Steve Fairchild, head coach of the Colorado State Rams.
Colorado State started on fire in 2009, going 3-0, and everyone in Fort Collins was wondering how high up the Mountain West the Rams could climb. CSU ran into a road block in BYU, and lost late to Idaho, a WAC team, and a much better team Utah on Saturday. Now, at the halfway point in the Rams season they are at 3-3 overall, without a win in the MWC at 0-2.
Arguably, the biggest loss of the season was last Saturday’s tough, a homecoming 24-17 late defeat that was thrown away by CSU quarterback Grant Stucker. Following the loss, this week has seen some interesting gripes in the Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State’s daily newspaper. RamTalk, a rant/rave section that is written by students wanting to voice their opinion has seen multiple complaints about the Rams football team. Two particular students' gripes said, “Dear Rams, Please show up to the second half of the football game on Saturday. Love, your loyal and frustrated fan,” and “Who would have thought that Utah's secret weapon wears green and gold and the number 18.”
And really, the grievances are valid. First of all, the game against Utah was lost with turnovers, specifically Stucker’s three interceptions, two of which came in the second half. Secondly, the in four-of-six games so far in 2009 the Rams have all but not shown up after halftime—either letting teams back into games or allowing opponents to pile up their winning margin over CSU. Against Weber State, CSU had to win the game at the very end by jumping on a muffed snap by the Wildcats. Against CU, Idaho and Utah, the Rams let comfortable leads slip away, and only won the one of the three games, against the Buffaloes.
The problem is, even when CSU can come out strong against opponents to start the game, they show signs of fatigue and make mental errors late in contests—during crunch time. And that is exactly what has happened to the Rams this year; they’ve been crunched down the stretch, losing games they should have won. To wit, CSU has scored 81 points in the first half, and 70 in the second halves of games, but while only allowing 57 points before half, the Rams have given up 110 points after the break.
Luckily for CSU fans, head coach Steve Fairchild realizes and recognizes the glaring problems and addressed some of them during this week’s press conference on Monday. “We are obviously disappointed with the outcome of the game last Saturday. We got beat by a very good and very well coached Utah team. I thought we were in a position late to have a chance to win, but obviously didn’t make enough plays and turned the ball over. We are at that stage now in our program where it’s on us to win a game like that and we didn’t do it last Saturday, but we have another chance this coming week against maybe the best team in the league, TCU.”
When asked about how the defense played Fairchild continued, “I think we were prepared well defensively. I thought we played an outstanding game, for the most part, defensively. We just turned it over late and, in my estimation, played too many snaps down the stretch on defense.” So obviously, the coach was proud of his defense’s effort, as they only gave up a total of three points in the first half but were likely exhausted in the fourth quarter due to turning the ball over. When Fairchild was asked specifically about Stucker’s struggles Saturday he said, “Obviously he didn’t play his best game on Saturday. You don’t want to look at one guy or one play or one area; sometimes we are going to need to play a little better offense because our defense is struggling.” But all that said he finished, “I would expect Grant (Stucker) will rebound and get back to playing the way he was.”
Going into Week Seven, CSU is looking at spiraling downward even further though, as they draw the class of the MWC in the No. 8 TCU Horned Frogs (5-0, 1-0 MWC). For the third time in four weeks the Rams will play a team that has been ranked this year, and even the coach had to admit, “Two of the last three teams we played are ranked, but nonetheless, if we continue to improve like we did last year, we do have a lot of good football in front of us.” But, he remains confident saying, “We can win every game. We can win this Saturday. Our intention is to win every game, and we will practice in that regard, and like I said, there is still a lot of good football out there for us.”
Realistically, TCU will be the toughest opponent CSU will face all season and coach Fairchild addressed that fact. “TCU is well coached and talented, and they are what we are trying to catch and emulate. We know we can play in this game; just knowing we can win it is a different story, and until we do it, the burden of proof is on us.”
So, as the middle of the week passes, and the biggest game of 2009 just around the corner for the Rams, much has to be improved upon and in a hurry. Defensively CSU has to hang tough, late into the contest. Offensively, the Rams must play mistake-free football and likely put up many points. And on the special teams end, short kickoffs have to be corrected, coverage needs to improve, and missed field goals have already lost games for CSU this year.
If the Rams can pull off the huge upset against TCU remains up in the air, but one thing is for sure, fans can rest assured Fairchild is doing everything in his power to make sure his team is ready to compete with the class of the MWC.
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