This Week in CSU Football History -- A Salute to 125 Years of CSU Football

by John Hirn
CSU Athletics Historian

On December 12, 1892, students from the State Agricultural College, also known as Colorado Agricultural College, decided to form their first football team. A student by the name F.O. Congdon gathered 18 of the 179 students enrolled in the school, and they decided it was time that CAC should join with other schools in the area to play this increasingly popular game.

Following the Christmas break, they found some men at a small private hybrid college/high school called the Longmont Academy who wanted to challenge the CAC team to play the first game in each school's history. On January 7, 1893, on a small patch of ground in Longmont, CSU football was born. Earlier that morning the players and their fans bought orange and green ribbon at a dry goods store in Longmont and the school colors were chosen.

Fast-forward to August 26, 2017, officially the 125^th anniversary of CSU football (CSU's game in January of 1893 counts towards the 1892 season). The school has grown considerably with an enrollment of 33,413 students and goes by the name Colorado State University. A brand new stadium built on the main campus opens and football is alive and well in Fort Collins under the leadership of fourth-year head coach Mike Bobo.

Since 1893, football at CSU has seen its share of ups and downs. During its first 20 years the football program, like many things in college learning, could be described as an experiment. After playing only one game in 1894, the college president banned the game and it disappeared until he left the school. The football team reformed in 1899, but saw a dismal record of 14 wins and 35 losses with seven men holding the position as head coach between 1899 and 1910.

The school's first coach, William Forbes, died in a tragic accident in June of 1900 and its fourth coach, Matt Rothwell, may have turned in a 5-1 record in 1903, but history shows most of the players were not even students. After George Cassidy, a one-year coach in 1910, left following an 0-5 season, the program finally found the man who would turn the program in the right direction.

When Harry W. Hughes arrived in Fort Collins in 1911, he not only changed the game of football, but also how the athletic department was to be run. After a winless 1911 season in which the Aggies did not score a single point, Hughes stunned the Rocky Mountain Football world by opening the 1912 season at a new stadium, and beat both DU and CU in consecutive weeks.

Over the course of the next 30 years, Hughes transformed football not just at CAC, but within the entire Rocky Mountain Region. He dismissed so-called professionals who did not attend the school legitimately, halted all fighting by his players against other teams and played a clean game that forced other teams within the small conference to follow suit. The result was eight conference titles, 126 wins and if the Aggies had been bowl-eligible with six wins in a season (providing there were the number of bowl games there are today) Hughes would have had nine teams in bowl games.

Harry Hughes trained agricultural college men and turned them into football players during his 31 seasons as head coach. He was made an active member of the NCAA rules committee from 1926 to 1929 and a lifetime member afterwards. He was a board member of the American Football Coaches Association, brought national acclaim to Aggies football and was known as the Dean of American Football Coaches.

However, as the depression of the 1930s went on and other schools expanded football, Hughes and the school known as Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, ran the program as it had been 20 years prior. CSC football saw an incredible decline by the late 1930s while other schools expanded and grew their programs. It was not until after WWII that Bob Davis helped re-energize the football program.

Davis took over in 1947 and a year later took his Aggie-Rams to the 1949 Raisin Bowl, just missing conference titles in 1948, 1949 and 1950. Davis brought a style of football to Colorado A&M that attracted NFL-quality players and by 1955 he finally won his only conference championship. Poor funding and a lack of support from the school prompted Davis to step down and although Tuffy Mullison and Mike Lude did their best to form teams as the school renamed itself to Colorado State University in 1957, they played in outdated facilities and had no funding to support the kind of football other schools supported by the 1960s.

CSU football hit rock bottom in 1962 when it was not allowed to join the Western Athletic Conference and forced to compete as an independent due to those inadequate facilities. The administration soon built both Moby Arena (1966) and Hughes Stadium (1968) allowing the Rams to enter into the WAC, but in many cases CSU football was still 20 years or more behind the times.

When Sark Arslanian was hired as the 14^th head coach in program history, he shook up the football program and brought talent to Fort Collins like Rams fans had never seen before. Like Bob Davis, many of Arslanian's players went on to the professional ranks and in 1977 he almost took the Rams to a bowl game with a 9-2-1 record. Arslanian lacked the necessary funds to continue to build his program and by 1981 CSU suffered through a winless season, the first in NCAA history.

The 1980s continued to be a challenging decade, despite producing many fine and talented athletes. It was not until Earle Bruce arrived in 1989 that a fire was lit and football found a way to get back to bowl games. The 1990 Freedom Bowl team, made up of many athletes who played in a 1-10 season in 1988, won the school's first bowl game in history. Bruce's tenure in Fort Collins came to an end following the 1992 season, a former CSU assistant coach named Sonny Lubick returned and transformed football into something special once again.

Lubick was able to build upon the foundation that Earle Bruce established, and took the program to previously unreached heights. With an excellent coaching staff and a combination of Bruce's and his own talented players, the Rams achieved a near-perfect 1994 season, reaching a peak national ranking of No. 10. Lubick would go on to win six conference championships and guide his teams to nine bowl games. He brought respect to the Green and Gold and propelled still many more of his athletes to the NFL. Over his 15 seasons, Sonny Lubick won 108 games, second most of any coach at CSU, and became the greatest name to CSU football in modern times.

Former CSU quarterback Steve Fairchild took over head coaching duties in 2008 and led the Rams to a bowl game in his first season, defeating Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl. CSU would not reach another bowl game until 2013, in Jim McElwain's second season as the team's head coach. McElwain then led the Rams to a 10-win season in 2014 – its first 10-win year since Lubick's 2002 squad went 10-4.

Including McElwain's final two seasons and current head coach Mike Bobo's first three, CSU has now appeared in postseason play for five consecutive years, tying the school record. Bobo is the first head coach in CSU history to lead the Rams to bowl appearances in each of his first three seasons. The team moved into Canvas Stadium in 2017, upgrading the program's facilities beyond anything CSU had previously known.

Bobo and the Rams will aim to continue to elevate the program as the team begins the 2018 season. History will be made at Canvas Stadium in the 126^th season of CSU football, so let the new season begin.

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