RamWire: Heater Plans for Aggressive Return to CSU

FORT COLLINS -- The place has certainly changed, and from where Chuck Heater is currently standing, all of it is for the better.

His assignment as Colorado State's defensive coordinator is not his first go-round, serving in the role under Earle Bruce from 1991-92. He even did a spell after at Colorado (1993-98), and while working there, he continued to live in Fort Collins, amounting to an eight-year stretch.

Not much is new, but it all seems so fresh.

"The facilities are overwhelming different than what we had, and that's a credit to the leaders who have been leading this operation here at Colorado State," Heater said. "The facilities are tremendous, better than a lot of places than I've been. It gives you a real chance, recruiting there, that kind of marketing edge in recruiting. Plus the players – this is a nice facility to take care of our players, and ultimately, that's what you want to do."

Heater may have been in the game a long time, but head coach Steve Addazio knows it has never passed him by. While offenses have been in a constant flux of change through the years, with rules leading to more advantages for the team snapping the ball, Heater has remained in touch with every change and found ways to take his base approach and adapt it to each new concept.

Addazio said there are a lot of people coaching who think they are geniuses, but if they can't make it clear, concise and direct in their teaching, it's wasted knowledge. Heater's ability to deliver an understandable and executable message is what Addazio values as much as his knowledge.

"It's still about the defense. That has not changed, no matter what people say," Addazio said. "You win championships playing great defense. Chuck has been a part of great defenses. I think Chuck is a guy who has a great base of knowledge. He started as a back-end coach, and I always think that's the best way to see the whole thing tied together. He's been involved with every position group on defense. He has a wealth of experience, so I think I just see Chuck being able … He's very progressive, and I think he's on the cutting edge on some of the best that's out in defense right now."

No matter the style of offense, the concepts of stopping it remain unchanged to Heater. Throw it at will, spread the field or feature a power running attack, the rules don't ever change.

Some of the challenges do, he admitted, such as being able to make plays in space, because at the heart of the scheme, it's the aim of every offensive coach is to have playmakers in the wide open.

"You have to leverage the football. You have to be gap sound, and you have to tackle," Heater said. "That's the challenge of defensive football today is tackling. Those are the things you're going to focus on and try to do all the things fundamentally, technique-wise, drill–work wise to give your guys the best chance possible. Then if you finish by running to the football – guys really have great strain to the football – then sometimes you can erase the mistakes. Get the guy on the ground, give us a place to stand, and let's go play the next down. Anything can happen on the next down, no matter what happened the play before."

As a man who has worked out of a four-front base the entirety of his career, he still wants to see his current roster and what the strengths are he can build from. Not just physically, but what is in the head and heart, part of the reason he hit the road immediately to visit some key returners and their families.

He came away impressed with the people they were, but what stood out is the hunger which fuels them. The Rams may have ended 2019 on an impressive seven-game stretch, but none of them really feel the unit fulfilled what it is fully capable of on game day.

This next season, Heater plans to unleash them, and he's confident that's the impression folks will walk away with after watching their effort.

"I think I'd like them to say it's aggressive," Heater said. "We'll see how that plays out, how people interpret that and how well it works. I would say on the aggressive nature of things. That's what I hope they would see, aggressive successfully."

Heater was a running back in his playing days, but his coach at Michigan, Bo Schembechler, approached the game with a defensive mindset, And while Heater has also coached the offensive side of the ball in a career which began in 1976, he's valued the strong influences he's gleaned over the years. Barry Alvarez carries influence, and even though it was just for a 10-month span at Utah, he said Kyle Whittingham impacted him as much as anybody with his language and concepts.

"It's not about the quantity of what you know, it's about what you can get the players to know and get them to understand," Addazio said in reference to a Heater strength. "The simplicity of that. That's the value of any teacher."

It's all been blended into his personal style of coaching and his ability to simplify the message to be executed. His time at Colorado State was a few decades back, but fans of the program have seen recently what his defenses can do.

In the 2017 New Mexico Bowl, his Marshall defense had an explosive CSU offense playing from behind all game in a 31-28 victory. The Rams only rushed for 70 yards, and while they threw for 320, most of the yardage came with the game out of hand and at the expense of completing fewer than 50 percent of its passing attempts (25-of-52) as Nick Stevens was sacked five times.

He's been doing it for years, taking his group's strengths and using it to be disruptive. He's proud of the fact most of his time as a coordinator, there have been very few down years for his defenses.

It's a trend he expects to continue in his return to Fort Collins.

"You're always trying to match. Getting the players who are here with what the scheme is and trying to find the fit," he said. "I don't know what all they can do. We're going to see them move around and get a pretty good idea of who they are in the next month, which will be really huge for us. I've been around long enough and have a lot of points of reference, I know there's a lot of ways of doing things. We'll see what we've got in and mix it in and match it up with the skill set our guys have."

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