What We Saw: Hill Injury Makes Loss Harder

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Hill Injury Hard to Take

Quarterback Collin Hill has had a rough ride at Colorado State, and it was clear to all Colorado State coach Mike Bobo has seen enough.

Bobo became emotional after the game when talking about the redshirt junior quarterback who had overcome a pair of surgeries on his left ACL to take over again as the starter in 2019. In the third quarter of Saturday's loss to Arkansas, Hill planted and completed a key pass, but Razorbacks' Blitzer Joe Foucha rolled into Hill's left leg after being tripped up by a blocked teammate.

"It's tough. It's tough," Bobo said. "The kid is special … you know, special. Got his knee hurt, he comes back out there, he's got a headset on, he's encouraging. I mean, he's a special kid. He's made up of the right stuff."

Foucha drew a flag on the play for hitting the quarterback low, and it erased a fumble by Dante Wright on a first-down pick up on third-and-10. Hill stayed in two more plays, completing a pass on the next play, but he sat down on the field after Marvin Kinsey Jr. picked up a first down on a 5-yard run the next snap.

Patrick O'Brien finished that drive, which led to a field goal. He made one big play, scrambling to find Dante Wright deep, who made a nice adjustment on the pass and turned it into a 75-yard score.

Seeing Hill leave the field and go into the locker room was a blow to the entire team.

"He's a leader for us, vocally and on the field. Seeing him go down the way he did, it was tough for us," cornerback Rashad Ajayi said. "I mean, he's our guy. It's definitely going to be tough, but Pat O'Brien is a good quarterback and he'll step up and get the job done."

The rest of the game proved to be difficult offensively with Hill sidelined.

"It was hard for us to function and get in a formation and run a play," Bobo said. "I don't know what was going on. We've got to figure that out. We've got to get it corrected, especially if Collin's out next week."

Hill, who completed 13-of-23 passes for 99 yards, was scheduled to have an MRI on his knee Sunday.

Class Dismissed

Cayden Camper, a walk-on kicker from Pueblo, was where he was supposed to be Friday morning. He just wasn't where the Rams needed him.

In Friday's travel-day practice, kickers Maxwell Poduska and Braxton Davis were not inspiring confidence, so the call went out to Camper.

He was in BSPM, a bugs and insect science class the students simply call "bugs", doing an online assignment as his phone rang. It was special teams analyst Ben Larson.

"Coach Larson was calling me, so I said, 'hello,' and he said, 'where are you?'" Camper said. "I was like, 'well, I'm in class.' Larson was calling to tell Camper, who had not previously been scheduled to travel with the team, was headed to Fayetteville with the team.

I just ran over here, and I'm thankful for the equipment guys, because they got all my stuff ready, so all I had to do was grab it and get on the bus."

Hopefully, Matt Camper – who Cayden said is a "long, lost uncle" – understands why his student left in a hurry.

Camper hit two of his three attempts in the game, hitting from 46 and 21 yards before missing wide on a 50-yard attempt that would have put the Rams in front in the fourth quarter. Bobo wasted little time putting him on the stage as Camper hit the first of four extra points just 18 seconds into the day after Marvin Kinsey Jr.'s 75-yard scoring run on the second offensive snap of the day.

He is the third kicker the Rams have used, the first to make two field goal attempts in succession. His 46-yarder stands as the longest for the team this season.

More to Fix

Arkansas was the first team to surpass 500 yards of total offense against Colorado State, hitting 520 fueled by early big plays.

The Razorbacks hit five pass plays of 20 yards or longer and four runs of 15 yards or more. Five of them came in the first quarter as they scored on their first five drives. The Rams have now allowed nine runs of 15 yards or longer on the season.

"Defensively, I thought we settled down there in the second quarter and played pretty good defense," Bobo said. "You can't give up the big explosive runs we gave up, and the last one (a 62-yard touchdown pass), we have to get the guy on the ground. They're trying to strip and make a play, and the guy did a great job of keeping his feet and scoring a touchdown."

For the second week in a row, the Rams recovered a fumble, but on the last pass play, multiple defenders went for the strip, not the stop. The Rams are losing the turnover battle on the year (negative-six), and two of the Rams' fumbles have been converted into defensive scores.

"We made the one play to get fumble, but we have to make some more plays defensively, and we can't let runs hit us right up the gut," Bobo said. "We've got to close that off and make people run sideways."

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