Young Rams Fall on Road at Boise State

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BOISE, Idaho – The goal is to find positives, improvement from week to week.

Saturday's performance at Boise State was going to require a deep dive by Colorado State's football team after a 49-10 loss to the Broncos at Albertsons Stadium, leaving the Rams still searching for that elusive first victory against BSU.

Colorado State, in facing the Mountain Division leaders, did so with a rebuilding roster. Nothing says so more than the fact the Rams had 11 walk-ons play significant snaps in the game, three of whom started – Keegan Hamilton, Dane Olson and Ayden Hector.

"We had a lot of players playing their first time," CSU head coach Jay Norvell said. "When you play a good football team which has a lot of depth and experience, it's tough. That's a good football team we played tonight. They have size, they have strength and it makes it difficult on those young guys to play a game like this, especially on the road.

"I think we'll learn from that. We will learn from it. We'll get better. We'll take these lessons as painful as they are, and it will help make us stronger in the long run."

The score at half wasn't completely out of hand – 28-10, but the stat sheet made it clear who was in charge the first 30 minutes. Boise State consistently moved the ball on offense to the tune of 321 yards in the first half, capping a trio of drives with 1-yard touchdown runs by running backs, another with an 8-yard touchdown pass from Taylen Green who had time to throw the ball and his receivers found every open spot in the secondary.

Offensively, the Rams could hang their hat on one big play, a 76-yard touchdown pass from Clay Millen to Justus Ross-Simmons, who burned the Boise State secondary on a post route down the middle. Before the play, Millen had been sacked four times for 24 yards in losses and the Rams had netted just 31 yards on offense.

"I felt like at halftime we hadn't played particularly well in the first half, but I still thought if we could come out and stop them and drive the ball down and score, I think we make it a game at that point," Norvell said. "When they scored in the third quarter a couple of times, it put some distance in between us which made it really tough on us."

Avery Morrow, who entered with three successive 100-yard games, found no room to move. The offensive line was working with its sixth starting combination as the true freshman Hamilton became the fourth Ram to start at center this season, the past three played having no prior game experience when the season began.

Green, a redshirt freshman who took over as Boise State's starting quarterback three weeks ago, showed the Mountain West he's going to be a handful to contain. He moved well in the pocket and threw the ball well when rolling out.

He finished 24-of-30 passing for 305 yards with two touchdown passes, the last an 18-yard strike to Billy Bowens to signal the end of his night at the end of the third. He also opened the scoring in the second half with a shifty 10-yard run around the end.

The health of Boise State's two primary running backs was somewhat in question entering the game, but not exiting it. George Holani rushed 21 times for 108 yards, scoring three times on 1-yard runs. His backup, Ashton Jeanty looked fine, too, rushing 37 yards, including a 1-yard touchdown run of his own.

In the end, the Broncos amassed 514 yards of total offense, the most allowed by Colorado State's defense this season.

"They had momentum, but we were making mistakes. We were beating ourselves out there; there wasn't anything we didn't expect going into this game," safety Henry Blackburn said. "We were missing fits, leaving turnovers out there. Me personally, I left one out there. As a team, we didn't execute as well as we needed to, and they were taking advantage of our missed execution on defense."

Colorado State's offense is still trying to find a consistent rhythm. They felt they'd found a bit of an avenue the past three games with Morrow running the ball and fewer sacks. But for most of the game, the Rams were in negative territory because of the sacks until a late push in the second half pull them out of the red.

There were five sacks in all. The Rams did score at the end of the first on a Michael Boyle field goal of 41 yards, but the first three drives were three-and-outs and three more would follow later.

The lessons are hard, but offensive lineman Jacob Gardner said the only option is to take the lumps with a young and growing roster, use them wisely and encourage along the way.

"We don't have a choice. We have to put everything we have into these guys," he said. "We have 100 percent faith in them because we all want to win. We hold them to the same standard as any scholarship player. That's what needs to happen, and I think we are right now."

Clay Millen, who played the first three quarters before giving way to Jackson Stratton – the second true freshman to play quarterback this season for CSU – competed 13-of-20 passes for 161 yards and the lone score. The Rams had a late chance to score when Henry Blackburn produced a strip-sack which gave CSU the ball on the Boise State 7, but the drive ended with a fourth-down interception thrown by Stratton.

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Jackson Stratton

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