooden shined in a big, big way. Then everyone battled it out during one-on-one drills and once again we saw the Top 247 standout impress. Gooden didn’t lose a rep and was dominant while competing. There were a few others in contention for this honor, but it was a unanimous decision by the 247Sports crew that the 2025 prospect was more than deserving of top honor.”

While concerns about Gooden’s size may have contributed to a fall in recruiting rankings, given his continued dominating performances on the camp circuit, another explanation for the rankings fall is probably that once a player commits to Colorado, there’s an automatic half-star decrease. Sorry not sorry.

Roll the tape!

https://www.hudl.com/video/3/14944441/6702d73d0d3b156dae3b0029

This video will give great joy to any “football guy.” There’s a nastiness to his film that is reminiscent of some old school CU guards— and there’s nothing that gives football guys more joy than watching a 360 pound offensive lineman drive a 210 pound defensive end into the ground, over and over and over. It reminds me of watching Andre Gurode and Chris Naeole just driving defenders into the turf over and over.

Gooden has a strong punch and appears capable of moving the line of scrimmage by pushing defenders off the ball. He is a nasty run blocker, and that can help set a team’s identity.

He seems to have good agility for his size. This is backed up by the fact that he plays running back for Lipscomb in some short yardage situations, and in the video he appears able to get to the 2nd level to block linebackers and pull when necessary. It’s not clear if he was at his current weight in his senior year of high school football — hopefully he was close to 360 pounds when he’s making those second level blocks.

How will he fit into the CU multi-verse?

Gooden is extremely charismatic and was probably the most active recruiter in the 2025 class. He prides himself on being a “dawg” and could be a future captain (errr, “Dawg”) for the Buffs.

Overall excitement level?

4 stars (out of 5). Gooden’s highlight film reminds me of watching Chris Naeole, the former CU consensus All American that carved out a lengthy NFL career. There’s a nastiness to his film that bodes well for success at the collegiate level. The question with Chauncey is his weight — he needs to keep his weight in check — and this will impact his agility and determine whether he can get to the next level and pull effectively. Based on a review of film and his camp plaudits, I think he’ll meet this challenge, and meet whatever other challenges defensive linemen throw at him.