Setting the Stage: The Border War

Colorado State (0-1, 0-1 MW) vs. Wyoming (1-1, 1-1)
Canvas Stadium, Fort Collins, Colo.
Thursday, Nov. 5, 7 p.m.

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Rams out to end current Bronze Boot slide

Tightening up

When it comes to stopping Wyoming offensively, the run comes first.

It has to with the Cowboys, who are averaging 204.5 yards per game and 4.4 per carry with Xazavian Valladay averaging 125 yards per game himself. They've run the ball nearly twice as much as they throw it (94 carries, 50 throws).

But the Rams have to worry about Levi Williams and the passing game, considering what happened the week prior against Fresno State. Busted coverage allowed the Bulldogs to convert on third down.

"Defense, it's not real complicated. You can play really well on defense, but if you give up five plays of third down and long, you're going to have a hard time winning the game," CSU head coach Steve Addazio said. "But we stopped the run really well; we did a great job against the run. In the second half, we put a tremendous amount of pressure on the quarterback, but we had some coverage busts that led to some, big, big issues. We just have to get them fixed."

The Rams didn't play a ton of man-to-man coverage in the old scheme, with cornerback Marshaun Cameron agreeing it was much more of a norm the first week under defensive coordinator Chuck Heater. There were some adjustments to be made, and even more to come.

Cameron says they can play it much better – they have in practice. Communication is key, he added.

"I would say that's the most that we were in man coverage," Cameron said. "As long as we did our execution right, we would have been in a good situation. If we execute how we should have, we'll do something similar to the same game plan, but we're going to be ready and we're going to execute better."

Defensive coordinator Chuck Heater isn't going to abandon the coverage scheme, so the Rams are going to have to improve. The breaks he did see were correctable in his mind, and not all limited to one player or one reason.

He said his defense, not just the secondary, has to talk more. They have to recognize and react quicker.

"First off, they just flat out need to be corrected," Heater said. "There's some fundamental things that weren't good enough in our first game, so it's important this week that we make improvement in the basic fundamentals of communication and things of that nature which got us in a bit of trouble last week. It needs to happen."

Cameron said the secondary knows exactly what the marching orders are for the week, and he says they've take the proper steps. It's important, he said, because while Wyoming will pound the ball on the ground, it will look for the same openings Fresno State found the week before. Third-and-long has to become a defensive win from here on out.

It's also important to keep in mind what they do well to keep reference on the overall goal of improvement.

"We did have a lot of missed execution things that happened, but that's something that we learned from," Cameron said. "We also had good things we can go off of to also bring to this game, as well as the lessons that we learned this last game."

Added Offense

Speed.

Short and simple. That was the basic answer from offensive coordinator Joey Lynch when posed what the return of Dante Wright and Ty McCullouch bring to the offense. Both are deep threats. Both can take the lid off a secondary.

"Both of those guys can really run. In this day and age, you have to be explosive on offense, and realistically, we had nine explosive plays last week, which isn't bad," Lynch said. "But there's some plays out there that we left out there, but there's also some situations we couldn't take advantage of when we don't have all of our speed on the field."

Wright is a known commodity. He was a freshman All-American, second on the team in receptions with 57 for 805 yards and explosive from the start, as his first catch was a 39-yard touchdown. He produced nine explosive receptions a season ago, four more in the run game.

McCullouch saw limited action last year, but the sophomore definitely has speed and has impressed in camp. Without the two available last week (due to contact tracing), Lynch said some aspects of the offense were missing.

This week, they can turn a few more pages in the playbook.

"I think it helps us truly be able to accomplish everything we want to do as an offense," Lynch said.

For the Record

The game -- which dates back to an 1899 forfeit -- has been a streaky affair. Especially as of late.

Colorado State has dropped the past four meetings, ending a streak of three consecutive Rams victories. Which ended a streak of four CSU losses. Which came on the heels of eight State victories in 10 meetings.

The Cowboys own the longest run – 10 years from 1956-65. The Rams have a pair of five-game win streaks and a 57-48-5 advantage on the overall ledger.

It will always be a rivalry, no matter what. There's too much history here, even deciding what the record is in the series; the two sides differ because of the initial forfeit. But Heater says a real rivalry is where both sides are winning, so the Rams need to alter course.

"If you haven't won in five years, it should really mean something to you," he said. "You run the risk of it no longer being a rivalry game if you don't win. You have to win games. Rival games are like back-and-forth kind of games."

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Marshaun Cameron

Ty McCullouch

Dante Wright

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