Explosive Plays a Positive Sign for Offense

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The offense was more explosive than ever. It was also implosive, which has become too common.

The first part of the equation is encouraging for Colorado State's football team, but the latter is something the Rams have been trying to fix all season long. Saturday against San Jose State, the Rams had 11 explosive plays on offense, the most they've had in any one game.

They also had 13 penalties, the second most all season, 10 of which came against the offense. There were six false starts and a pair of illegal formations among them.

"Probably the most important thing we wanted to establish this year is mental toughness and discipline. I just don't think you can play this sport without having those two things," CSU head coach Jay Norvell said. "I don't think there's any issue with how hard we're playing; we're playing hard, but we have to play disciplined, and we have to play focused. We just have to do things better.

"You're going to have a couple penalties a game; guys are playing hard, but the procedural penalties on the line of scrimmage and the mental mistakes, we can't have those. We have to continue to fight to eliminate sacks and the minus yardage plays."

Sacks, the Rams gave up nine of those, too. That's been an ongoing issue all year, in part due to young quarterbacks and in part due to a constant shuffling of offensive linemen tasked to protect them.

Even still, the production was the best they've had. More than 400 yards of total offense was a first. It was promising, and they realize it could be even more so.

"There's a whole bunch of issues which cause sacks and penalties, and it's a sign there is still a ways to go in the discipline area and the whole offense working as one unit instead of individual units," guard Gray Davis said. "I can see the positives in the fact that we had more than 10 penalties and an insane amount of sacks and we still had a high production on offense. Even with that an issue, we're still seeing the offense improving.

"Once the disciplined side is figured out and the offense is playing as a whole, the offense is going to be even more explosive. The fact there's still growth with those issues means the offense still has a lot of potential to grow. That's a big focus for us."

Being more disciplined isn't a new topic for Norvell or his coaching staff. It has been addressed all season. There just hasn't been sustained improvement.

The hard part for Norvell is, one of the oldest tools in the book to fix it isn't readily available to him.

"To play well in games when you're playing against a quality opponent, it comes from experience and confidence, and we don't have a lot of depth right now. We don't have a lot of experience at some positions, and we tend to do foolish things at times that we can't do," he said. "One of the things, it's hard to sit guys down right now when they do something wrong because we don't have really anybody to put in. That's another part of it. The competition is not very good in our rooms right now. We don't have much depth in our rooms and competition tends to get people's focus a little bit crisper.

"There's a lot of factors that go into it, but we have to coach better, and I have to do a better job of making that important to our guys. It takes a lot of energy and effort to play well enough to win, but you also have to play with poise and confidence. We have to find that balance."

But they have found some players. Davis said the explosive plays show the development of the youngsters on the field, and on offense, they're all over. At quarterback, wideout and tight end, even sprinkled into the offensive line.

The Rams rank 82nd nationally in pass plays of 20 yards or longer with 27. The first seven weeks, there were 20, less than three a game. Last week, the Rams produced seven, tripling their output.

Nobody sees it for more than what it is, a positive sign. It hasn't been a cure-all, not when the offense ranks last in red-zone conversions with just four touchdowns in 18 trips. When a team is growing, it grabs on to the positives and holds on tight.

"I just feel like we're getting better. I've been saying that every time I talk to you guys," running back Avery Morrow said. "The young guys are learning, and I feel Clay Millen is getting more comfortable. We've got nothing to lose, and all we can do is fight at this point due to circumstances. I feel our goal now is to finish strong and give the fans and everybody around us hope for the future and finish for the seniors."

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