3 takeaways: CSU's offense flashed its potential late Week 1

Not much went right for the Rams in Saturday’s 50-24 loss to Washington State. 

On a night where Colorado State hoped to show the world that this group is different, that they’re not like the teams of recent years, the Green & Gold came out and largely underwhelmed against the Pac-12 program. 

After marching down the field for a field goal on CSU’s first possession of the game, the Rams’ next nine drives ended with five punts, a pair of interceptions and they turned it over on downs twice, too. 

While the Rams did at least mitigate some of the damage optically by scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter, by then the game was well out of hand. So while it was a small silver lining to see the offense take advantage of its offensive weapons, and to finally score 20+ points for the first time under Jay Norvell, the late production was kind of like getting lukewarm fries from the drive-through. At the end of the day it’s better than no fries at all, but you sure wish that you would have gotten them an hour before.

Fortunately for us all, as frustrating as the outcome was, seasons are not defined in Week 1. And while last Saturday may have been a bit of a reality check, the truth is that this group really does have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. 

With that in mind, let’s get into some of the takeaways from the matchup. 

CSU skill players are for real 

The game may have been well decided by the time CSU was able to put some points on the board. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t see the potential this group has if they can get the ball rolling offensively though. 

Kobe Johnson has game-breaking speed and is capable of turning any touch into a housecall. 

Dallin Holker just might be the most skilled tight end in the Mountain West. 

Justus Ross-Simmons and Tory Horton are an elite duo out wide that could play for any number of power five schools. 

There are clearly extremely gifted individuals in the CSU locker room. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to best take advantage of them all, especially if the offensive line is more or less holding up.

“I had some great talks with Clay (Millen) and we gotta put ourselves in position to use our playmakers better,” Jay Norvell told reporters on Monday.

“We’ve got really good players. Tory and Dallin on offense, and our other receivers, we’ve gotta do a better job of getting them involved in the game early.”

Special teams stepped up 

It’s not ever going to be the cover story on Monday morning or anything like that, but I was quite impressed with what I saw from CSU on special teams. 

The highlight was obviously Johnson taking a 98-yard return to the house, CSU’s first kickoff return for a touchdown in four years. But the specialists did their thing in this one as well. 

Paddy Turner had a pair of punts of 50+ yards, he dropped two inside the 20 and finished with an average of 48.6 yards per punt. And CSU’s new kicker Jordan Noyes, who transferred over from Utah, appears to have a really solid leg as well. He drilled his 38-yard field goal with plenty of room to spare. He also blasted a couple of kickoffs through the back of the end zone. 

Again, it may not be sexy. But I promise you that the impact of quality special teams play will be felt in tighter games. It’s an encouraging sign to see CSU look competent there for once. 

Defense must be better 

Being fair to CSU’s defense, the offense pretty much left them out to dry on Saturday night. And after already being on the field twice as much as their counterparts over the first 30 minutes of action, CSU’s offensive ineptitude in the third quarter seemed to be the breaking point for the Rams’ defense. 

Even so, Wazzu scored on seven of its 13 drives, converted 11 of 17 third-down attempts and produced nearly 500 yards of passing offense. Quite simply, the defense must be better if the Rams are going to be competitive in 2023. They have too many playmakers in the trenches and secondary to give up a 50 burger in their own building. 

“Defensively they out-played us,” Norvell said.

“You get into games like that where you play against somebody who is hot. We didn’t handle it very well defensively. I just got done talking to coach Banks and I think we’ve got a chance to reflect on this performance. It’s one game. But we’ve got a lot of good football players.”