FORT COLLINS — Coach Mike Bobo wasn’t giving out statistics from Saturday, but he did dish out a few compliments from Colorado State’s first scrimmage of the spring.
Some players earned praise, and so did the starting defense. Mostly, it was the team and how it approached the day at Sonny Lubick Field at Hughes Stadium that pleased Bobo the most on his 42nd birthday.
“I’m talking about the mind-set of how I want to practice,” Bobo said after the team ran 115 plays. “Being physical, competing, having fun, energy. We had a chance to come to the stadium and play football and treat it like a game, and today, I thought they did and they competed.”
The Rams will hit the field in 2016 with more experience on the offensive side of the ball, but it was the defense that controlled most of the day in Bobo’s pretape review eyes. With no returning starters on the defensive line and three-fourths of the secondary graduated, it wasn’t a development to be overlooked.
In the first half of the day, the top defensive unit stuffed the run of the first offense and performed well in pass coverage.
“It is encouraging. I would much rather any scrimmage start where the defense dominates,” Bobo said. “They really dominated early in the scrimmage. Really, the ‘twos’ offensively got the energy going on the offensive side. The one defense got the upper hand, and that’s encouraging.”
As expected, linebacker Kevin Davis — the team’s leading tackler last season — was lauded for his play, but so was Josh Watson, a player Bobo pointed out last week as someone who had to start showing more consistency in his play.
The same was said for wideout Xavier Williams, and he also earned kudos for his coach. The knock on the junior last year was not making plays in the air, but Saturday, Williams was winning the majority of those battles.
“It was a really good day for him,” Bobo said. “He had one in the red zone he could have made; he didn’t go through the route. But other than that, he made plays in one-on-one situations. X had a lot of one-on-one situations last year where the ball was in the air and he didn’t come down with it.”
As for the quarterbacks, Bobo said the main three — returning starter Nick Stevens, senior transfer Faton Bauta and true freshman Collin Hill — all played pretty well. Hill’s performance stood out to the coach as Hill had struggled as of late with all of the offensive installation.
Tight ends Danny Nwosu and Nolan Peralta were singled out for their strong play, as were running backs Bryce Peters and Dalyn Dawkins, who hit a couple of big runs against the defense in the second half.
