Fort Collins – On the best days in recent seasons, Colorado State’s defense played a few linebackers short of a commanding front seven.
The rest of the time, a few ends and tackles also failed to show up.
Nearing the midway point of this season, CSU (4-1, 1-0 Mountain West Conference) is making good on the spring promise to improve the defense. The Rams are sixth nationally in total defense at 236.6 yards a game, a long way from last season’s 428.8 yards and 99th ranking nationally.
There was a time the Rams’ defense couldn’t get out of its own way on third down. Now there’s a haste to leave the field, ranking sixth with a 26.6 percentage (17-of-64).
The biggest test comes Thursday night at Air Force. The Falcons (2-2, 2-0) lead the country in third-down conversionsm making 60 percent (36-of-60).
“That is a huge stat,” CSU defensive end Jesse Nading said.
After beating UNLV on Saturday, CSU coach Sonny Lubick said the defense played as well as any in his 14 seasons. Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry, immersed in CSU film, said Tuesday, “They look like the CSU defense of old,” referring to the defensive domination until the 2002 season.
Now there is a front seven with spare parts. “The last couple of years you could probably get away with single-blocking our tackles,” defensive coordinator Steve Stanard said. “That makes the linebackers come in cleaner without a block. It sure makes it easier to play linebacker.
“They are determined to set their minds to some thing. Guys focus on getting better. They are not going out there just to go through motions during the week and play the game on Saturday. Last year we did that a little bit.”
The shortage of quality has turned into a surplus. Stanard has four defensive ends, anchored by Nading and a three-man rotation at the tackles with Matt Rupp coming in for starters Erik Sandie and Blake Smith.
At linebacker, it was a matter of gaining experience and getting players into their best positions. Third-year sophomore Jeff Horinek has moved from weakside to the middle. After a year of rehabilitating from knee surgery, Luke Adkins has returned to the weakside for his senior year and is flying around.
Jon Radford, who mostly backed up all three positions a year ago as a junior college transfer, has improved every week on the strong side while pushed by redshirt freshman Jake Pottorff.
“If you could look at the number of tackles we have, it’s spread out,” Adkins said. “It happens because of the D-line. If they are getting through putting pressure on the quarterback and ball carriers, the offensive lineman has to stay for an extra split second to hold them off. It helps free us up.”
Although the strong safety, this year Mike Pagnotta, always has ranked among the top tacklers, two years ago CSU had only one linebacker among its top five tacklers. Last year it was two, and this year all three.
“Definitely in our system linebacker is the toughest position to learn,” Nading said. “We have three guys there now who have pretty much a full year under their belts. You can see it in the way they are playing. They are playing with a lot of confidence, flying around and not making many mistakes.”
The personalities of the defensive line are as different as their haircuts. Nading has a normal brush cut. Smith has his trademark shaved head. Sandie plays the part of the laid-back Californian with shoulder-length blond locks. Defensive end Bob Vomhof, the most free-spirited, grew out his hair, then returned to the mohawk he has sprouted since his sophomore year in high school.
“I have to maintain some state of normal,” Nading said. “There’s a little element of crazy with the D-linemen. It comes with the territory as evidenced with some of the hairstyles.”
Vomhof lists his idol as Brian Bosworth, the 1980s Oklahoma wild man with his own personality cult.
“I got tired of being like everyone else,” he said of the return to the mohawk. “Other people had ideas what they wanted me to be, but that’s not me.”
Natalie Meisler can be reached 303-954-1295 or a nmeisler@denverpost.com.
