Colorado State football coach Jim McElwain. (The Reporter Herald file)
FORT COLLINS — Colorado State coach Jim McElwain closed his Monday news conference with a tribute to former Montana State head coach Cliff Hysell, who died at age 72 on Sunday at his home in Bozeman.
McElwain served under Hysell as the Bobcats’ offensive coordinator, quarterbacks and receivers coach from 1995-99, Hysell’s final five seasons at MSU.
McElwain said Hysell “meant a ton to me personally and took a chance on me as a young coordinator. He was a good friend of Pokey’s (Allen), came out of that same mold and was in Jim Sweeney’s coaching tree. And he was a guy who meant a lot to me as far as seeing how he took over a program and instilled discipline. A lot of the things I carry with me are from him. . . He’s a guy who’s had an impact on a lot of different things and that’s just tough to see.”
(, who like McElwain was from Missoula, was the assistant coach who recruited McElwain to Eastern Washington when the current CSU coach didn’t have any other offers of significance. Allen died of cancer in 1996 while serving as Boise State’s head coach.)
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei
