Rams Have Seen Rise in Offensive Production

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. – There's definitely been a change. And it has come amid a host of changes to the lineup.

Injuries have kept Dante Wright out of the lineup (basically for four games), as well as running back David Bailey. The offensive line has had to reshuffle through injuries, too.

In the first month of play, Colorado State's football team was averaging 20 points per game. After a bye and through two weeks of Mountain West play, the Rams are averaging 34 points per game. They have gotten back to exceeding 400 yards of total offense in a game, and the points are starting to follow. Even still, head coach Steve Addazio feels should have been more.

"We have a lot of offense right now. Offense hasn't been an issue in my opinion, it's making sure we're converting the offense into touchdowns, not field goals," he said. "It's great we're kicking field goals, and they're points, but we're leaving a lot. We had almost 500 yards of offense, but we're leaving a lot.
As a coach, you don't want to see that. We're striving for a higher level. We want to be 250-250 (yardage run-pass), we want to run 85-90 plays. Those are things we want to do, and we want to score touchdowns in the red zone, especially the low red. That should be an area we should be able to do well in."

Even still, the trend is heading upwards, not down, and that has the team encouraged.

"We've been hitting our deep shots to wide receivers and tight ends a lot more frequently in the last two games, and that's a product of our work that we put in, our extra work," quarterback Todd Centeio said. "The two teams we played, they played really hard, but we have a really big challenge this week with Utah State. They play good defense, and it's a real test for our offense this week. We've been averaging 30, but we need to see how we come out this week against Utah State."

Part of the scoring uptick is the resurgence of kicker Cayden Camper, who had made 16 field goals in 17 attempts in the past three games he's attempted one. The team loves Camper, and they're happy for him. They'd just rather see him attempting more extra points.

"He can be famous, but he doesn't have to run on the field as frequently unless it's PATs," Centeio said.

For that to happen, the Rams need to reverse their red-zone trends. They've been there a lot, 27 times. The Rams have scored on 24 of those occasions, but only 11 have been touchdowns. Addazio points to a number of things – fatigue and execution, mainly.

Addazio said the coaching staff has run through it all tirelessly.

"We've studied the heck of it. Is it our calls, is it this, is it that?" he said. "It's kind a little bit of breaking down, and I think it comes with more maturity, and I think it's execution. It's stuff that shows its head, and to me, we have to get that put away."

Tight end Trey McBride agrees. He feels what the offense is doing in the middle of the field is working, and even though the field gets condensed around the end zone, the results should still be the same. To him, it's as simple as sticking to what they have been doing, no more, no less.

"I think we get down to that area and we have to be at our highest level of play, and right now we're not," tight end Trey McBride said. "We're getting inside the 20, and we might be subbing too much; we might need to go with what we're doing. Everything we're doing to get to that point is working, so I think if we continue to do what we're doing – obviously, fatigue comes into it when you have those long, eight-, nine-, 10-play drives – but for the most part, we just need to continue to be at our highest level of play.

"The thing I'm high on is there is so much more that we can do. Cayden is kicking a lot of field goals and he's kicking extremely well right now, but at the end of the day, seven points is better than three. We want those touchdowns. We can get that 30 points up if we just continue to score touchdowns in that red zone.

"Cayden's a good guy, but I wish he wasn't kicking as much as he is right now."

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