What We Saw: First Quarter Finished For Rams

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Waiting to get home after Saturday's loss, the team plane ran into an issue. It dealt with the weight of the plane and the length of the runway in Pullman, Wash., which that had to figure out to allow for a safe and smooth takeoff.

Similar to what Colorado State's football team is going through right now, with the weight of a nine-game losing streak on its shoulders and trying to get it turned around in a short amount of time. At 0-3 on the season, there's more calculating which needs to take place.

"We cut the season into four quarters; we just finished our first quarter of the season, we played three games, and we're obviously not happy with our play in these first three games," CSU coach Jay Norvell said after the 38-7 loss to Washington State. "It's a long season, and we're pushing for better execution. We're pushing for more collective, positive effort and we just haven't seen enough continuity to this point. We've got to continue to do that.

"We have a lot of young guys playing that need to play better, and we'll continue to try to help them. But we're not discouraged of what we can accomplish if we can turn that attitude around and get into the win column and start getting some momentum. Many times, momentum is just attitude, and we're working hard at that."

A bit of confidence would help. For the Rams, it's a Catch-22 or a chicken-and-the-egg question. Which comes first?

Norvell said it can be built during the week in practice, but it has more influence when it comes from something positive in a game.

"I think it comes from confidence, and confidence comes from doing things in practice. Then you have to have a breakthrough in the game and then they see that all this hard work really does work when they listen to the coaches," he said. "So were still working for that breakthrough and we've just got to keep knocking on that door. The door opens for those who knock, so we've got to keep knocking on it and we've got to bang that door open. It just comes from consistency and persistence and working. There are no easy answers to that, but we've got to stay together; I think that's really important, and we've got to continue to work and support each other."

With the first quarter of the season done, the Rams are looking at the next as a chance to recharge and refocus for the next. It starts with Sacramento State this week, ranked No. 8 in the FCS polls and 2-0 for the first time in 22 seasons. It will not be an easy game. Then after a bye, Norvell takes his new team to his old town to face Nevada in the Mountain West opener. Then a home game with Utah State. None of it will be easy.

Still, with a bit of confidence, definitely more consistency and CJ Onyechi feels this team still has enough runway to take off.

"I feel like it's definitely a reset button," he said. "We're going into a week I feel very confident in our team and how we should execute. Then we go into a bye where we can rest up and get our injured guys feeling good, so this next quarter of the season is somewhere we should excel. One quarter was bad, but we can finish off the next three very well and I see us moving forward doing that. I'm very confident."

New Faces

As Norvell mentioned, the Rams are playing some young players and some others who have seen very little action. That's starting to change, and even more were added to the mix Saturday. True freshman Justus Ross-Simmons made his first start, and in the fourth quarter, he hauled in his first touchdown of his career on a 14-yard play.

By the end of the game, Keegan Holles, a walk-on true freshman running back, saw his first action, generating 20 yards on three carries. And while Jaylen Thomas played a lot two years ago, he made his biggest contribution in a few seasons by tying for the team lead with five catches, good for 51 yards and rushed four times.

"Those guys are good players, and we have to get them involved, and I think they can help us," Norvell said. "We've got some other good kids who haven't played much, and we need to get them involved, we need to get them on the field. They're big, strong athletes, they can run, and they can make things happen. We've been missing that, a strong play in traffic like Justus made; we haven't been making that kind of play, and that's why we like big guys, we like big receivers with size who can play through contact. The other part of that is Clay has got to have confidence out there. When the heat's coming down on him, he has to have somebody he can get the ball to who is a big body that he knows is going to finish for him.

"Those are the things, they're small things, but we need to build on those. We do have some young freshmen who need to be more involved in what we're doing, and we're going to keep looking at ways to get them on the field."

Negative plays

Flags are starting to mount, a trend Norvell really doesn't like. In Saturday's loss, there were 10 infractions for 64 yards. Seen were on offense, and four of them were false starts; the defense jumped once, too.

"We had too many penalties; I was disappointed about our penalties," Norvell said. "The minus-yardage plays have been our Achilles' Heel our last two weeks. We've got to find a way to minimalize those plays."

After no penalties at Michigan, the Rams now have 18 on the season. Then there are the sacks.

With the third different starting front in as many games, Colorado State allowed seven more sacks of quarterback Clay Millen for 39 yards in losses, and he also scrambled six times to gain 39 yards, including an 11-yarder to pick up a first down.

That's a lot of hits on a quarterback in just three games.

"He's handling it pretty good. I think he's handling it better than sometimes I think he will," Norvell said. "It's a hard thing for me. I hate seeing the quarterback get hit. We're trying every avenue that we can for him not to get hit and we haven't had a whole lot of success of slowing it down right now. We've got to continue to press, and we still have to be somewhat aggressive to ty to do things we need to do to win games, but also, we have to take care of this young quarterback. We don't want him hit too badly."

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