FORT COLLINS — Colorado State athletic director Paul Kowalczyk has an upstairs corner office in the McGraw Athletic Center. It has a small balcony with a majestic view of the mountains. It’s one of those places that are good to sit and just think.
Rolling foremost through Kowalczyk’s mind is his football program, which has become a contradiction: a solid foundation mixed with disappointing results on the field. Coach Steve Fairchild has come under fire from irate fans. Many want Fairchild fired, and Kowalczyk is thinking about it.
And yet, Kowalczyk’s evaluation is charged with seeing beyond the win-loss column and into the inner workings of the program and the direction it’s headed. Although, each year the team becomes filled with more players recruited by the current staff, the losing becomes a bigger part of the decision-making process.
So the question Kowalczyk, in his sixth year at CSU, must wrestle with at the end of the season is this: Has the win-loss record become the measure of how much — or how little — the program has grown?
Kowalczyk will have to see into the future and wonder if there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If there is, can this coach, Fairchild, and his staff, get the Rams there? Simply, is everything else in place so that the on-field results are now the only criteria for which the program should be judged?
If the answer is yes — that everything is in place from the facilities to the roster — then three wins would be an indictment of the coaching staff.
If the answer is no — everything isn’t quite in place — then Fairchild and his staff have wiggle room to request, and be granted, another year to see it through.
Early in the season, Kowalczyk spoke to the football program’s progress.
“I feel very good about the progress we’ve made and what we’re doing institutionally to better our program,” he said. “Our goal from the get-go is to win conference championships. We want to be the best in the Mountain West right now.”
Fairchild said he believe that can happen as soon as next season.
“I think we are headed back to where we can compete for the conference championship year in and year out,” he said Monday during his weekly press conference. “I think we have built this the right way. There is no quick fix. It takes a large number on the roster to get to that point. I anticipated it. I knew it would be into my fourth year. I anticipated it, showing more this year, and it hasn’t, and there are a lot of reasons why.
“I would be surprised if that team in the locker room that is coming back doesn’t compete for the championship.”
There is plenty of skepticism and dissent. It comes in the form of angry emails to the in-boxes of beat reporters to fiery message boards to comments under stories and blogs. There is considerable anger floating from Fort Collins to the massive CSU alumni base in Denver.
Prior to this season, fans were promised much more than has been delivered. Fairchild insisted fans should expect nothing less than a bowl berth, adding that the program and the talent in it, while not a finished product, had progressed to the point where real on-field results were an attainable goal.
Seven straight losses after a 3-1 start derailed all of that. Fans, feeling an unwanted sense of déj… vu, want no more part of a three-win football team, something they’ve had to endure in each of the previous two seasons.
Making matters worse, CSU fan have watched the resurrection of Wyoming, which came from the same depths as CSU but put together a solid season. A loss on Saturday to the suddenly-powerful Cowboys would doom CSU to its third consecutive 3-9 campaign. Given the expectations, that’s a bitter pill for the fan base to swallow.
Injuries have been a problem this season. Eleven players, most of them starters, suffered season-ending knee injuries. Others, such as linebacker Mychal Sisson and cornerback Elijah-Blu Smith, sat out significant time.
Fairchild was Kowalczyk’s first major hire, and athletic directors generally don’t give up so easily on the coach they first put their faith in, particularly when they look around and see general improvement in the health of the program. Facilities have improved, recruiting has improved. The wins have not.
Kowalczyk knows and readily admits, “evaluation is an on-going process,” while adding that “the end of season is the time to sit down and make decisions, figure out the direction of the program and those types of things.”
ROSTER GAINS
CSU running backs coach Larry Lewis allows himself a moment, from time-to-time, to sit back and smile about the dominant running game he knows is on the horizon in the team’s pro-style offense.
“Yeah, I really do,” Lewis said. “And looking at our style of offense, I think it could be something special. That’s why I’d hate to see somebody else take over, because I really think that we’re on the verge. In transition you get all of that transition recruiting, (but) for the first time since I’ve been here you can see it. I’m excited about Chris Nwoke, and I’m excited about the O-line and the tight ends and the quarterbacks. I see a great future, I really do.”
Nwoke is part of a sophomore class providing the point players as the team grows. The bulk of talent is there and still developing, headlined by Nwoke. Taking into account only Mountain West Conference games, he lead the conference in rushing. He’s run for 810 yards and five touchdowns in the last five games and is CSU’s first 1,000-yard rusher in three seasons.
CSU’s sophomores represent two of the top 10 tacklers in the conference (Shaquil Barrett and Mike Orakpo), as well as the conference’s sack and forced fumble leader (Nordly Capi).
Tight end Crockett Gillmore was on the midseason Mackey Award watch list and center/tackle Weston Richburg was highly regarded in preseason prognostications and is arguably the team’s best offensive lineman.
Juniors have contributed, too. Cornerback Momo Thomas — among the MWC leaders in passes broken up — Ray Guy candidate punter Pete Kontodiakos, linebacker James Skelton and defensive end C.J. James are among the upperclassmen that have made an impact this season and are expected to thrive next season.
“Quite honestly, I think this has been a breakthrough year despite the record,” defensive coordinator Larry Kerr said. “I see so much growth in terms of team, attitude and unity. I see a lot of talented young players that are contributing, that are learning on the run. I see a group that has got a foundation now that can be built upon. So I see it as a very challenging year, but in a lot of ways you can start to see some light at the end of the tunnel.”
However, holes remain on the roster. The interior defensive line has been difficult for this staff to address, as has wide receiver. Safety looked to be a problem spot as well, but coaches believe they now have good young players in place there.
COACHING ISSUES
If there is one thing that gets under fans’ skin the most, it’s the offense and play-calling.
Colorado State runs a pro-style offense. The Rams run the ball first and build off of that. It’s comfortable to Fairchild, a former NFL assistant. In some cases the pro-style offense can be pretty effective — USC, Stanford, Florida, Utah all run it — although in new the college football landscape of spread offenses and exotic formations, it isn’t always the most eye-pleasing style of play.
Pro-style offenses put a lot of pressure on the quarterback to be great, and in those cases where the quarterback is great it works. Think Andrew Luck at Stanford and Matt Barkley at USC.
At CSU, it has had mixed of results, much of which is due to the quarterback play not being consistently high.
Youth is part of the problem — Pete Thomas is a sophomore and Garrett Grayson is a true freshman — but there are those who will point to coaching as well.
Fairchild was a quarterback in his playing days and came to CSU highly regarded in his ability to “coach up” young signal callers. The fact that quarterback play hasn’t improved appreciably over the last two seasons, with players sold as big-time talents, can reasonably be laid directly at his feet.
“It all comes down to evaluation and then development,” recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said. “And if they are on target, they are going to be a good team. How does Boise State succeed? Because of the evaluation and then the development. They are great at that. That’s how Iowa — they never beat Michigan or Notre Dame head-to-head (in recruiting) — but they can beat them on the field because of that. I’ve seen that all the way around, in different parts of the country. And that’s what Colorado State’s got to do.”
Different players at various times this season have come out in support of the current staff. That includes players, such as star linebacker Mychal Sisson, who weren’t recruited by these coaches.
Sisson has had just one winning season in his time at CSU. He recognizes when a program is slipping away or when it’s building a good foundation.
Asked if he believes the program is on the right track, he said: “In my heart I do. Yeah, you can judge it on wins and losses, but you know, when it comes down to it, it’s what’s inside these guys heart, what the coaches instill in us and what we learn from this. If we learn something from everything we’ve been through I feel like we’re going on the right path.
“It might not look good, but we’re making strides. Even though we might take some back, I still feel that we’re going in the right direction and the coaches are leading us great. It’s just things haven’t been going our way, and it’s hard to watch that. But I still feel we’re going in the right direction.”
FAN APATHY
South Overland Trail is the main thoroughfare that feeds into the parking area in front of Hughes Stadium. On Saturdays, it’s a cone zone full of police and helpful parking attendants, all there to quickly and courteously get fans to spots and into the stadium.
Lately that street and those lots have been pretty much empty. So has the stadium.
Colorado State’s attendance has fallen off a cliff in the last two games, with announced totals of 16,811 for the Nov. 12 game against San Diego State and 14,107 for last Saturday’s game against Air Force.
With sagging ticket sales — due to an underachieving team and cold temperatures (this Saturday’s high is expected to be below freezing) — there’s not much hope anything changes this week even though the finale is against the Rams’ chief and oldest rival, Wyoming, in the annual Border War game.
Interestingly, Colorado State has managed to draw 22,799 in five home games — 70.15 percent of capacity in 32,500-seat Hughes Stadium. That number is slightly up from last season, when CSU ranked 87th in the NCAA and sixth in the Mountain West Conference in average attendance (22,500 per game in five home dates).
Scenes of a mostly-empty Hughes Stadium have been the norm in November, but it appears CSU will still average about the same number of spectators as it did a year ago. But the drop-off in interest and support isn’t a good sign for a program hoping to grow.
“The crowd, we can’t control that,” Fairchild said. “But it would be nice to have a good crowd, that’s for sure.”
FINANCES
Fairchild’s contract has one year left at $700,000, plus incentives should he hit any next season. If CSU doesn’t keep him, the university is faced with paying him that salary, plus the next coach as well. It is believed the university would pay a successor right around the same rate as Fairchild, which would mean $1.4 million would be paid to head two coaches (past and present), plus assistants’ salaries.
The NCAA recently approved $2,000 stipends to student-athletes scholarships that will go into effect next season. At CSU it would add $300,000 to scholarship aid commitments. Kowalczyk has said the added scholarship burden would not have any impact on the decision whether or not to retain Fairchild.
According to U.S. Department of Education figures from the 2010-11 fiscal year (we’re currently in the 2011-12 FY), Colorado State’s football program broke even, spending and receiving $7,744,375. In fact, CSU’s budget was set up for all of its sports to break even, but the athletic department as a whole reported a profit of $2,236,961. According to what the university reported, the surplus is directly due to a profit in “non-allocated revenues,” things such as the Ram Club, etc. Because of that, CSU’s athletic department is in the black.
Still, paying two coaches large sums of money is a troubling concept for an athletic department that isn’t making money hand over fist. Keeping Fairchild, extending his contract one season and asking him to agree to a lower buyout as a condition for doing that is a possibility.
It is a complicated issue. A lack of wins is turning off a good number of the fan base, which will chip away at the heart of the program, while other factors seem to indicate stability and/or improvement.
For Kowalczyk, a man who played college football himself, it’s one of the most difficult decisions he’ll make to date in his tenure at CSU. But he knows the job he signed up for.
He can be a maverick and go it alone with the blessing (or at least tolerance) of the school’s biggest donors and most influential voices. Or he can scrap everything that’s been done over the last four years and start over from square one.
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
