LARAMIE — The beleaguered Colorado State defense, prone all season to give up big plays, passed that test Saturday.
Make no mistake, the Rams’ 26-7 win was over a Wyoming team with only one win and caught in the transition between former coach Dave Christensen’s spread offense and appropriate personnel, and second-year coach Craig Bohl’s blue-collar, hard-nosed, run-oriented approach.
But CSU limited one of the nation’s top running backs — the Cowboys’ Brian Hill — to 65 yards on 21 carries, and his longest run was 12 yards. Beyond that, the Cowboys had only 130 yards rushing and 239 yards of total offense.
Plus, the Rams probably would have gotten their first shutout since a 63-0 romp over Hawaii in October 1997 if CSU coach Mike Bobo hadn’t deployed the second-team defense in the fourth quarter, leading to Hill’s 4-yard TD run with 2:25 left.
Linebackers Kevin Davis (eight tackles), Deonte Clyburn (seven tackles, a half sack, 1.5 tackles for loss), Kiel Robinson (six tackles, two sacks) and SteveO Michel did key work for the Rams. And safety Trent Matthews had two fumble recoveries and an interception.
The Rams came up with four turnovers total — three fumble recoveries and one interception of Wyoming quarterback Nick Smith, who was 10-for-21 for 109 yards and was sacked three times.
“We had a complete game,” Matthews said. “We got three and outs, which we usually do, but this time we got turnovers and excelled in that. We got our offense more chances to put points on the board.
“We honed in on the little things. We watched film and saw the negative things we did and once we saw those, we told each other, ‘You know what, this has got to stop.’ … Small things to stop big plays. Usually we hold running backs to only 50 yards and in the passing game, they don’t get that much, but they get five explosive plays. That’s what we had to stop and we did that today.”
Said Michel: “It was a wonderful game, definitely with me being a senior and to come out with the boot. We knew what we wanted to come out and establish and we did that, and had fun doing it.”
Bohl saluted the CSU defense.
“I think CSU did a great job creating turnovers,” the Wyoming coach said. “They did a great job neutralizing our rushing game, and we had a hard time protecting Nick. … I do think Colorado State was more physical than we were today.”
