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FORT COLLINS –The Rams, man …
PHWEET!
Anyway, they …
PHWEET!
Can I finish?
PHWEET!
Dudes put the “wart” in “stalwart” on Saturday night.
“(I’m) disappointed very much in our penalties,” first-year CSU coach Jay Norvell sighed after a 17-13 homecoming loss to Utah State Saturday night. “We’re a team that doesn’t have (that) margin of error right now. We’ve got to play smart football.”
Smart football, sadly, was a rare beast for the Rams (1-5, 1-1 Mountain West) at Canvas Stadium. Hungry football, yes. Physical football, no question.
But smart? Nah. Sound? Nope.
The hosts got flagged for 10 penalties. Felt more like 20. They faced eight third-down situations of nine yards or longer. They converted none of ’em. With a freshman quarterback at the controls in Giles Pooler, that’s asking for trouble. And begging for the under.
“We’ve got to be better with the snap counts,” offered Rams tailback Avery Morrow, who put up a second strong game in a row — 27 carries, 116 rushing yards — but found his impact lessened with each self-inflicted CSU wound. “I don’t know why this keeps happening. We’ve just got to be better.”
It wasn’t for lack of effort. Or chances.
Defensive lineman Cam Bariteau gave the hosts some life when he came up with a Robert Briggs fumble at the Utah State 12 with 18 seconds left in the third quarter. But the Rams went backward, losing seven yards on the next three plays before Michael Boyle’s field goal trimmed the Aggies’ lead to 17-13 with 14:08.
Up 10-7 in the second quarter, CSU swung and missed at a golden opportunity after a blocked punt by Dane Olson with 5:04 left in the half gifted the ball at the Utah State 20. The hosts lost two yards on four plays before Boyle pushed a 39-yard field goal attempt wide left.
The Aggies (3-4) put up 390 yards of offense, but they needed 80 plays to get there as the Rams made ‘em work for every yard. But behind lefty Pooler, the Fort Collins kid who played Pop Warner ball in FoCo with Jack Howell and Tanner Arkin, CSU’s offense countered with just 262 total yards of its own, 163 through the air.
The Rams landed in the Utah State red zone three times. They got six points and two field goals for their trouble.
Meanwhile, on the other sideline, injuries forced the Aggies to hand the keys to speedy freshman Bishop Davenport behind center, the program’s fourth different QB since Week 1, and it probably turned the game as a result.
The Aggies switched gears in the second half, shifting from a quick-strike passing mode to a zone-read option approach. In the process, it sent a Rams defense that had found a rhythm into scramble mode. Literally.
Davenport rushed for 25 yards in the third quarter, including a 4-yard keeper midway through the stanza that gave the visitors the lead for the first time all night, 16-10.
“The QB run game is part of what they do,” Norvell said. “They’ve done a very good job off that. I thought for the most part, our guys handled it pretty decent.”
Eventually. But pass interference whistles get harder to justify when three-fifths of your starting secondary are juniors or older. That goes double for false starts on a CSU offensive line that features four upperclassmen or grad students among the two-deep.
“It’s just these little mistakes,” Morrow continued, “that are holding us back.”
Anytime the football gods opened a door, the Rammies were staring at a window. Aggies kicker Connor Coles, who hadn’t missed a field-goal try all season coming in, was wide right and short from 45 yards and 52 yards out in the first half, as the hosts clung like cats on a tree branch to a 10-7 cushion.
If the Broncos at their best resemble Vic Fangio’s masterplan of defense and the run game, it’s funny how the Rams keep getting their mojo back by espousing the parts of The Steve Addazio Era that didn’t involve belittling other human beings or Mountain West referees.
Just like in Reno, CSU let the big guys on the offensive line do the heavy lifting, helping Morrow had to rack up 92 yards on 16 totes by halftime. Imagine what kind of damage the kid could do with a passing game — hurry back, Clay Millen, Hawaii’s up next — that keeps defenses halfway honest.
Because once the Aggies started doubling CSU wideout Tory Horton, things pretty much slowed from a crawl to…
PHWEET!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We get the point.
“It’s just discipline,” Norvell continued. “And kids get out over their skis sometimes and they’re a little bit more aggressive and get a little frustrated.”
Join the club, coach. You can win by being more lucky than good, sure. But the less you are of the latter, the more you press the former.
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