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When Fort Air Raid was abandoned, the success of Colorado State football became the ultimate paradox.
Championed by coach Jay Norvell, CSU looked poised to be the gunslinging team everyone grew accustomed to the year prior. So when Norvell implemented the run-first system, it made no sense, but given time, it has panned out beautifully for the fourth-year coach.
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Norvell had longtime success running the air-raid system at Nevada, especially with quarterback Carson Strong, to whom he compared CSU quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi. Strong won back-to-back Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year awards in 2020 and 2021. He also threw for 9,368 yards in his Nevada career, good for fourth all time.
The comparison between Strong and Fowler-Nicolosi is a strong endorsement of Norvell’s current quarterback. Between that, the return of Tory Horton, the transfers into the program and a recruiting class at the receiver position, the Rams’ preseason foreshadowed a year filled with air yards.
“(Winning) is the result of what we’ve been working on and the culture that we’ve been building here.” –Henry Blackburn, safety
Yet Fowler-Nicolosi’s stats look drastically different from a year ago and, at first glance, almost look worse. This year, he’s throwing 180 yards per game, compared to 288 a season ago. He’s thrown just eight touchdowns this season, compared to the 18 he threw in the first 10 games last season.
What doesn’t show in the box score, though, are the strides he’s taken as a decision maker. Last year, Fowler-Nicolosi became known for his tendency to gamble, throw the ball up and try to make a play. That translated to a lot of yards and touchdowns but also to a lot of interceptions that turned into losses.
This year, Fowler-Nicolosi has had to adjust. Instead of being a gunslinger, he’s been tasked more with managing the game. Trust your playmakers and defense, throw it quick and don’t turn the ball over.
He’s been exceptional at that throughout conference play, throwing just one interception in five games, which has translated to winning.
“I want a guy that wins,” Norvell said on Fowler-Nicolosi’s development this season. “The most important stat for a quarterback is wins and losses. So it’s his job to put the team in position to win.”
That transition wasn’t necessarily easy for Fowler-Nicolosi. He came into the season expecting to be a guy leading the Mountain West in passing yards per game as he did a season ago, but instead, he sits second to last.
Oftentimes, when a team drastically improves over the course of just a single year, there’s someone who makes a big sacrifice for the betterment of the team. Every single player on the offense is seeing more work and more production, of course with the exception of Fowler-Nicolosi.
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“It was a grind at first,” Fowler-Nicolosi said. “Honestly, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. It kind of sucked. You come in expecting to have 50 attempts a game again, and then all of a sudden, we’re down to 20, and I’m having to use my legs and stuff.”
Through those struggles, Fowler-Nicolosi knew if the team was going to find success, he would have to buy into what Norvell wanted offensively.
The goal was for Fowler-Nicolosi to be a reflection of Norvell on the field. That’s not easy for any quarterback, much less for a sophomore with little experience in a new system. After putting in all the work, there was one moment when things finally clicked.
“Really after that Oregon State game was when it all clicked for us as an offense, and I was able to be that reflection of him on the field,” Fowler-Nicolosi said.
And from that moment, CSU has made massive strides toward the Norvell era being looked back upon as successful, something that hasn’t been said since Sonny Lubick was on the sideline.
Those strides include rehoming the Ram-Falcon Trophy and the Bronze Boot in Fort Collins in the same year for the first time since 2015.
“It’s all a result of the work we put into the offseason and buying into the new system offensively and defensively,” Fowler-Nicolosi said. “We’ve both kind of implemented some new stuff, and (we’re) understanding how to come together as a team and make that work and play complementary football.”
The work to become a force in the Mountain West truly began at the very end of last season. CSU traveled to Hawaii with an opportunity to become bowl eligible. The Rams looked like an up-and-coming dangerous team and went in with the expectation that victory would accompany them on the flight home.
Instead, a herd of Rams headed to the tarmac with heads hung and spirits broken. Thus, the epiphany of Fort Ground and Pound was conceived.
“I’ve worked really hard this offseason to look at our team and find out how we can be better,” Norvell said. “I’m going to be honest with you: Last year was gut wrenching to lose and not qualify for a bowl game on the last play of the season.”
With 2:24 left in the game, CSU found itself down eight to Hawaii with an opportunity to drive down and tie the game.
First & 10: Fowler-Nicolosi takes a 5-yard sack. Hawaii unsheathed the dagger it planned on using to finish the Rams’ season.
Second & 15: Fowler-Nicolosi found Louis Brown IV for 5 yards. Hawaii raised that dagger, taking aim at the dreams of a successful season that converged in Fort Collins.
Third & 10: Fowler-Nicolosi found Dylan Goffney for 2 yards. Hawaii plunged that dagger, coming inches from shattering the hopes of a program that had been trying to find its way back to relevance for six years.
Fourth & 8: Dagger shattered. In what may be the most memorable forgotten play in CSU history, Fowler-Nicolosi hit Horton, who ran the ball 70 yards into the endzone for a touchdown. With Horton completing a pass to succeed on the 2-point conversion, the game was tied, and new life was injected into the Rams.
The clock showed 00:54, but the tie game translated to deja vu. Over a month earlier with just 40 seconds on the clock, UNLV drove down and kicked a game-winning field goal. Hawaii followed suit, with the final three points being the final nail in the Rams’ 2023 season coffin.
“We had seven one-score games, and we had four games that came down to the last play,” Norvell said. “We’re not used to losing those games. We’re used to winning those kind of games, so that was not a typical way for us to finish the season. It was a gut shot, and I looked really hard, and I was determined to do things differently.”
CSU went 2-2 in those one-score games and just 1-3 in games decided on the last play. Oftentimes in the clutch, the offense delivered, but far too often, the defense fumbled away the opportunity.
So when Norvell set out in search of a new identity, defense through offense was going to be one of the characteristics of the new-look Rams.
“A big credit to our defense is our offensive line,” Norvell said. “When we’re on the field, (the opposing team) can’t score.”
With an O-line coming off of an incredible season and captain Jacob Gardner returning, extending offensive drives looked like the winning ticket to cash in on the dreams that failed to be realized a season ago.
Norvell sought to protect his defense because he was worried about his pass rush but still understood that, in order for that ticket to be cashed this season, the Rams would have to finish with the trifecta: winning on offense, defense and special teams.
It’s no coincidence that when the defense started to click, the number in the win column began to inflate.
“We’ve (placed a) huge emphasis on our communication and on our execution of what we’re supposed to be doing,” captain Henry Blackburn said. “Guys are really locked in out there. Guys are talking a lot, which is helping us play a lot better defense.”
Communication comes easily when those around you are all there by choice, and the brotherhood extends beyond just a position group or even personnel.
A motif of the season has been the love each person in the building has for one another. Whether it be the janitors, team staff or Norvell, the atmosphere inside Canvas Stadium has become truly special. That love proved to be pertinent to the Rams’ turnaround.
“Guys just really love each other on this team,” Blackburn said. “We love the coaches; the coaches love us; the players love the players. That’s the biggest thing that I see that’s different with this team.”
Of the 113 players on the roster, 29 of them hail from Colorado. While Norvell emphasized the importance of his guys to understand the history of CSU, many of those 29 guys have been around the community and understand how important this football team is to the Fort Collins area.
The desire to restore the honor of the program that many of those 29 players grew up watching started to intensify. It was paralleled only by the desire to give their graduating brothers — men they lost blood, sweat and tears for — a season that etched each person’s name permanently in stone, with time being the only force that could wipe that away.
“There’s a core group of guys that have been here for a long time, and we’ve always been talking about trying to turn this around,” Blackburn said. “We really put our hearts into it. … (Winning) is the result of what we’ve been working on and the culture that we’ve been building here.”
CSU may not reside in Philadelphia, but through all the ups and downs, the Rams have become the team of brotherly love.
So in the beginning, when abandoning the air-raid offense seemed destined for nothing but failure, the team locked arms, ready to go into battle for one another. Through perseverance, success followed.
Once upon a time, the desertion of the air raid looked insane. But in hindsight, it may have signaled the start of a program that could once again be the pride of the city.
With a record-breaking student crowd present for the reclamation of the Bronze Boot, echoes of, “I’m proud to be a CSU Ram,” rang as eager faces filled Sonny Lubick Field for an opportunity to be part of the beginning of something special.
“I’m a big believer that every spring you look at your team and you look at the strengths and weaknesses of (what) you can hang your hat on,” Norvell said. “It became evident that we needed to really improve in our fundamentals in the run game, both offensively and defensively — and we have. We’ve got better since the spring, especially defensively. We’ve really improved.”
The Bronze Boot is just the second stepping stone in what could end as a historic season for the Rams — a classification that seemed ridiculous prior to the CSU offense morphing in to its final form.
The opportunity to play in a bowl game for the first time since 2017 is great, but the chance to win the program’s first-ever MW championship would be legendary.
“I think it will be really cool,” Fowler-Nicolosi said. “(Playing in a bowl game) will be an awesome opportunity. I hope that we don’t play that game for another while because we have a championship to take care of first.”
Reach Damon Cook at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @dwcook2001.
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