Monday Presser: Norvell Disturbed By Growing Trend

FORT COLLINS – Disappointed by the loss in the early hours of Sunday morning, something else drew Jay Norvell's attention in a more disturbing manner.

Colorado State safety Henry Blackburn was flagged for a late hit on Travis Hunter in the first quarter of the 43-35 double-overtime loss to Colorado, and before the game was even finished, he and his family were receiving death threats and having personal information posted on social media.

"I'm really concerned about some of the trends that are going on in college football right now and the reaction people have to the players on the field," Norvell said at his Monday press conference. "We had a result after the game, actually during the game, we had a player get death threats, and his family get death threats and his address get posted all over Instagram and social media.

"I'm very concerned for our kids. These are 18-22 year-old kids. They play college football. I know a lot of people get excited about that, but there's really no place for that in athletics and sports. I hope everybody is healthy and that Travis gets healthy, gets back out there, but we certainly don't want to see anybody get hurt."

Norvell talked to Blackburn about the play, but he spent more time concerned with his player's well-being.

"Our university is supporting him. The police department is supporting him, because of the seriousness of the threats that have come out of this," Norvell said. "It's just sad. It's sad that's the state of the world we live in. It's a football game. Let's not make it more than that. We don't want anybody to get hurt, we don't coach that kind of football."

Passion and Emotion

The hype in front of the Showdown led Colorado State to play with a renewed passion and emotion. Norvell hopes the style will carry over into every contest this season.

This week, the road game with Middle Tennessee State will not have the same type of buildup, but he still wants to see his team follow through.

"That's the challenge. I think the standard's been set for the type of focus and effort we have to play with, and we've got to improve it," Norvell said. "We lost our focus at the end of the game. One of the things we point out on Monday's is areas we have to improve on. Things we did well, but areas we have to improve on. We had too many penalties, and there's always a couple of drives at the end of the game where you can finish the game, or you've got to stop them to finish the game."

For cornerback Chigozie Anusiem, finding emotion won't be a problem. Not this week, not for any game this season. For him, the remainder of the schedule provides the necessary push.

So does the simple fact of playing a game.

"This is a team that came in here last year and beat us pretty good. For us, kinda everybody on our schedule, it's kind of a revenge tour for us," Anusiem said. "We owe Middle Tennessee the same, if not more of an amount of passion and emotion, than we gave to CU."

Offensive lineman Oliver Jervis agreed with his teammate. The Rams felt they had something to prove to people last week, which they felt they took a great step forward in doing.

The outside eyes aren't as important as the ones they look into every day.

"It just comes down to this is a team that has a chip on their shoulder. We don't need that media attention; we just want to go play," he said. "And we want to go prove to our fellow teammates, the community, to our fans, to Colorado State that we're a real football team, we're here to compete and we're here to play hard and give it everything we've got every week."

Multi-Tool Player

Tory Horton is proving he can do many things. He can break records for receptions and throw touchdowns in the same game.

Not a bad skillset, which Norvell said they found early in the player's career.

"We mess around a lot in practice, and you can kind of see which guys have certain skills. We always like to look and see who can throw the ball, and Tory stood out," Norvell said. "He's been pretty successful with those when we've done them, and it just gives the defense one more thing to defend, which is what we want."

Horton hauled in a school-record 16 receptions for 133 yards, the sixth 100-yard game of his career, and 101 of those yards came after the catch. He put a couple on the highlight reel, including his late touchdown snare, but the one which stood out most was his impressive footwork and stretch on the sidelines on a comebacker to help out a scrambling Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi.

But the throw he made to Dallin Holker for a 30-yard touchdown will be talked about for some time.

"Tory's a baller. He can do about anything on the football field, and he was a center fielder in baseball, so he's got a good arm," Norvell said. "I thought he made an outstanding play on that. He did not hesitate. We had two options on that, and Dallin flashed, and he let it rip. And he threw it in a spot, like a quarterback, away from the defender and I thought he made an excellent play on that."

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