Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, CSU Rams should stop writing checks they can’t cash

FORT COLLINS — Surely, Kansas State wasn’t allegedly offering CSU quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi $600,000 in NIL money just to hand off and get the heck out of the way.

“I have slowed the game down on offense a little bit,” Rams football coach Jay Norvell explained Monday at Canvas Stadium, “because we were playing some really talented people these first three weeks and I felt like, to give our defense a chance, I needed to slow down the game a little bit and run it a little bit more.”

The problem isn’t that the Rams are fighting Shedeur Sanders. The problem is that they look as if they’re fighting themselves.

Air Raid? Smash-mouth? None of the above? Hey, it’s good to be multiple. But over the last 11 months or so, the Rams offense has often looked downright schizophrenic.

Consider: In the first four series of a bonkers 2023 Rocky Mountain Showdown last September, CSU threw it 11 times. In the first four series of a boring first half this past weekend in the ’24 Showdown, a 28-9 CU victory, the Rams aired it out just five times, officially.

At home. Against one of the two schools your alums want desperately to beat most. In front of a rocking, ravenous and rare sellout at Canvas Stadium.

And yeah, we know — personnel played a factor. Last year’s Rams took on CU and the Sanders family with Dallin Holker at tight end, wideout Louis Brown IV and a healthy Tory Horton. CSU this past weekend had no Holker, no Brown and Horton (groin) toughing it out on basically one good leg.

But when you’ve been touting your QB1 as a Power 4-level signal-caller, and then can’t trust him to air it out against a Power 4 defense, red flags start popping up everywhere. Everybody’s credibility suffers.

“(We) need to get our playmakers involved, we need to get it going offensively,” Norvell continued. “And we’ve got talent. We can score. And we need to respond to that.”

“Are you saying you’re going to take a more aggressive approach from here on out with how you attack teams?” the coach was asked.

“No, I’m telling you that I think we had hard matchups, and I don’t think we matched up very well,” Norvell replied. “And I was trying to minimize that — and that’s what head coaches do.”

Fortunately, there’s all kinds of time left, nine games, with which to hammer out a new narrative. The Mountain West looks top-heavy, and CSU won’t play two of the three programs — UNLV and Boise State, Fresno State being the other — expected to vie for the league crown.

More hope: The Rams have already faced the two most talented two rosters they’ll see all year in No. 1 Texas and CU. Although if the point was to save some arrows in the quiver for league play, after last Saturday, it might be good for Norvell to start firing off a few.

“We’ve got a lot of season left,” the coach said, “and we’ve got all of our goals in front of us that we want to accomplish in our conference and in the remaining nine games.”

All true. But assuming this weekend’s visit from 0-3 UTEP gets the Rams (1-2) back to .500, it’s also not crazy to wonder if a visit to future league rival Oregon State (Oct. 5) and a home test with San Jose State (Oct. 12) leaves CSU at 2-4 heading into a tussle at rebuilding Air Force (1-2). It’s not unreasonable to wonder whether the CSU administration, after that CU stinker, will have everybody’s back if — if — the Rams are somehow 2-5 with three winnable home games (New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah State) left on the docket.

Norvell knows the score. He’s got a president and athletic director who didn’t hire him, and the former isn’t messing around.

The Pac-12, or what’s left of it, awaits.

“I’ve felt pressure since the day I started being a coach,” Norvell said. “I mean, that’s just part of it.”