Colorado State finally broke into the win column with a 17-14 upset of Nevada on Friday night.
The road victory out in Reno, Nev. not only snapped a 10-game losing streak, the nation’s longest going into the matchup, but after two weeks of shade being thrown CSU’s way by Nevada head coach Ken Wilson, Jay Norvell and the Rams were able to get the last laugh in by pulling out the road upset.
Beyond bragging rights, which are a fun part of being a college football fan but mean very little in the grand scheme of things, Friday’s win gave some hope to the Ram faithful that the Green & Gold may have an opportunity to turn things around this fall, or at the very least be more competitive in the conference slate than they were in the opening month of the season.
What’s been made clear over the last six weeks is that this league is unpredictable, seemingly random at times and even the perceived contenders are flawed in their own ways.
Utah State lost by 28 at home to Weber State one week after losing 55-0 to Alabama, however, the Aggies also nearly beat a talented BYU team on the road and most recently took down Air Force 34-27 at home.
Boise State lost by 17 to UTEP a few weeks back and has since rebounded with double-digit wins over both San Diego State and Fresno State.
Air Force has looked like a top 25 team at times with the way they’ve moved the ball this season — the Falcons currently have the best rushing attack in the FBS — they’ve also lost their first two divisional matchups of the year and may already be out of the picture for a MW Championship.
There’s just no telling what is going to happen any given Saturday in this league. And for a Rams team that views the conference slate as a new beginning, that’s an exciting position to be in.
Honestly, at this point the Rams are pretty much playing with house money. Everybody knows that the focus is on the rebuild after starting 0-4 and losing a plethora of veterans. So really this young CSU team has a chance to go out there with very minimal expectations and potentially play spoilers for division rivals. If they get hot and contend for the postseason, the fans will go crazy and the whole thing will be a total blast. But if they only win a handful of games, it’s not as if it would be a shocking outcome for anyone.
Your guess is as good as anyone’s if you are trying to predict the future in this wonky conference. But for the first time this season it feels like there is hope, and that’s because we saw a Rams team that fought like hell to steal a win on the road this past weekend.
It was not always pretty and CSU still has their own issues to address. The Rams have still not scored 20 points in any game this season. And outside of the third quarter against Middle Tennessee, we have yet to see the Air Raid produce the way everyone imagined when this staff was hired.
What’s encouraging though is that junior running back Avery Morrow looked like an absolute stud with a career-high 169 yards on the ground and an average of 7.0 yards per carry.
The performance from the offensive line was also a good sign. The big boys in the trenches were mauling Nevada’s defensive line in the second half and really opened up some big holes in the run game — something they will hopefully be able to build off of in the coming weeks.
The passing offense is likely going to be high variance in terms of results this season. That’s just how it goes with young quarterbacks, but even more so now that the Rams are starting multiple freshmen receivers. There will be drives where everything clicks and we get to see the talent pop. There will be stretches where this group’s collective inexperience shows as well.
But after getting torched over the first couple of weeks, now that CSU has shifted some guys around and gotten a few key veterans back from injuries, it seems like the Rams have figured out their ideal starting five in the trenches. Jacob Gardner has really locked things down at left tackle and George Miki-Han has done well since taking over as the starting center. There is still room for improvement with pass protection and giving the QB clean pockets consistently. That said, only allowing one sack to an experienced Nevada defensive line was a step in the right direction, especially when you know how badly those guys wanted to beat the Rams.
The point of all this is not to say that CSU is going to catch fire and win the Mountain West. There is a reason that Las Vegas still has the Rams listed as close to 10 point underdogs in their own building for Homecoming. Friday was the feel-good moment that the Rams desperately needed though — both for the guys in the locker room and the fans that support them. It was proof that this team may lack some depth after all of the recent departures, but the guys that are still here are willing to go to war for 60 minutes. And if you’re not careful, this up-and-coming group can make you pay for it.
We know that CSU is not going to contend for national championships in the current landscape of college football. All anybody wants is a little bit of hope. Norvell and squad gave Ram Nation some with Friday’s 17-14 victory over Nevada.
