Colorado State was picked for fourth place this season in a Mountain West preseason media poll, slotted four spots higher than San Diego State.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was understandable. The Rams were coming off their best season in seven years while SDSU was coming off its worst year in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The Aztecs (3-1) and Colorado State (1-3) open Mountain West play on Friday performing differently than expected.<\/p>\n
The Rams, in fact, are fortunate they\u2019re not winless after edging FCS opponent Northern Colorado by four points for their only victory.<\/p>\n
The Aztecs are 5 1\/2-point favorites against Colorado State in Friday\u2019s game at 7:30 p.m. PT (CBS Sports Network) at Snapdragon Stadium.<\/p>\n
SDSU and Colorado State have met 37 times through the years. The Aztecs lead the series 22-15, including winning seven of the past nine meetings.<\/p>\n
About the Rams<\/p>\n
Colorado State put six straight losing seasons behind it last year with an 8-5 mark that included an Arizona Bowl appearance.<\/p>\n
That was the Rams\u2019 first bowl game since five straight postseason berths from 2013-17.<\/p>\n
Colorado State coach Jay Norvell, in his fourth season at CSU after five years at Nevada, appeared to have the program headed in the right direction.<\/p>\n
The Rams have struggled again this season, though, and Norvell is starting to get some heat from fans.<\/p>\n
The season began with a 38-21 loss at Washington. The Rams suffered home losses the past two games against UTSA (17-16) and Washington State (20-3). The only victory came with the 21-17 Week 2 win over Northern Colorado.<\/p>\n
There were boos from the crowd during Saturday night\u2019s loss to the Cougars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told our players, when you lose, there\u2019s a lot of criticism that gets thrown around and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll get a bunch of it,\u201d Norvell told reporters after the game. \u201cBut in that locker room, we stay together and that was something that we just talked about as a team. Criticism and all that stuff is part of the business. We get that. But in that locker room, we stay together as a team and coaches and that\u2019s what we plan to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norvell, who has called plays throughout his tenure at CSU, announced Monday that Matt Mumme will now handle those duties. Mumme is the Rams\u2019 associate head coach and passing game coordinator. He has coached with Norvell for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur motto is \u2018we over me\u2019 and we\u2019re going to make decisions that are going to help the football team,\u201d Norvell said. \u201cMatt and I have been handling the offense for a long time \u2014 nine years together \u2014 and Matt\u2019s going to communicate with the quarterback this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offense<\/p>\n
Colorado State has struggled significantly on offense this season, averaging only 15.3 points a game. That ranks 129th among 136 FBS teams.<\/p>\n
Norvell replaced third-year starter Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi (44-for-82, 488 yards, TD\/2 INTs) with 6-foot-4 redshirt sophomore Jackson Brousseau against Washington State.<\/p>\n
Brousseau (29-for-40, 266 yards, TD) did not provide the spark the Rams were hoping for, but it was not for lack of effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe threw the ball at a high clip in his first start,\u201d Norvell said Monday during his weekly press conference. \u201c(He) made a lot of smart plays, checks when he had to, got us into some good plays, kept us out of some bad plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he can lead our football team and we can make a lot of strides going forward with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
CSU\u2019s top two receivers this season have been Tommy Maher (14 catches, 131 yards) and Armani Winfield (11 catches, 156 yards).<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s biggest strength has been a running game that features three players \u2014 Jalen Dupree (53 carries, 267 yards, TD), Lloyd Avant (30-209, 2 TDs) and Justin Marshall (13-69) \u2014 each averaging at least 5 yards a carry.<\/p>\n
Complicating matters for the Rams has been problems holding onto the football. They have lost five fumbles in four games (120th in the nation).<\/p>\n
The defense<\/p>\n
The Rams have allowed 23 points a game, which ranks 60th in the nation.<\/p>\n
Not bad, but injuries to three starters could make things more challenging going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to have backups step up and give us the production we need,\u201d Norvell said.<\/p>\n
Owen Long is by far the team\u2019s leading tackler with 52 tackles. Cornerback Lemondre Joe is second with 25 tackles.<\/p>\n
Joe has a team-high eight pass breakups. Jahari Rogers, who has four pass breakups, gives the Rams another quality corner.<\/p>\n
CSU has three interceptions and two fumble recoveries, which places the Rams in the middle of the pack (60th) for takeaways.<\/p>\n
Did you know?<\/p>\n
The team with the fewest turnovers is 10-1 in the past 11 meetings between the teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado State was picked for fourth place this season in a Mountain West preseason media poll, slotted four…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":267912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1369,1370,3549,7264,18257,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-267911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sdsu-aztecs","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115296271458705663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}