FORT COLLINS – They were typical introductory news conferences in December 2002. Urban Meyer and Joe Glenn announced at Utah and Wyoming, respectively, that the Mountain West Conference title goes through Fort Collins and they wanted to change that direction.
About the only thing that goes through Fort Collins these days is a 12-game losing streak. It’s a welcome relief station for other struggling teams, such as San Diego State.
Last week, TCU coach Gary Patterson said after a 24-12 win: “I think they are going to win some ball games. They are better offensive line-wise than a year ago. We got a couple of breaks in the game. They missed three long balls. We got lucky. All they have to do is keep going hard. There will be a lot of positives out of the CSU camp before it’s over.”
Saturday’s positive in a last-minute 24-20 loss to San Diego State was a revival by the defensive line, which combined for 4 1/2 sacks. The negatives were an inability to generate any first-half points while giving up a touchdown on the opening drive for the third time in five games.
There are no more excuses, and in some ways, there never were for this veteran team. With the San Diego State loss, CSU cannot blame inexperience – especially at quarterback, where Caleb Hanie has 22 career starts – or a competitive disadvantage against the first two opponents from BCS conferences, or that three of the first four games were away from Hughes Stadium.
While it hurt to lose stellar tight end Kory Sperry at the position with the least experience, other teams, notably Utah, have come back from more injuries to produce some wins.
In fact, CSU has won at least some games in years when the linebacking corps was nowhere near as solid as the one now, the running game was similarly ineffective, and special teams were an unmitigated disaster.
To their credit, the players don’t hide after a loss. They’d love to talk about something other than the streak, but they know until it ends, the streak remains the primary topic.
“It doesn’t seem like it can get any lower but it kind of does,” said running back Kyle Bell, who has yet to break a long run. “This is a team that’s not going to quit.”
Hanie said: “It would be good to end it with Air Force. We’re just going to come out next week and fight. It’s always a dogfight with them.”
Within minutes of the game’s end, CSU coach Sonny Lubick turned his attention to Air Force. The streak has been going since the Rams, then 4-1, stumbled out of the locker room at halftime with a 21-3 lead Oct. 12, 2006, collapsed 24-21 and haven’t won since.
“I don’t think it will be a major problem (to put the loss away and direct attention to Air Force). It’s going to be natural for all of us (the coaches) to not want to go to work (Sunday),” Lubick said after Saturday’s loss. “By Tuesday they’ll be ready to go. … The players like and respect the coaches and each other. They are not going to give up.”
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
