How Mike Bobo could pull off CSU's most impressive feat this decade

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Not done yet.

With three games left on the schedule, Colorado State football (4-5) has an opportunity to shock the league and reach the postseason despite initially losing five of their first six games. If the Rams are going to qualify for a bowl game, though, they will first have to escape the difficult gauntlet of Air Force, Wyoming and Boise State with at least two wins.

Although the final slate will be tough — CSU has not beaten any of these teams since 2015 — the Rams control their own destiny, which is always a good position to be in for any team.

First up for the Rams in this incredibly important three-game stretch is the in-state rival from just down I-25. Over the last five years, the Falcons have gone 4-1 against the Rams and have essentially killed both of CSU’s opportunities to contend for a conference championship in the process.

In 2014, with Jim McElwain as head coach, Air Force snapped CSU’s nine-game winning streak with a 27-24 win on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Then, three years later, the Falcons played spoilers once again, defeating the Rams in Fort Collins. The 45-28 loss to the academy was CSU’s first conference loss of the 2017 season and began a three-game skid against the same group of opponents that the Rams must conclude with in 2019.

When the two teams played in Colorado Springs last season, CSU hung tough with the Falcons but fell short by a touchdown and a conversion (27-19). The loss to the Falcons was the third in a row for the Rams under Bobo and the second game in the last three years that was decided by a single score. But as the old saying goes, close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades.

Prior to the win over UNLV, head coach Mike Bobo joked that he has a lot of demons from his coaching career that will stick with him for the rest of his life, regardless of how his teams do against those same opponents in this current or future season(s). For example, Bobo does not believe beating down the Rebels in the State Pride jerseys this season made up for the disappointing overtime loss to the Broncos in those same jerseys at Canvas Stadium back in 2017. So by that same logic, even if CSU were to make a bowl game this season or beat some of their Mountain Division foes this month, it would not necessarily make up for the team’s recent history against the Falcons, Pokes and Broncos —not in Bobo’s eyes at least.

While reaching the postseason wouldn’t make up for a disappointing finish to 2017 or any other shortcoming from Bobo’s time at CSU, it would be an incredible turnaround and help him change the narrative with the fans. Considering where this team started, the injuries they’ve had to deal with and how talented the opponents that CSU must beat are, if the Rams were to actually reach the postseason in 2019, critics would likely go from sharpening their pitchforks to calling for another extension. Okay, well maybe not quite that far — but in the grand scheme of things, reaching a bowl this season would arguably be the most impressive feat by any CSU team of the last decade, including more impressive than anything Bobo’s predecessor accomplished.

Don’t get me wrong, Jim McElwain had plenty of monumental moments — beating Colorado in two of three years, the crazy comeback win over Washington State in 2013 and a 10-win campaign in 2014 are a few examples.

However, as successful as McElwain was, he never beat a Wyoming or Air Force team that finished bowl eligible. And even when you look at the final seven games from the 2013 season, a stretch in which McElwain’s Rams went 5-2 to earn a spot in the postseason, the teams they beat owned the following records: Wyoming (5-7), Hawaii (1-11), Nevada (4-8), New Mexico (3-9) and Air Force (2-10). The two teams they lost to in that stretch, Boise State (8-5) and Utah State (9-5), were the only opponents with winning records. In 2014, CSU beat six teams with losing records and finished 1-3 against teams that were more than one game over .500.

Again, this is not to say that the 2013 season was not a fun ride — it certainly was. 2014 was as well. But considering the heat Bobo has taken this year and really over the last few seasons for struggling against the big boys from the Mountain Division, and also factoring in the props that McElwain still gets to this day, we should recognize that Air Force and Wyoming both became significantly better once McElwain had moved on to Florida.

Boise State has never won less than eight games in a season since joining the Mountain West in 2011, so they don’t really factor into the conversation — though it could be mentioned that three of the four Broncos teams Bobo has faced finished the year with double-digit victories.

The longwinded point of all of this, though, is that if we are going to crucify Bobo for struggling against these teams, you have to also recognize the context of each season and the fact that the league has just generally been stronger in recent years. So yes, McElwain’s teams had a lot more success against CSU’s rivals — but he did so during a time when there was just a lot of really bad football being played locally.

Before we continue, let me reiterate that McElwain does deserve a ton of credit for helping bring life back to the program. Without his time in Fort Collins, the team likely would not have a shiny on-campus stadium to call home. Jack Graham was the man with the initial vision behind the stadium but it was McElwain’s success on the field that got the gears rolling with the university and made the whole thing possible. The McElwain era was by most accounts, a major success.

Now that we have covered the background of the Bobo vs. McElwain debate and explained why comparing the two is not quite as simple as looking at final records, let’s wrap things up with some final thoughts on the good ole’ boy from Georgia.

If it were to end today, the Bobo era would generally be viewed as a disappointment.  Under Bobo, the Rams have three postseason appearances but no victories to show for it and the consistent struggles in rivalry games make it even tougher to defend him. That said, as bad as it’s been at times, his fight through it all has been admirable and there’s no denying that he genuinely loves his players. This is important to remember for a variety of reasons but mostly because we regularly see scumbag coaches making headlines for the awful things they do. Bobo’s teams have underperformed at times but he definitely has always represented the university well.

That said, there were definitely moments where it seemed like it was time to close the book on the Bobo era and set it on the shelf next to the chapters on McElwain, Steve Fairchild, Sonny Lubick and on. When the Rams started 1-5 this season, it appeared that Bobo may be on the fast track for unemployment. Over the last month, though, this team has rallied, and genuinely looks like a squad that would have contended had they gotten off to a faster start.

Obviously, we can play woulda, coulda, shoulda with this team all day. In reality, the only thing that ends up mattering is whether you find a way to win or not. But the thing about a good story is sometimes it takes a while for the plot to thicken. Maybe that will be the case with CSU in 2019. At this point, we don’t know.

One thing I do know is that the book of Bobo is still being written. If he finds a way to win three in a row or even two-of-three, then the 2020 season will likely be the climax of the story — and who knows what would happen from there. But if the team falls flat in this final month, we very well may have already seen the climax and if that’s the case, we’re closer to a conclusion.

Regardless of how they play out, these final three games will have a massive impact on both how Bobo’s career is viewed and the future of the program moving forward. Either this team will accomplish something truly remarkable and completely change the narrative surrounding their coach. Or they fall short once again, which would only entrench Bobo’s critics in their stances even further. Either way, there will be plenty to talk about down the final stretch.

CSU’s final three games

Nov. 16 vs. Air Force (5:00 p.m. MT) | TV: ESPN2

Nov. 22 at Wyoming (7:30 p.m. MT) | TV: ESPN2

Nov. 29 vs. Boise State (1:30 p.m. MT) | TV: CBSSN