FORT COLLINS — As did Jim McElwain, Colorado State coach Mike Bobo came to Fort Collins after serving as an offensive coordinator at a Southeastern Conference program.
The difference is that McElwain was a well-traveled coaching journeyman who, before working at Alabama, was an assistant in the Big Sky Conference for 15 years, as well as at Louisville, Fresno State, Michigan State and even for one season with the Oakland Raiders.
With the exception of a season at Jacksonville State in Alabama as he broke into coaching in 2000, Bobo had been at Georgia since arriving on the campus in Athens as a freshman. He played, coached, climbed up the staff, married, started a family and became a hot coaching prospect — all while in the Bulldog program.
As Bobo oversees his first preseason practices as a head coach after opening drills at CSU on Friday, it’s intriguing that this is the first time he has been working with non-SEC talent since that single season at Jacksonville State.
So on Saturday, I asked if he has had to adjust his talent evaluation standards. That in no way was meant to demean CSU or the Mountain West. The SEC is the pre-eminent football conference in the country, generally considered the best of the power five leagues, right?
When I took a couple of swings at asking McElwain similar questions about the transition from Alabama to CSU during his three seasons in Fort Collins, he spoke at length, but detoured. I understood it and wasn’t offended, but on Saturday, Bobo gave it a more sincere try.
“I’d really have to see when we get in and start playing the teams,” Bobo said. “I think everything’s going to be relative to the competition that you’re playing. There’s fast guys in the SEC, there’s big defensive linemen, but they’re recruited big guys here.”
He noted that his staff “beefed up the defensive line” in recruiting, both from the high school and junior college ranks.
“We have some bodies that I’m used to seeing on the defensive side,” Bobo added. “It’s kind of hard when you’re looking at film to tell, and when you’re reading the media guide and everybody lies sometimes about their heights and weights. When we get into the season, I think that will be a better question for me.
“But as far as our team, we’ve got size in places, (players) that are big like in the SEC. The depth, the overall depth, is probably a little greater where I came from.”
Bobo retained three assistants from the McElwain staff, including Marty English, now the linebackers coach who has spent his 25-year career at his alma mater, Northern Colorado, plus Wyoming and CSU. That’s valuable knowledge on several fronts, including recruiting and networking, but it’s also important that English has a feel for the realities of the Mountain West.
The other holdovers, Alvis Whitted (wide receivers) and Jeff Hammerschmidt (special teams, tight ends), arrived in the league with McElwain. Also, holdover director of football operations Tom Ehlers has been with the program as a coach or administrator since 1989.
At some point, and this probably has happened already, Bobo will have to remind himself that he’s not still in the SEC and that this isn’t Athens.
Not that those necessarily are bad things.
After the first no-pads practice Friday, Bobo said: “If I was in Athens, I’d probably be fully sweating and my script would be soaking wet. I think it’s all relative to the climate you’re in. It was definitely hot here and with the altitude we’re in, they were a little bit short of breath. But we pushed ’em. … We want them to know what it feels like in the fourth quarter when you’re tired and realize, hey, you can go a little big harder at the end.
“We’re getting there, not where I want to be, but it was better.”
Yes, it’s all relative.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or
