FORT COLLINS — So what if Colorado State finishes 11-1 in the regular season and doesn’t make the Mountain West Conference’s Dec. 6 championship game?
“It that happens, it’ll (stink), to be honest,” Rams quarterback Garrett Grayson said Monday. “It won’t be fun. It’s something we’ll look back on and obviously wish we had played better against Boise, but it’s something we learned from.”
To claim the Mountain Division title, the Rams must beat Air Force Friday afternoon at Falcon Stadium, then have Utah State knock off Boise State in Boise late Saturday night. In that case, CSU and Utah State both would be 7-1 in the league, but the Rams would advance to the title game because of their 16-13 win over the Aggies Oct. 18.
If Boise State and CSU tie, the Broncos would advance because of their 37-24 victory over the Rams on Sept. 6.
CSU coach Jim McElwain, Grayson and junior strong safety Trent Matthews all emphasized Monday how difficult it will be to defeat Air Force.
“At the end of the day, we can control only what we can control,” Grayson said. “We’re going into Air Force expecting to get a win, but that’s all we can kind of worry about right now.”
Said Matthews: “Coach Mac always says it’s not going to be given to us and now we’re going to try to work on Air Force, win this game and try to see what happens. It would hurt for our team not to go to the conference championship, but if we don’t, that’s OK. We used Boise as a learning experience.”
McElwain has talked to his team about their last trip to the Academy, an embarrassing 42-21 loss two years ago. He called that his “worst day ever” as a player or a coach, and he joked that Air Force tailback Cody Getz, who ran for 222 yards, “probably got military leave for how tired he was for beating the heck out of us.”
McElwain said he saw “the quit and the disrespect for the game of football at Colorado State University that we showed that day. . . I want to make sure that this particular team understands what happened two years ago down there and, you know what, whether we win or not, the effort will be there.”
He did get in some teasing directed at AFA coach Troy Calhoun in and around saying how much he admired the Falcons.
“We’ve got to be sound, because they’ve got very good players,” he said. “They recruit, don’t let ’em give you any of that stuff. They go into homes like everybody else, all right? I love Troy’s deal, but at the same time, I’ve been in Georgia with him, all right? We’ve seen him in Texas, recruiting the same guys we’re recruiting.”
Footnotes. CSU sophomore Rashard Higgins, a semifinalist for the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver, Tuesday will get word about whether he made the cut to the final three. He also is a semifinalist for the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, and the five finalists for that will be named Dec. 3. ..Running back Dee Hart was named the MW offensive player of the week Monday. Hart scored six touchdowns Saturday against New Mexico.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or
