Setting the Stage: San Jose State

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The stretch run goes back to one of Jay Norvell's first topics with his team.

One of the narratives the first-year Colorado State coach wanted to change was how the Rams played in the back half of the season. It hasn't been pretty the past five years. The next four weeks, his team has a chance to step forward in that regard.

"Our season is not over. We have a lot to accomplish," Norvell said. "This week is an important week because we can have a winning record here in this third quarter, then we have three games left. We've got a chance to finish. We started the season really poorly our first four games, and we're really determined that we want to finish these last four games in a different manner, and it starts this week."

Norvell splits his schedule in quarters, three games each. A win Saturday over San Jose State would give the Rams their first winning quarter of the season and a chance to split the year with strong play in the final month.

The Rams will also be facing a division leader for the second time in as many weeks, so the road won't be easy. And the two weeks which follow, Wyoming and Air Force, are Front Range rivals with winning records.

How they play will tell Norvell a lot about his roster, and Jack Howell knows he's going to learn more about the guys he shares a locker room with, as well.

"The last four games, everyone is sore, everyone is beat up; a lot of people are injured," he said. "You really find out a lot about your team's heart and your team's toughness. Obviously, we want to be a team that's not going to quit. Hopefully everyone is still bought in and pushing to be better, each week wanting to come out with a win."

Colorado State has not posted a winning record the second half of a season since going 4-2 in 2016. They were 0-6 last season and a combined 8-21 the past five campaigns.

Up Front

After allowing five sacks last week, Colorado State has yielded the third most on the season (34) and per game (4.25). The Spartans are second in the league with 21 in seven games, an average of 3.0 per outing.

Cade Hall (6.5) and Viliami Fehoko (6.0) rank second and third in the Mountain West individually, a pair Norvell said he feels like has played together forever.

"They're physical and they're excellent pass rushers, and they don't have to bring a lot of pressure to get pressure," Norvell said. "They do an excellent job with their schemes, they're well coached fundamentally. I have a lot of respect for how this team is coached. We're going to have to do a good job. We're going to have to be physical. We're going to have to really secure the pocket and give Clay Millen time to do his job."

The Rams started their sixth different offensive line combination last week, anchored by true freshman center Keegan Hamilton. He replaced George Miki-Han, who Norvell said will likely be a game-time decision.

Still Searching

Colorado State is one of only two teams in the country not averaging at least two touchdowns per game, scoring at a 12.5 clip; UMass is at 12.1.

Norvell said with the wave of changes to the starting lineup and depth chart, the Rams haven't really had a chance to fully open up the play book. These next four weeks, that's part of the goal. It's been a mix of trying to find what works and getting the repetitions under their belt to do the things they want to well.

"It's both. It's been such an unusual year with all our personnel and young players," he said. "We haven't run a lot of plays, so we really haven't gotten a lot of our offense run. As we move through the end of this year, these last four games, we really want to run as much as our base offense as we can, so we really get a body of work our kids can learn from. You also game plan against your opponent."

Also to consider this week is San Jose State has seen the system plenty and their coaching staff includes a former Norvell offensive assistant from Nevada. The Spartans will know what they see, and the Rams are going to lean on what their players are showing they understand and do well.

He does want to open up the playbook, not just to create more offense, but to create a mental playbook for his team.

"When you run the ball and do the things we've had to do running the football, we just haven't run enough of our plays to really even have a good sample size or body of work," Norvell said. "We're really going to try to simplify these next four weeks and make sure these guys understand."

Naturally, it's been a bit frustrating to someone like Tory Horton, who knows what the offense is capable of producing when it is running smoothly.

"Of course, there's going to be some adversity hitting, times when we get a little frustrated. It all comes with the plan, the scheme," he said. "We're adapting to a new system and players, and players are still learning the scheme of the offense. It's not going to be perfect, and we have to know it's not going to be perfect, just how we've been going through the season. I know there's a lot of stuff we can improve on, and day by day, each game we can see there are little improvements we are having. The running game is coming into play, we can see some of the Air Raid attack starting to happen, and you can see some of the freshman starting to come through, learning the scheme, learning the details and the routes. It's all a learning experience."

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Keegan Hamilton

Tory Horton

Jack Howell

George Miki-Han

Clay Millen

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