Monday Presser: Perfect is not Good Enough

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Sep 5

TBA

Football

vs Wyoming

Sep 12

TBA

Football

vs Southern Utah

Sep 19

TBA

Football

vs BYU

Sep 26

TBA

Football

at UTSA

The facts are Colorado State is perfect in Mountain West play and carries its own football destiny in its hands. Just as accurate is the Rams (7-3 overall, 5-0 conference) admitting they are far from perfect on the field in producing those results.

As head coach Jay Norvell noted at his weekly press conference on Monday, there are a bunch of areas where they still need to improve. The fact they can identify those areas and accept it as true is a positive sign.

"I just told our kids today in our meeting: How good do you want to be? It's really what it comes down to," Norvell said. "Yeah, we've won seven games, we've qualified for a bowl game, we've won a couple of rivalry games, but our goals are really much higher than that. We're really focused on our process of how we get better."

To be that team requires leadership, which Norvell feels the Rams have in droves. He says it's a roster full of players willing to sacrifice for the good of the team. Players down the depth chart have stepped into roles when called upon and made big plays.

All of it, he said, requires maturity in sticking to the plan.

"I just think it's good for us to remember. Ego is a powerful thing," he said. "You start doing pretty good and people pat you on the back. Ego tells you to talk when you should shut up and listen. We want to be the team that has humility and understands we're playing good because of the way we practice and prepare. It's not because we're special. I think we're like a lot of teams in this league, but we're doing things we need to do to win and we're sacrificing for one another."

The Rams have made some changes mentally which have led to the turnaround. At this time of year, everybody is a big dinged up. Of the six captains named at the beginning of the season, all but two – Henry Blackburn and Chase Wilson – have missed games due to injury. Even still, if players can give it a go, they are doing so, which he said has become a learned behavior.

From the player perspective, keeping it all in perspective is required.

"I think it's the way the culture is going about it. Even after the games, we dance, but we don't celebrate way too much … except for obviously Wyoming," Nuer Gatkuoth said. "Other than that, we know we still have a long way to go. We don't look at the end goal. We look at week by week just getting better and better every day. You look at the small goals, they eventually lead to big goals."

Road Swing

As important as it has been for Colorado State to change the narrative at Canvas Stadium and protect the home turf, the flip side is producing road victories. That hasn't been something the team has done since 2017 with it was 3-2.

With a win at Fresno State on Saturday, the team can finish with a winning record on the road. Norvell believes his team is built to be successful on the road for a pair of key reasons – being ab le to run the ball and stop it.

"I think we're built for it, No. 1. Somebody told me it was going to rain Saturday in Fresno (the forecast calls for precipitation early in the day) and I started smiling," Norvell said. "I hope it does rain. I think we're built for it. The way that we've prepared, we're really tried to prepare our defense for everything it's going to encounter in a season. The physicality, being able to play the run … We did an excellent job of playing the run and holding (Wyoming's) run stats down, but we also did a great job of eliminating big plays defensively."

Norvell added special teams into the equation. Doing well in the run game on both sides of the ball and being able to protect field position lead to positive road results.

It didn't start well in Texas, and it was a frustrating trip to Oregon State, but as with much of the season, conference play led to a change of fortunes.

Here and There

Fresno State enters the game off a bye week, preceded by two consecutive losses (Hawaii and Air Force). … This will be the Bulldogs' final conference game, as they finish with UCLA, needing to win one of the two to become bowl eligible. … Colorado State is 5-3 at Fresno. The Rams lost the last time they were there but won the three trips prior. … After the win over Wyoming, the team took the Bronze Boot to Lucky Joe's to celebrate with the community. Norvell hinted a few people may have sipped some "milk" out of the trophy while there.

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