What’s Important Now is Meaningful for Future
Bowl game would represent key step taken
Mike Brohard
The goal became a task with an expiration date.
Win.
Do that the final three weeks of the season, and Colorado State could snap the bowl-game dry spell which has existed the past five campaigns. To do so, football coach Jay Norvell wanted to turn the focus in a necessary direction -- his team had to improve each week.
So, the goal became an acronym meant to fill the Rams’ every day with purpose.
W.I.N. – What’s. Important. Now.
Two victories later, the Rams are on the cusp of reaching the postseason, needing a victory Saturday at Hawaii to become bowl eligible. For this particular roster, the now means everything. Those who have been here forever have long sought to be part of the solution. Those new to the family inherited a reputation they wished to shed.
Truth is, what’s important now for this team would represent a rather vital step for the future of Norvell’s vision of this program.
“There’s no doubt. Playing in games like that … I don’t know, I think I played in 23 or 24 bowl games,” the Colorado State coach said. “It’s kind of like a trapper coming out of the mountains. You look at his horse and he has all these pelts hanging on it. It shows he’s accomplished something. I think that helps a player’s confidence. When you play in a big game like this, or you play in a bowl game, you just have that in your history and it’s part of the confidence you move forward with.
“We want that. We want the banners to be hanging around in this stadium and our facility. We’ve fallen short in some big games this year. We want an opportunity for more, and this is just another step in us establishing ourselves as a winning program, so it is important.”
Colorado State very much wants to turn that corner, build a tradition which makes the postseason commonplace. The history of the program isn’t filled with such games, just 17 in total. But for a spell, it seemed like the Rams were trending upward.
Sonny Lubick took his team to nine bowl games, including a string of five consecutive seasons from 1999-2003. The program tried again, reaching a bowl another five straight years, from 2013-17. But nothing since.
There’s been a few recent graduating classes which have never seen the postseason, let alone get a good sniff. Saturday is an opportunity which is not lost on any of them.
“It’s all or nothing right? You lose this game and your season’s over,” safety Jack Howell said after last Saturday’s win. “You win this game and we’re getting to a goal we’ve had and something CSU hasn’t done in a while, so obviously we don’t want to look past Hawaii, but everything is on us in Hawaii right now. We have to look at this game and know what it means to win this football game and know what it means to lose this football game, too.”
There’s nothing more I want. It’s right there in front of us, but we have to go take it.Henry Blackburn
Which is why W.I.N. was crucial. Getting to big games isn’t the goal, winning them is, and Norvell very much took over a program which had lost its way in that regard. There haven’t been many as of late, so when you see an opportunity, seize it, which Norvell did.
The Rams didn’t have to be at this point. There were games earlier this season, chances to capture victories which were lost. Colorado comes to mind. So does UNLV. Bad second halves against Air Force and Wyoming.
Those results put the Rams’ backs against the wall. So, they put their focus on the target at hand, and will again this week.
“This is the furthest we’ve been in a season where were in contention for a bowl game, but honestly our full focus is on Hawaii,” safety Henry Blackburn said. “That’s our main goal; we’re not going to be worried about the bowl game, all that type of stuff. We’re putting all of our energy, all of our focus into Hawaii and beating those guys.”
Because that’s important now. The way the Rams have handled it has been just as crucial. The scores haven’t been big, but they have been telling. The past two victories have not been easy, but they have been victories. A defense has found a way to get a stop, the offense puts together a drive for crucial points. The special teams make contributions.
Doing what’s needed in the right moment under pressure is just a start, and center Jacob Gardner is seeing some similarities in Fort Collins to what Norvell was able to do with a woebegone program at Nevada.
“That’s the reason I went to Nevada because I saw the upward trend, and with that, it comes with recruits,” he said. “Mostly it’s the culture aspect. You spend a long time trying to change a culture and what we expect to see from guys, and I think we’re starting to see that. I hope it’s only going to get better. That’s what we’re working for.”
If the Rams can do it now, they’ll want to do it again. It will raise the bar of expectations, beginning with winter workouts. It will carry over into the spring. When fall camp starts, the goal will be to get back to a bowl game, maybe on a bigger stage.
The real goal of meaningful November games is not just a bowl, but a conference championship. Start contending for those. And winning them, which hasn’t been done since 2002. Then think bigger – the College Football Playoff.
One step at a time. Saturday is the now.
“I just look at it as an opportunity. We’re trying to teach our players to win,” Norvell said. “We get a chance to do that this week and show improvement. We win, we get a chance to do it again. I don’t really care where, when, how -- it doesn’t matter. It just matters we get an opportunity to play and improve as a team, and that’s the most important thing right now. These games at the end of the season are momentum builders. They springboard you into the offseason, and you can really gain a lot of momentum from them, and that’s what we want to do.”
Some momentum has already been built with five wins this season. For the first time since 2016, the Rams will not have a losing record in the month of November. Norvell wants to build a program where the reputation is it finishes what it starts. Drives. Games. Seasons. There’s been some progress to build upon, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to add another step or two toward the next floor.
What’s important now has refocused the team, kept its eye on each week’s prize. But none of them are blind to the fact what is important in the moment can have a grand impact on the future they all crave.
“Absolutely. This is everything I want to do. I want to turn this program around,” Blackburn said. “That’s why I’ve stayed here for all the time I’ve stayed here for. I want to turn this program around. There’s nothing more I want. It’s right there in front of us, but we have to go take it. That’s why we’ve got to be really locked in this week. We know how much it means. We just have to get it done this week to complete it.”
Because every coach in the country wants to build a successful program, where the run of winning carries from one season to the next. And they all want that run to start sooner rather than later.