Rams Clipped at Home in Border War

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. – They've been seeing red all year. The tint was darker on this night.

With their most heated rival in town for a visit, the Rams' offensive woes continued inside the 20 yard line. Two scores out of three chances doesn't sound awful, but it stings a lot when the two are field goals. And it stings even more when the other trip was an interception in the end zone.

In the Mountain West, a team should be able to win a game if it allows 14 points. The Rams' offense just hasn't been able to pull in unison with the defense, leading to a 14-13 loss to the Cowboys at Canvas Stadium.

"We're used to scoring points. We haven't been good enough and mature enough and haven't coached well enough to help our kids find ways to score enough," CSU head coach Jay Norvell said. "That's frustrating, because I think if we could pl ay a little bit better complimentary football, we could have several more wins. That's just the honest truth. We just haven't been good enough in some areas, and that's very frustrating to say the least."

The main area is the red zone. In 21 trips to that part of the field, the place which separates the good offenses from the bad, Colorado State has produced just four touchdowns. The only touchdown they produced in the game came off special teams when Tory Horton returned a first-quarter punt 72 yards for a quick 7-0 lead.

The Rams' two red zone scores were both field goals by Michael Boyle. The misfire was an interception by Clay Millen, who was too high to Justus Ross-Simmons, the pass snared by Wyoming's Deron Harrell, an opportunity for the Rams to go up 17-0.

Saturday was the second time this season the offense did not produce a touchdown, Nevada being the other. It was two defensive scores which produced that victory as the Rams have yet to reach 20 points in a contest.

Against Wyoming, the Rams had a 100-yard rusher in Avery Morrow, who finished with 104 on 22 carries. It's the fifth time this season he's hit the century mark. Horton had eight catches for 168 yards, the fourth 100-yard receiving game of his season.

For the offense, it just doesn't add up.

"I mean, the offense shows these little spots of brightness, and simple little mistakes take away from the drive," tackle Jacob Gardner said. "It just all has to become one fluid motion, and we have to play off the defense. The defense was killing it tonight. It's the little things, like it's always been, and it needs to be fixed."

Wyoming finished with 236 yards of total offense, throwing for less than 100. The Cowboys did rush for 142 as Titus Swen went for 73 on 16 attempts, just two runs of 12 or longer, both for 14. They had two solid drives all night, the first resulting in a 14-yard scoring run by backup quarterback Jayden Clemons at the end of the first half to make it a 10-7 game.

The second led to a missed field goal, but what the Cowboys did the Rams didn't was avoid costly mistakes. After Horton muffed a punt, the Cowboys started a drive on the CSU 34, and two plays later Clemons hit Alex Brown for a 32-yard score and a 14-13 lead.

Norvell felt his defense gave all he could expect of the unit, with Dequan Jackson matching a season-best with 13 stops, the unit as a whole delivering four tackles for loss. Safety Henry Blackburn said it was a strong performance, just not good enough.

"We could have been better. It wasn't perfect by any mean on defense, and we still let up two touchdowns," said Blackburn, who had his first career interception. "We could have done better. We could have shut them out this game. It's tough. It was a lack of execution, really. We played good on defense, but we could have been better."

Take all of it in, the Rams still had a chance. Suddenly trailing, the offense went on a 10-play, 52-yard excursion, leading to a 40-yard field goal attempt by Boyle, who had made his previous six. This one went wide left.

Getting the ball back with less than a minute and no timeouts, the Rams moved to midfield, but with under 10 seconds on the clock and no ability to stop the clock, the final Horton reception led to a lateral of hope which fell to the turf.

Norvell will tell you this is a team he likes, because it's playing with all the heart they can give. They weren't earlier in year. But with little to no margin of error, a couple of stinging losses have been the result more often than not.

"That stinks. This game, it's probably the hardest loss I've ever had playing football," Blackburn said. "Ever. This one hurts more than anything. It hurts because we had it in our grasp, and we were only a couple plays a way. This one stinks. This game means everything to us, and it's tough to walk away with a loss and you can't do anything about it now, but you have focus on the next game. We have another trophy game next week. Air Force, in-state rivalry. We just have to focus on that now."

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