FORT COLLINS — December 2002 seems like forever ago in the context of the Mountain West Conference. Newly hired coaches at Utah and Wyoming threw down the gauntlet and announced the road to the MWC title went through Fort Collins.
Urban Meyer won two MWC titles at Utah and now collects national championships at Florida. Joe Glenn didn’t win enough in Laramie and is enjoying forced retirement in Phoenix.
Five years after the new coaches arrived at Utah and Wyoming, newly hired Steve Fairchild announced CSU aspired to return to its glory days and catch up to the MWC’s Big Three — Utah, BYU and TCU.
The Rams try again Saturday at Hughes Stadium. The Utes, who went 13-0 last year and finished ranked second in the country, are in town.
“How can we get ourselves onto an equal playing field with teams like TCU, Utah and others so we can compete?” Fairchild said this week. Of program upgrades in 18 months, he added: “There is a good feel about what is going on, and we just have to keep working on our plan. I’m quite confident we are headed in that direction.”
Fairchild got more money for summer school and assistant coaches. He’s the beneficiary of a facilities overhaul. But most of this year’s recruits haven’t seen the new buildings.
The topic of the gap between programs came up when Fairchild discussed Utah plugging in a replacement for injured running back Matt Asiata.
Fairchild said Utes coach Kyle Whittingham “has been loading up there for a while, so they are at a stage now where if a guy goes down or a guy graduates, they will have a guy coming up that will do just as well or better.”
Whittingham wouldn’t put backup Eddie Wide in the same category as Asiata, but he said it all goes back to recruiting.
shows Utah with 15 commitments, including three with four-star status.
“When I first got here (as an assistant coach) 15 years ago, we competed with the other WAC schools for players,” Whittingham said by phone this week. “Now, just about every kid we’re in on or who has committed had Big 12 or Pac-10 offers. We got our foot in the door of a lot of recruits’ homes where we would not have been able to get had we not been in the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar Bowl.”
Utah had tradition long before Meyer. Ron McBride recruited four first-round draft picks.
The Utes had a national basketball profile in the 1990s along with NCAA crowns in women’s gymnastics and skiing.
“It’s why I fought the ‘midmajor’ (stuff) when I got the job,” men’s basketball coach Jim Boylen said this week during MWC media day. “We are a school that has great tradition, great pride, great support, great leadership. We’re tucked away in the mountains, and we’re misunderstood.”
Football has the advantage of a Polynesian pipeline. During a recruiting trip last year for the CSU game, recruits joked about limiting the number of heavy-set Polynesians per elevator trip to avoid overload.
Money and leadership are factors. Utah has a $26 million athletic budget; CSU’s is $21 million. Utes athletic director Chris Hill is in his 23rd year.
However, sometimes dynasties can turn on a dime. CSU was coming off three MWC titles in four years and maneuvering into position for the game-winning field goal in 2003. Marcus Houston’s fumble was scooped up and returned for a Utah touchdown.
Utah hasn’t looked back since.
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
Three questions for CSU
1. Will Utah and a forecast of dreadful weather take out the crowd originally expected to be the largest in several years? Fewer than 3,000 general and reserved seats remained early in the week for the homecoming game. The Rams have wilted two straight weeks on the road, and a good showing at home is essential if CSU is to regain its early-season momentum.
2. Utah leads the country in preventing opponents’ third-down conversions (only 19.2 percent), and CSU has struggled converting third downs. Can the Rams reverse this trend? Those numbers don’t bode well for the Rams. It will be difficult, especially on third-and-long, to alter things with Utah ranked second in MWC pass defense and 13th nationally.
3. How much will the loss of veteran running back and former Mountain West rushing leader Matt Asiata impact the Utes? Eddie Wide, Asiata’s backup, posted 35 yards vs. CSU in only three carries last year during Utah’s 49-16 rout. The Utes, furthermore, had a bye week to adjust to the loss of Asiata.
