AUSTIN (KXAN) — Colorado State head coach Jay Norvell said the season-opening game against the Texas Longhorns in Austin is “a great opportunity” for his program.
It’s a program with a lot of connections to the State of Texas, he said. More than half the coaching staff is from or coached in the Lone Star State and 19 of the Rams also hail from Texas.
“To play in Austin at [DKR-Texas] Memorial Stadium is a big deal,” he said. “Our kids are excited about it and we’re looking forward to the opportunity.”
The game against the Longhorns brings an interesting yet coincidental parallel from years past for Norvell and the Rams. Two years ago when Norvell took over as head coach, the Rams opened the season against Michigan in the massive Big House on the road, fresh off a College Football Playoff appearance and a top-10 preseason ranking. This year, it’s the same scenario except they’re trading Ann Arbor for Austin and DKR.
Norvell said his team, like most teams this time of year, is a “work in progress.” One aspect he addressed in his Monday press conference that his staff has been working on was being better against the run. Last year, the Rams were No. 95 in FBS against the rush, allowing 166.2 yards per game. On the flip side, Texas loves to run the ball and even with season-ending injuries to CJ Baxter and Christian Clark, the Longhorns are committed to the ground game. Texas averaged 188.4 rushing yards per game last season, No. 24 in FBS.
“That’s going to be a big challenge in this game, we know that,” Norvell said. “Texas does a really good job running the football. Every game is a challenge to your team because you’re trying to execute a game plan. We’ve got to be able to hold their run game down and find ways to be effective running the football.”
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It sounds strange to talk about running the football so much when the Rams’ offense is an Air Raid style, similar to what the late Mike Leach popularized during his time at Washington State and Texas Tech. It tries to spread teams out and creates isolated matchups, allowing the most athletic players to take advantage of their skills with a heavy passing game. However, in order to keep teams from dropping eight players back into coverage, there’s an element of running the ball that has to happen to keep defenses honest.
“We want to control the football and get explosive runs,” he said. “We feel like that’s a missing element on our team. We played with a walk-on running back last year and didn’t have a lot of pop in our running back. We’re healthier at that position and we’re more experienced in our offensive line.”
Don’t expect them to shy away from slinging the pigskin around the yard, however. They led the Mountain West Conference and were No. 9 in FBS last season, averaging 306.5 passing yards per game. The Rams threw the ball 501 times in 2023 behind redshirt freshman quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, an Aledo native. He’ll be back to run the offense and his favorite target also returns, wideout Tory Horton. The first-team all-MWC performer in 2023 racked up 1,136 receiving yards on 96 catches with eight scores last season.
There aren’t many places like DKR on a Saturday afternoon as far as the energy and atmosphere go, and Norvell understands that. He said he has a veteran group that won’t be awestruck by it.
“We’ve been training our kids that since we got here. We’re going to play in a great environment,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to play a really good football team in a great environment, and we should look forward to that. We’re playing against the schemes they run, and we have a more mature team that understands that.”