3 takeaways: Colorado State's offense shows progress in live reps

Colorado State held its second of three scrimmages on Wednesday and although head coach Jay Norvell could not attend due to a positive COVID-19 test, the Rams, led by offensive coordinator Matt Mumme and defensive coordinator Freddie Banks, were able to get in live reps on a gorgeous morning in Fort Collins. 

“You hate not having your fearless leader,” Mumme said of Norvell’s absence. “In the five years that I’ve been with him, he’s never missed a single thing. So to see him miss something, that’s really tough. Hopefully he’ll bounce back quickly and be back out with us tomorrow.” 

“You know, coach Norvell, he’s not a micromanager,” Banks later added. “I wish he could be out here but he lets us do our thing as coaches.” 

According to the coordinators, the execution was relatively strong on both sides of the ball, though Mumme did say he would like to see the offense put more points on the board and Banks said the tackling was not quite as sharp as it was last week. 

While the scrimmage was not perfect — they never are — it was another opportunity for the players to condition themselves to true contact and work on playing at a faster pace. For the offense in particular, going from position drills and 7-on-7s to a live setting can be a bit of a reality check. 

It’s a lot easier to throw the ball down the field and get the ball to the receivers when there is no threat of a pass rush. So, really, for the quarterbacks, offensive line and receivers, it’s a much truer test of how ready they are for the regular season. 

And conversely, while you can do all of the pad drills in the world, there is no substitute for defenders having to read, react and execute while playing at game speed. 

With all of that in mind, here are some takeaways and observations from CSU’s second scrimmage of the 2022 season. 

Mumme pleased with improvement, wants more points 

Mumme said multiple times that he wants the offense to put more points on the board. While the Rams were able to drive the football significantly better than they did a week ago, instead of finding the end zone, the various offensive units consistently had to settle for field goals and that isn’t going to fly with a staff that is aiming to score in the 30s every week. 

“I thought we were a lot smoother, especially in all phases from, you know, the first string guys, second string guys, third string guys,” Mumme said. “We moved the ball up and down the field a little bit, but we’ve still got to finish. We’ve got to work on finding the end zone. Our job is to score points, to score touchdowns. So we’ve still got some work to do.”

Considering the offense was without its most experienced wide receivers in this system, Tory Horton and Melquan Stovall, the fact that they didn’t score a ton of points is not super alarming. If it becomes a common trend over a longer period of time, then maybe we’ll start to have those conversations. But honestly, I was encouraged to see some of the plays that guys like Justus Ross-Simmons, Justice McCoy and A’Jon Vivens were able to make. The more reps that everyone outside of the stars can get should only serve to benefit the Rams in the long run.  

Young receivers making case for early playing time

Speaking of Justus Ross-Simmons, after absolutely balling out in the opening scrimmage, the true freshman wide receiver had another active day in the second one. 

Over the last couple of weeks, Ross-Simmons, Mekhi Fox and Louis Brown have all gotten an opportunity to make their case for more playing time in the rotation. And based on what we have seen, all of these young guys are skilled and athletic enough to make plays. 

While everyone is talented enough to see the field, what’s going to be interesting to see is who out of the first-year guys is able to pick up the system the quickest and adjust to the speed of the game. Based solely on the live reps over the last two Wednesdays, my money’s on Ross-Simmons to have the best chance to play early and often. 

The 6-foot-3, 210-pound wide out from Inglewood High School has shown he can be a Red Zone threat. And this past week he also showed he can be an effective target to move the chains, as Ross-Simmons was able to haul in multiple catches in the middle of the field with the ones. 

Similarly to what we’ve seen from some of the other great receivers over the years, it’s immediately clear that the freshman belongs. Having said that though, we should still expect the coaches to continue testing him and all the young bucks, just as they did on Wednesday.

“They’re getting there,” Mumme said. “For a lot of our young guys, and even with Clay (Millen), it’s just our sense of urgency on offense and speeding up. That’s why I really wanted to push the pace on them today and see how they were going to react. And they did a pretty good job for the most part. I think we’re really talented in a lot of areas and just getting the repetition is going to be huge.”

Offensive line is coming along 

Obviously if the Rams are going to have any shot of being a lethal passing offense, everything starts up front with the line. 

It was a bit of a struggle for the big uglies last week. This time around though, the starting five was able to provide time for Clay Millen and allow the offense to drive the ball down the field. 

Although the Rams did not really stretch the field like we would expect with the Air Raid, Millen got off a ton of quick passes to the receivers and running backs coming out of the backfield. And while CSU will ideally reach the end zone a few more times in the future, it is a good sign to see the unit was effective in pass protection and run blocking scenarios. 

“I’m really happy with the way Jacob Gardner and that first unit is working, especially in the run game,” Mumme said. “We’re seeing our quarterbacks checking into good run looks and getting some explosive runs. I’d like to see our deep passing game vastly improved in the next week or so getting ready to go into Michigan.”