CSU's blueprint for victory — how the Rams can upset the Arkansas Razorbacks

 

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — When Colorado State faces Arkansas on Saturday, the Razorbacks will be the 12th opponent from a power-5 conference that the Rams have faced since Mike Bobo took over as head coach in 2015.

As it currently stands, CSU is 2-9 overall against schools from major conferences in that time period, with three of those losses coming on the road and both victories coming at home — five of the losses have been to the University of Colorado on a neutral field.

Though, Bobo has yet to defeat a power-5 opponent on the road, his teams have generally been competitive.

In 2016, after narrowly losing in Fort Collins the year before, the Rams traveled to Minnesota for a road game with the Gophers. Although the game was tight, CSU lost to the Big-10 squad, 31-24, in Bobo’s second season.

The following year, CSU traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, squaring off with the No. 1 Crimson Tide in front of over 100,000 people. The future national champions were always in control of the game and ultimately won, 41-23. However, it was a respectable showing from the Rams, even in a losing effort.

Finally, in 2018, as part of the buyout structure of Jim McElwain’s contract, the Rams faced the Florida Gators in Gainesville, Fla. The Rams were never competitive in this game and lost by 38 on a brutally hot September afternoon.

As CSU prepares for the 2019 matchup with the Razorbacks, something feels different this time around — like despite being double-digit underdogs, the game is legitimately winnable.

The truth is that while Bobo and the players will always say the right things and act like they believe they can beat any team anywhere, the Rams never really had a shot in their last three trips to the south. The fact that CSU even hung with Alabama is still impressive. The 2019 Rams are good enough to beat a bad Arkansas team, though, particularly if a few things go their way.

“It really doesn’t matter who we play, we want to practice well, be prepared, and we feel like when we step on that field, we expect to win,” Bobo said after Wednesday’s practice.

“With all of those games we went to, I went out there expecting to win. We aren’t just going down there to play, so we’re preparing to go down there and have a dog fight. Hopefully we’ve put ourselves in a position to go down there and play well enough to come away with a ‘W’.”

With that in mind, here are the keys to victory for the Rams against Arkansas.

Win the turnover battle

At the beginning of the week, Bobo made it extremely clear that while he has been impressed with his team’s effort in the first two games, their turnover margin is absolutely unacceptable (-5).

“We’re awful at the turnover ratio,” Bobo said on Monday. “It was good to get a turnover the other day — Bombek’s sack and we recovered the fumble — it was awesome but turning it over two times is not good.”

The two turnovers Bobo referenced were fumbles against Western Illinois. On the first one, running back Marcus McElroy lost control of the ball when a defender was able to dislodge it with his helmet. On the second turnover, wide receiver Warren Jackson was stripped after not tucking the ball tight enough in the open field.

“We’ve been doing pretty good in practice — I think they’ve been getting the turnovers off the scout team because our ones and twos aren’t really turning the ball over — just in the games, we haven’t protected it as well, so we gotta carry over what we’ve done in practices to the games,” Bobo said.

Bobo did add that if you count the two times CSU stopped WIU on fourth down, they essentially did win the turnover margin on Saturday — though, they don’t officially factor into the equation. But overall, it’s still evident that the Rams need to focus on limiting the amount of possessions they give away, particularly if CSU wants to beat Arkansas for a second straight year.

Against a team like the Leathernecks, CSU could afford to lose the turnover ratio and still come out victorious. As we saw against CU, though, when you’re going against a proper opponent, turnovers can be the difference between winning and losing.

If the Rams want to beat Arkansas, not only do they need to protect the football and value their own possessions, but CSU could really benefit from forcing a turnover or two of their own on defense. CSU still doesn’t have an interception this season — the perfect time to change that would be with a pick-six against Arkansas.

Stop the run

The Hogs ran wild when Arkansas came to Canvas Stadium in 2018 so limiting the run game will be crucial this time around.

Against CSU last season, Arkansas had three different backs average five or more yards per carry in the loss — Devwah Whaley had 165 yards on 26 carries (6.3 yards per carry), Chase Bowden had 55 yards on 11 carries (5.0 yards per carry) and Rakeem Boyd had 67 yards on seven carries (9.6 yards per carry). All of those backs are still with the Hogs in 2019 but Boyd has been the bell cow through the first two weeks as he has three times as many carries as any other running back on the roster.

“We didn’t do a very good job of the split zone, the divide zone of 11 personnel against them — and sometimes when they had their fly sweeps,” Bobo said. “I think we’re more prepared for that this year having faced the team we faced last week.”

Against Western Illinois, CSU held the Leathernecks to just 64 yards rushing on 28 carries, which was far better than the Rams fared against the Buffs. In the CU game, CSU got torched for 243 yards and four scores on the ground.

According to defensive tackle Ellison Hubbard, who is coming off of a monster game in Week 2, the Rams are better equipped to slow down Arkansas but they have to get off the snap better than they did a year ago. As Hubbard explained, if CSU is going to limit Arkansas’ ground game, the front seven has to be relentless.

“It’s really just a battle of who wants it more,” Hubbard told BSN Rams.

“I think they’re going to think about last year and how they lost and how they thought they should have won — so they’re going to come out there way more aggressive than the last two games they played. It’s really going to come down to who has more heart and who will do what it takes to win.”

Be balanced on offense

A quarterback’s best friend is a good rushing attack and that will certainly be the case for CSU this weekend. As good as Collin Hill has been for the Rams so far, if they can’t move the ball on the ground, it’s going to put the redshirt junior quarterback in a difficult position on Saturday.

In Bobo’s tenure as head coach, the team is 3-13 when the offense attempts 40 or more passes in the game. Two of those victories actually came in 2018 — in the wins over Arkansas (50) and New Mexico (42), CSU had to rely on the aerial attack — but that had much more to do with the offensive line’s inability to run block.

On the other end of the spectrum, going back to 2015, the Rams are 18-4 in games where CSU has rushed for 200 or more yards. This makes sense, especially because the entire foundation of Bobo’s offense has always been a strong running game.

Against WIU last Saturday, CSU didn’t quite reach 200 yards but the 189 they finished with still shows that the offense functions best when Bobo can lean on his running backs. If CSU can effectively move the football on the ground this Saturday, not only will it allow the Rams to dictate tempo and keep their defense off the field, but it will also open up opportunities for play-action and the chance to beat Arkansas over the top.