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4:00 PM

Football

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Sep 12

5:00 PM

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Sep 19

5:30 PM

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Sep 26

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at UTSA

Oct 3

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Football

vs Oregon State

Safeties

Who's Back: Jace Bellah, Henry Blackburn, Ayden Hector, Jack Howell, Liam Huber, Tyson Williams

Who's New: Jaylen Gardner, Tyrell Grayson, Jr., Dante Scott, Jett Vincent, Trey Vincent

Key Number: Howell led the nation's secondary players in total tackles with 108, an output which led Colorado State. The end result was a first-team All-Mountain West selection for the sophomore.

What Happened: Colorado State's defense intercepted eight passes all of last year, and seven of them came from the safeties. Howell and Hector tied for the team lead with three each. Howell had one in three successive games, while Hector turned his first as a Ram into a touchdown which set the tone in the team's first victory of the season at the road in Nevada. Howell led the team in tackles, Blackburn was fifth (53), Hector ninth (41).

From the Top: To get better as a group, position coach Freddie Banks – who also stands as the defensive coordinator – felt his crew needed to look internally at their individual shortcomings.

Find them. Work on them. Fix them.

"The biggest thing was individually everybody had different things they had to get better at," he said. "Jack needed to do a good job improving his man coverage, becoming a deep-zone defender. I think he's done that; he's really taken it to the next level. Run fits have always been good for him, real precise and understanding what's going on in front of him. Henry Blackburn does a really good job as a post player and did a good job knocking stuff down, but he needed to make plays on the ball. He's leading us in interceptions through fall camp. We need that to show up throughout the year. Ayden Hector, we asked him to be more physical in the box. He enjoys playing man coverage, but he's got to enjoy some of the tough hardnosed things about football. I think all of those guys have taken steps in the right direction."

These were assignments which began in spring camp, and they were instructed to pick up the pace in cleaning these areas up in the offseason. With this group – three returning starters – none of the asks came out of the blue. They were all very in tune with the parts of the game where they lacked.

It was no surprise to Banks when fall camp began all three of them had already made gains. That didn't mean the work stopped.

"It comes through drill work, specifically getting drill work," he said. "Throwing the ball to Hank, I mean, my shoulder's worn out throwing the ball down the field, getting our on-the-line and off-the-line reads. Getting Ayden to take the shot on his leverage and not stopping his feet as he tackles. It was getting Jack in a deep zone, playing more post safety and playing more man in practice. It's putting them in those situations."

From the Room: Hector said the group came into camp – really, entering the offseason – adding another layer. Instead of being solely focused on the physical aspects of their craft, they wanted to improve their acuity.

"The primary focus this camp was execution. Now that we know the plays in year two, we need to be very consistent at a high level in executing every technique at every position," he said. "It's lining up and all that; we need to be masterful at that. Then it's getting to know what the offenses are doing based on their formations and knowing what they do before we snap the ball."

They want to be in synch on the field, so quite often they do the work together. It could be in a film room or just on their own. It's definitely taking place at practice, discussing past plays and performances as they watch their understudies.

They point out their own mistakes and coach each other, as well as the next wave of safeties who will someday be asked to replace them. Just not this season. Hector said there's no better source of information than his teammates.

"They're two really smart football players as well," he said. "Whenever I have questions or I might be spacing out, they'll alert me on whatever it is. We're kind of just feeding off each other. It's an iron sharpens iron deal."

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