Rams Rally Late But Fall In Season Opener To Hawaii, 43-34

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Colorado State rallied from a 30-point deficit to cut it to a one-score game in the final minutes but couldn't finish the comeback in a 43-34 Mountain West loss to Hawaii, Aug. 25. The contest was the season and conference opener for both squads.

Senior quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels threw for a school-record 537 yards and connected on five touchdowns, including nine connections for 188 yards and two scores to Preston Williams. Both teams had more than 600 yards of total offense in the contest.

The Rams trailed by 30, 37-7, with 3:35 to go in the third quarter. CSU rattled off 20 unanswered points and would cut the Warriors' lead to just six points (40-34) with 4:42 remaining.

Hawai'i's Ryan Meskell connected on a 35-yard field goal, his third make of the night, with 0:44 to go to seal the win.

CSU outgained Hawai'i 653-617, but also had nearly twice as many penalty yards (120 to 65).

Quotables:
"First of all, I have to give (Hawai'i head football) Coach (Nick) Rolovich and his staff a lot of credit. They came in, were better prepared than we were tonight. They played a better football game in all three phases. You have to give those guys credit, they made more plays. I thought we were a little bit on our heels early on in the game. Some young guys were playing a little bit cautious and making some mistakes. I thought we settled in as the game went on, but a little bit too late." -- CSU head coach Mike Bobo's overall thoughts

"Very disappointing…it was not a very disciplined effort tonight. You look at 12 penalties tonight; there were several drive-killers on offense, and extended drives for them while we were on defense. The special teams penalties killed us over and over. In special teams, just a pretty disappointing effort and discipline. That falls on me as a head coach. We have to play more disciplined football." -- Bobo on the team's effort and discipline

"We didn't quit at the end, but like I told the guys, there are no moral victories. We have a short week, we can't feel sorry for ourselves. We have to get up and have practice tomorrow. We have to get ready to play (Colorado) for the Showdown on a Friday in a short week." -- Bobo on the team's next steps after today's loss

"We were doing a lot of good things in the game, we just weren't scoring fast enough on some level. It seemed like we were doing good things in the run-game but couldn't finish the drives early." -- CSU quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels' overall thoughts on the offense

"This is a true test. This is when we're going to see what kind of team we are. If we're going to lay down and get run over for the rest of the season or if we're going to get to work and go back on (Sunday) and start working next week. This is CU week and it's a big statement… I'm excited about what we can do. I think we can do really good things and we showed that tonight. We just need to be really consistent." -- Carta-Samuels on the work the team needs to do

Notes:

CSU scored a touchdown on its first possession of the game, but was unable to find the end zone again until the second half.
CSU fell behind 30-7 at the half and was down 37-7 in the third quarter before scoring 27 points in the final 17:02 minutes of the game to bring the score to 40-34.
Following the loss, CSU is now 61-58-1 (.508) all time in season openers.
- 23-16-1 (.575) in season openers at home.
  - First season opener at home that CSU has lost since 1993.
- 15-10-0 all time against Hawai'i
Attendance was 31,007
- Fourth-most for a CSU home opener
- Second-most for an opener since 2004
  - 37,583 last season vs. Oregon State
  - 33,501 vs. Minnesota at Hughes Stadium in 2004

Next:
CSU will play rival Colorado in the Rocky Mountain Showdown at the Broncos Stadium at Mile High in Denver. The game is slated for a 7:30 p.m. MT start on Friday.

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