Hill overcame rehabbing from a third ACL tear this spring and bonding with new teammates as a graduate transfer from Colorado State to win the starting quarterback job over last year’s incumbent in Ryan Hilinski.

“He’s been the most consistent on a daily basis,” said first-year South Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, Hill’s head coach at Colorado State.

“I think both had good days,” Bobo continued. “But over the long haul, (Hill) had more consistent days.”

Though Hill had an edge after previously playing in Bobo’s system.

But with the decision made, Hill will come out first when South Carolina opens the season at home against No. 15 Tennessee on Sept. 26.

Bobo said Hill’s toughness impressed teammates. Then again, the fifth-year player has shown that quality throughout his career.

Hill is from South Carolina’s Upstate region in Moore and played at high school power Dorman, where he led the program to a state championship game and still holds records for career passing yards and touchdowns.

After Dorman coach Dave Gutshall learned about Hill’s third knee injury in a game at Arkansas last year, he told Hill he could become his high school’s quarterbacks coach if he didn’t want to continue playing.

“Coach,” Gutshall recalled Hill telling him, “I think I want to get back on the field.”

To do that, the 6-foot-4, 222-pound Hill needed to find a new home after Bobo’s departure from the Rams. Bobo was looking for a leader who could help South Carolina’s young quarterbacks — Hill’s prime backups are sophomore Hilinski and freshman Luke Doty — learn his system.

It was not a completely smooth transition. While South Carolina went through five spring practices before the global pandemic shut down all group activities, Hill spent much of that team rehabbing his knee.

But Hill was active and helpful on Zoom sessions, Bobo said. By the time team workouts began in the summer, Hill demonstrated the ability to move around without worries about his knee.

Hill was South Carolina’s top offensive player during a second scrimmage as he gained momentum behind center that continued the rest of the way.

“It����ap awesome to be back home, to be close to family, to play at a school like this growing up down the road,” Hill said earlier this month.

Hill has started 11 games his his career, throwing for 3,233 yards, 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions at Colorado State. He has had five games with 300-plus yards passing.

Hilinski handled the news well, Bobo said. The 6-3, second-year passer was forced into the starting role last year when four-year starter Jake Bentley was lost for the year with a foot injury in the season opener.

Hilinski threw for 2,357 yards, 11 touchdowns and five interceptions last season. He had surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee last December, but figured to have enough of a handle on the job that Bentley transferred to Utah despite having a year of eligibility left.

Hilinski is the younger brother of late Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski, who committed suicide in 2019. Ryan’s family has a foundation, Hilinski’s Hope, designed to raise awareness of the mental health challenges of student athletes.

At games last season, South Carolina players, coaches and fans would hold up three fingers in honor of Tyler Hilinski before the start of the third quarter.

Bobo said Hilinski didn’t sulk or take a day off after losing the job.

“Obviously, everybody in that (quarterback) room wants to be the starter,” Bobo said. “Everybody knows the ultimate goal is for South Carolina to win.”

Bobo said he and Hilinski talked about how he could improve and the quarterback had two strong practices since the decision.

“I like where he’s at,” Bobo said.

And nothing is written in stone going forward because of the all the unknowns from the global health crisis.

Bobo said he hadn’t ever prepared as many quarterbacks for action in a summer camp as he has this year to make sure the Gamecocks are ready if players must miss time due to quarantine.

“With the pandemic, we felt like we needed to continue to get guys more reps” with the first team, Bobo said.

___

More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

Lynch joins the CSU staff from Ball State, where his Cardinals featured one of the most prolific offenses in the Mid-American Conference, having led the circuit in scoring (34.8 points per game) and total offense (463 yards per game) this past fall. Ball State’s 219.4 rushing yards per game in 2019 was the program’s second-highest mark on the ground over the last four decades.

Ball State ranked No. 43 nationally in points per drive against FBS foes in 2019 and No. 96 in 2018, according to Brian Fremeau’s BCFToys.com site. The Rams ranked 82nd and 105th, respectively, in that category each of the last two seasons.

Lynch will also coach the Rams’ quarterbacks, where he’ll be without Collin Hill, who transferred to South Carolina to re-join former CSU coach , and will inherit a pool that currently includes Patrick O’Brien, and .

A longtime Addazio confidant and a former Urban Meyer assistant, White comes to Fort Collins after stints at Boston College (2015-19), Florida (2009-14), Washington (2008), Syracuse (2006-07) and Wisconsin (1995-06). A former Harvard quarterback, White served on the UNLV staffs in 1990-92 (quarterbacks, running backs) and in 1994 (passing game coordinator/wide receivers) before moving to Madison, where he worked with Badgers tailbacks Michael Bennett, Anthony Davis and Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne.

“Both men embody the characteristics we are looking for in this program: passion for the game, love for those around them, and an unrivaled toughness,” Addazio said in a university news release. “I am looking forward to getting them both on the road to meet with recruits and around our program to grow with our players, staff, and community.”

The former Colorado State quarterback, who entered the transfer portal this month, announced on Twitter on Saturday that he was transferring to South Carolina in January.

“After a lot of prayer and discussion with my family, I have decided to come home and play at the University of South Carolina,” the Moore, S.C., native tweeted. “I’m excited for what the future holds, and can’t wait to get started in January.”

With the senior-to-be’s move to the Palmetto State, Hill will join Bobo for his final season of eligibility. The former Rams coach was hired as the Gamecocks offensive coordinator shortly after a “mutual separation” with CSU following the end of the 2019 regular season.

Hill threw for 3,323 yards and 23 touchdowns in 18 games at CSU.

https://twitter.com/collinhill15/status/1211031613980606464?s=20

Collin Hill’s days wearing a CSU uniform officially concluded on Thursday morning when the redshirt junior quarterback announced his intentions to enter the transfer portal via Twitter.

https://twitter.com/collinhill15/status/1207715102889107457

After getting off to a hot start under center for the Rams, the South Carolina native endured the third ACL tear of his injury-plagued career during a week-three clash at Arkansas in 2019.

The Mike Bobo-recruited gunslinger totaled 837 passing yards and eight touchdowns in about two and a half games this past season after working his way back from the second devastating injury of his collegiate tenure.

The quarterback accumulated 1,099 yards through the air and five touchdowns upon starting CSU’s final four 2018 contests –– a hopeful sign of progress at the time.

Beginning in 2016, he recorded 3,323 career passing yards, 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions throughout portions of three campaigns at CSU.

Given Hill’s tight-knit relationship with the Rams’ former head coach, Hill’s departure from the program appeared inevitable once Bobo exited.

Having failed to sign an incoming freshman quarterback, Patrick O’Brien will likely retain starting duties as a redshirt senior if he chooses to stay at CSU. The Nebraska transfer accrued 2,803 passing yards and 13 touchdowns in 2019 while filling in for Hill.

Notable

Head coach Steve Addazio obtained his 10th early signee on Thursday morning as inside linebacker Bam Amina inked his national letter of intent with the Rams.

Listed as a three-star recruit on 247Sports, the Hawaii native possessed 10 Division I offers and particularly surfaced as a Mountain West priority. Along with CSU, Amina held offers from Air Force, San Diego State, UNLV, Hawaii, San Jose State and Utah State.

The 6-foot-0, 205-pound defender amassed 73 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss and a pair of sacks as a junior at Mililani High School in 2018. His senior season stats are not available online.

“We kind of have to wait and see,” Blair Angulo, 247Sports’ Mountains/Islands analyst said of Steve Addazio’s first football recruiting haul at Colorado State, announced less than a week after Addazio was introduced as the coaching replacement for . “That����ap going to be one of those things where it����ap (done under) difficult circumstances.”

Addazio had to hit the ground running, literally — spending much of his first full weekend in charge of the Rams football program cramming phone time and, more important, face time, with as many CSU commits as possible in advance of the opening of the early national signing period Wednesday.

Given that CSU announced Addazio’s hiring a week earlier and the new coach hadn’t set foot inside Canvas Stadium before last Thursday, announcing a first-day return of nine Rams at a place where the commit list was at eight at Thanksgiving was probably a more than respectable kick save.

“Maybe an ‘Incomplete,’ I guess, would be kind of accurate,” Angulo said. “Or ‘To be determined,’ something like that. I think that����ap the more realistic (grade), the fair choice.”

And Addazio, who was coaching Boston College until Dec. 1, isn’t done with his football shopping this holiday season.

The new Rams coach said he hoped to add at least a couple more recruits to the fold before the window closes Friday and plans to emphasize the offensive line both this week and in advance of the next signing period that begins Feb. 5, 2020.

“We have a number of guys that we’re going to target,” Addazio said, “and we’ll see where that brings us.”

The Rams have at least 25 scholarships to fill, so Addazio figures to be busy over the next six weeks. That to-do list also includes an ongoing evaluation of the current coaching and support staff. Decisions on assistants old and new will probably take place over the holiday period and into the early part of January.

Addazio said he also met with most of the current Rams individually, including a dinner with incumbent quarterbacks Collin Hill and Patrick O’Brien, both juniors.

“Great young men, competitors, good people,” Addazio said of his signal-callers. “So all went well.”

CSU lost a commit this week in three-star California linebacker Josh Henderson but added another Wednesday morning in Kyjuan Herndon, a three-star tailback out of Jacksonville, Fla., a former Maryland commit who also had offers from Florida State, Mississippi, Virginia Tech, Purdue, Duke and Kentucky.

Fairview’s Henry Blackburn, a 5-foot-11 safety, is one of three from Wednesday’s initial haul who are expected to enroll early, along with Herndon and defensive lineman Casey Irons Jr. out of Gilmer, Texas.

Of the first nine signees announced, four were Colorado kids: Blackburn, offensive lineman Brian Crespo of Poudre High in Fort Collins, athlete Tanner Hollens from Columbine and linebacker/safety Chase Wilson from Ralston Valley.

“I like that they had a real passion to want to be here,” Addazio said. “That����ap half of it to me.”

And more than half for Angulo and other recruiting analysts as they watch the Rams — and Addazio — in the months to come.

“I think that was one of the biggest missteps by Bobo and that staff, in that they were (looking) national,” Angulo noted. “And that they were going after players in other areas, in Georgia, Florida and Louisiana, when you’ve got to spend that much time and resources in going out and putting an offer out to players outside your region, where you could’ve easily gone to Utah and Nevada and Arizona and California and picked off some guys there.

“I feel like that is what Addazio will have to change up. Obviously, he comes from the East Coast, and most of his ties are out in that part of the country, but I feel like that����ap one adjustment that will have to be made.”

Since the days when he was a baby, when the football gods reached down and turned the Colorado State quarterback’s right arm into a thunderbolt, the kid always brought a wicked fastball to the party. Only over the last four weeks, Rams opponents have been getting a good look at the straight change.

The breaking stuff. The touch. The control. And an accuracy that����ap been throwing Mountain West defenses curveball after curveball.

“He’s always been able to throw with that type of velocity,” quarterback guru Steve Calhoun, O’Brien’s football Yoda, explained to The Denver Post recently. “The one thing Pat has worked on this offseason was being able to make all the throws. Not being able to throw it 100 miles per hour all the time. The throws that get it over the linebacker and get it over the safety. And that����ap the biggest part of his game that he’s been working on.”

It����ap showing. Over his last three starts, all CSU wins, the redshirt junior and former Nebraska Cornhuskers quarterback has more or less been the anti-Steven Montez: five touchdown tosses, one pick, 65 completions on 103 attempts (.631) while averaging 325.3 passing yards per tilt.

“I’m trying to put the wide receiver in the best position to make a play afterward,” noted O’Brien, who completed 17 of 27 throws for 234 yards Saturday in a 37-17 stomping of UNLV at Canvas Stadium. “If they’re able to get open and I make the throw, and we’re able to get the first down, that����ap what we need to do.”

The Rams (4-5, 3-2 Mountain West) don’t need O’Brien to be great. But they do need him to catchable. Calm, cool and catchable.

When Calhoun — who, like O’Brien, calls Southern California home — visited CSU’s spring practice to touch base with coach Mike Bobo and the offensive staff, they laid out a set of specific goals for No. 12, who remained stuck behind Collin Hill for the No. 1 spot behind center.

“(Show) a real control of the offense,” Bobo told Calhoun, “and when you have control of the offense, you’re able to play faster and throw guys open. Just anticipate (the receiver) being in that window. Take a little bit off and really just throw a catchable ball.”

No breathing through your eyelids, the way LaLoosh was advised in the classic baseball film “Bull Durham.” No lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands.

Just throw a catchable ball.

“(O’Brien is) watching film, he’s texting me about things that he sees,” observed Rams wideout Warren Jackson, who, at 6-foot-6, has become No. 12’s favorite weapon and, for smaller Mountain West secondaries, a 218-pound nightmare. “We’re just always talking ball. We talk about other things as well, off the field. I would say he’s really starting to feel it and getting comfortable. Really comfortable.”

He’s having fun, too, through all of 2019’s valleys (a 1-5 start) and peaks (3-0 since). O’Brien and Jackson have combined to make an already good Rams offense genuinely dangerous, home or away, and could make the CSU quarterback position more competitive, if not downright open, when the plans for 2020 start to take shape, regardless of how this campaign finishes out.

O’Brien, who’s thrown for eight touchdowns and three picks this autumn, has a season of eligibility remaining after this one. Hill’s clock is the same, although the Rams can petition for the latter to score an injury redshirt out of this season, bad knee and all, given that the South Carolina native was injured in CSU’s third game.

“I don’t know, honestly,” O’Brien said of another signal-caller derby. “I mean, whatever they decide, that����ap next year. I’m worried about right now.”

Air Force. Wyoming. Boise State. And saving your best curveballs for the dance card’s Murderer’s Row.

“It takes a village to raise a young person,” Calhoun noted, “and to help him keep his confidence.’”

Takes a village to save a season, too. But a catchable ball never hurts.

He wants the old fire. The passion. The grit. The pride. Especially the pride. He longs for the days when the CSU roster had enough chips on enough shoulders to feed a small army. When the Rams built up street cred as the ragamuffins from Fort Collins who never, ever backed down from a fight. The misfit toys who’d take on all comers anytime, anywhere.

The guys who were told by The College Football Haves that they were too slow or too small or too … whatever. The guys who got passed over by Power 5 schools, then made it their collective goal to make sure those Power 5 schools paid for it through the freaking nose.

Tracey loved those Rams because he was one of those ragamuffins, one of those misfit toys, decades ago. These days? These days, the man doesn’t recognize the green and gold anymore, and it breaks his heart.

CSU (2-5, 1-2 Mountain West Conference) heads to Fresno State (2-3, 0-1) next weekend coming off a bye and a 35-21 win at New Mexico on Oct. 11. The victory snapped a 10-game losing streak to FBS opponents. It was CSU’s fifth league win, compared to 11 MWC defeats, over the past 24 months.

“They don’t have, to my mind, an identity,” Tracey, a former CSU center and letterman from 1971-74, said from his home in Illinois. “What are they?

“When Sonny (Lubick) coached them, they were tough SOBs — you’d strap it on and get after it. (But) what they put out there, they are really kind of going backward, and they’re putting a tarnish on the brand.”

Bobo pressure rising

Since Thanksgiving 2017, the brand is 5-15. The temperature of the seat underneath fifth-year coach — who was given a contract extension in December 2017 that would cost the university $5.5 million to buy out before New Year’s Day, and $3 million on Jan. 1 or later — has been rising, steadily, since a season-opening loss to the in the Rocky Mountain Showdown.

Athletic director Joe Parker, who didn’t hire Bobo but did proffer that extension, has publicly remained in his coach’s corner, insisting that any evaluation of the program’s trajectory will come, at the earliest, after the regular season wraps up with a visit from No. 14 Boise State on Nov. 29.

Despite losing his starting quarterback, Collin Hill, for the season a month ago and a defense that ranks among the nation’s bottom 25 in points allowed (34.3), Bobo was in good spirits as he greeted reporters following last Tuesday’s practice, noting that he’d even dined with CSU boosters the evening prior.

Which, naturally, prompted a reporter to ask: Was it a pleasant dinner?

“It depends on which booster it is,” the coach replied with a grin. “You get it from all sides. You’ve got the ones who’ve got all the answers, and experts about what we should do. But most people, they’re, ‘Hang in there, we’re pulling for you guys.’

“A lot of what has been said to me — it����ap always different when people say it to your face, let����ap be honest, (compared to) saying it (from) behind a computer screen.

“But they’re supportive, they’re passionate, and it doesn’t bother me … I like passionate fans. You want passionate fans (that) want your team to be one of the top teams in the country every year and in contention for a conference championship. And we’re not right now.”

Which is one reason why Bobo, who sports a 26-32 record with the Rams, heads into the second half of his fifth season with a target on his back. That and a combination of better facilities, stronger university investment, and diminishing returns: Although the Georgia native is the highest-paid coach in the MWC with a $1.8 million annual salary, although he’s got an office at Canvas Stadium, which since its 2017 opening has been widely regarded as one of the top on-campus football buildings in the region, the 44-year-old Bobo has yet to pilot CSU to more than seven wins in a season. The Rams, who snatched three MWC titles under Lubick from 1999-2007, haven’t finished higher than second in the Mountain division since Bobo took the reins in December 2014.

Meanwhile, former players, such as CSU tailback , surfaced on Reddit to declare that recent incarnations of the Rams — who limped to a 3-9 record last fall — suffered from lack of unity and accountability in locker room. Bobo made a point to address both issues this past winter and spring, which only made this season’s 2-5 start even more confounding to recent alums.

“I’m not exactly sure why they’re losing the way they are,” said former CSU fullback , a Berthoud native who played under Bobo and the coach’s predecessor, Jim McElwain, from 2014-18. “Because that was the biggest thing last year, not having that accountability aspect. And that was addressed by Coach Bobo and the staff, I know that. I’m not sure what����ap going on.”

Recruits poached?

This much, though, seems clear: new CSU president Joyce McConnell, who succeeded Tony Frank earlier this year, is likely going to have some decisions to make in the coming weeks regarding the future of both Bobo and Parker. The Rams are expected to be favored in only one of the season’s final five matchups — and even that dance partner, UNLV, which visits Canvas on Nov. 2, is coming off a 24-point win at Vanderbilt back on Oct. 12.

The timing of Bobo’s staggered buyouts are further complicated by the new football early signing period, which this year falls on Dec. 18-20, two weeks before the cost of changing coaches would drop precipitously.

In the meantime, the current staff is hitting the recruiting trail as peer schools are hitting back with rumors regarding Bobo’s job security. On Oct. 2, a few days after the Rams slipped to 1-4 with a loss at Utah State, Briceon Hayes, a 3-star defensive end from Huntsville, Texas, and an August CSU commitment, announced that he’d decided to open up his recruiting again.

“I think the Mountain West programs (the Rams) are recruiting against are certainly using that (Bobo speculation) in their favor,” said Brandon Huffman, national recruiting editor at 247Sports.com.

The big schools are, too. One local CSU commitment for 2020, Ralston Valley standout Chase Wilson, told the Denver Post that in the past month, he’s been approached by a handful of programs about flipping his school choice — including a few programs from the Power 5.

“They haven’t really been talking down (CSU) too much,” said Wilson, a two-way star for the Mustangs. “It����ap mostly just, ‘Come here, it����ap better,’ rather than putting (the Rams) down.”

Wilson, who committed to CSU this past July, said that when he and his family asked Bobo about the rumor mill over the summer, they were assured that “the whole coaching staff will be there next year as well. Even though (what) all of the press and media are saying, that����ap what they told us.”

Of course, if the ship isn’t righted in a big way, whether the university can sell current and prospective CSU ticket-buyers on another season of the present regime remains to be seen.

A Rams athletics spokesperson said that the program had more than 12,000 season tickets purchased for 2019, the third-highest total for a single season in CSU history. But that figure is also down 22.5% off the all-time record of 15,477 season tickets the university reported just two years earlier. CSU’s first three games at Canvas this fall have drawn an average reported crowd of 26,228, or roughly 64% of an official capacity of 41,000.

In other words, Tracey isn’t the only one who misses the old Rams. The old brand. The old fire. The old pride.

“(Bobo) has got the best facilities, the best stadium in the Mountain West,” the CSU alum continued. “He’s got the highest paycheck in the (MWC). He should be dominating the MWC, or surely competing for championships every year. It����ap a little puzzling for me as to why he can’t get this thing going.

“When you lose a brand, it����ap hard to get that brand turned back around and going in the right direction. And when you win two or three games a year, why would other fans get fired up about that? (Bobo) is putting a bad product on the field. Or he’s got the right ingredients, but the wrong recipe.”

Mental fortitude, clutch playmaking and a timely defensive stop almost ascended CSU over Toledo as the clock struck zero. However, redshirt sophomore receiver E.J. Scott����ap outstretched arm landed two yards shy of the goal line after a time-expiring grab.

The emotional comeback was all for not as the Rockets defeated the Rams 41-35, sending the remaining fans home in agonized disbelief.

Adding just two more yards to its 694-yard team total would have improved CSU to an even 2-2 heading into its Mountain West schedule. Instead, the Rams begin conference play 1-3 desperately searching for a victory following a desolating loss.

Head coach ’s squad played to common themes in week four, namely offensive affluence and defensive ineptitude. Before explaining too much, let����ap take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from Colorado State’s Ag Day downfall.

The Good

Though the Rams faced a subpar defense Saturday night, managing to pick up where the offense left off without Collin Hill is no small feat. If CSU is going to win a few more games this year, its offense will need to do the heavy lifting. Well, the Rams’ season-best 694 total yards against Toledo proves they are capable of staying afloat with an inexperienced quarterback in charge.

Patrick O’Brien recovered from an anxious first-half performance to throw 405 yards and a touchdown while also scoring on the ground. The Nebraska transfer under threw a handful of passes, and his general awareness wasn’t high, but he visibly improved throughout the contest.

Most of his miscues, including a poor decision resulting in an interception, occurred early on, as well. So, it����ap safe to assume O’Brien begins CSU’s next clash mirroring his locked-in, second-half Toledo self.

The quarterback likely won’t be as anxious the second time around now that he has an encouraging outing under his belt.

The redshirt junior didn’t solely account for CSU’s offensive prosperity in week four though. Junior receiver Warren Jackson and Auburn transfer Nate Craig-Myers made O’Brien’s life easier through the air.

O’Brien appropriately relied on Jackson, and the tall receiving target made doing so worthwhile. Jackson hauled in a season-best 12 receptions for 132 yards, while Craig-Myers served as a delightful secondary option in his first game this season, totaling five receptions for 88 yards.

Simply put, Bobo’s offense naturally creates quarterback success, as do playmakers such as Jackson and Craig-Myers. With this in mind, CSU is hoping Jackson’s injury that forced him to leave the game isn’t serious.

The Rams’ passing attack thrived against the Rockets. However, CSU wouldn’t have kept the game close if not for Marvin Kinsey Jr.’s dominance on the ground. Off 23 carries, the senior tallied 249 rushing yards and two timely second-half scores.

Kinsey is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the offense each week. Though he also exited the game early, if he’s healthy, he will continue to represent the backbone of the Rams’ offense. Having Kinsey in the lineup almost guarantees consistent high-scoring efforts moving forward.

All in all, the Rams’ offense is just fine in Hill’s absence.

The Bad

Tightening up is every team’s goal as the season progresses. CSU, on the other hand, has looked more sloppy in each game compared to the last.

The Rams accumulated 11 penalties for 82 yards on their home turf Saturday night. Luckily, their careless play was somewhat overshadowed by the Rockets’ near-equal penalty barrage. Still, double-digit yellow flags in week four raises quite a few red flags.

As Bobo claimed, CSU isn’t good enough to afford frequent, avoidable mistakes. Shooting yourself in the foot will always come back to bite a team that isn’t in position to win from the start.

“We aren’t good enough to make the mistakes that we are making and win ballgames,” Bobo said. “You can’t have self-inflicted wounds in the red zone. Offensively, you can look at this and say, yeah, we moved the ball down the field. But we have to take advantage of every opportunity to score points. We don’t line up on the ball correctly, we false start, we call wrong formations. That is no one’s fault but me.”

The Rams have plenty of cleaning up to do if they want to come away with a couple Mountain West victories. Excluding week three at Arkansas, CSU has succumbed to more or the same amount of penalties than its opponent every game this season.

Winning as an underdog requires doing all of the little things correctly, which CSU hasn’t come close to achieving thus far.

The Ugly

The Rams defense is unquestionably at fault for the team’s unideal 1-3 start. Averaging 34.5 points and more than 550 yards per game doesn’t mean very much when your defense ranks in the bottom third of the FBS in points allowed (40.3 on average).

It����ap worth noting how CSU’s defense actually produced its best half of the season against the Rockets last night. Led by sophomore linebacker Dequan Jackson, who concluded the first two quarters with eight tackles, the Rams held the Rockets to only 14 points, while coercing Toledo into five punts on seven first-half possessions.

However, CSU then failed to avoid its typical defensive struggles for the remainder of the game. Missed assignments and ineffective tackle attempts allowed the Rockets to get everything they wanted offensively in the second segment.

The Rams’ pregame plan involved containing the run, which they poorly executed over the final 30 minutes as the Rockets rushed for 341 yards in that span.

The first half is something CSU can build on and try to recreate next week defensively. But if the team can’t figure out how to assemble a four-quarter defensive intensity, CSU’s 2019 future isn’t bright.

“On the defensive side of the ball, we have to stop the run. You can’t give up 400 yards rushing and expect to beat anybody,” Bobo said. “We are playing hard, but we have to look at the tape and see what the problems are because we have to fix it. There is fight in that room, and I believe we have a chance to win every ballgame on our schedule. But if we don’t fix the problems, there is going to be a lot of heartache after ballgames.”

It came this past summer, out of the blue — or rather, out of the blue cheese. Calhoun, the Southern California-based quarterback guru, approached O’Brien, a guy he’s been tutoring since the eighth grade, after a workout, suggesting they nosh on their usual post-grind treat: Wings at Santora’s in Mission Viejo.

And O’Brien responded to Santora’s wings in a way he’d never responded before — with a stiff-arm.

“He says to me, ‘Nah, I can’t eat that,’” Calhoun laughed. “(I thought), ‘That����ap awesome. That����ap OK.’ That just showed me his commitment to what they’re doing.”

Through all the star-crossed moments — coaching changes at Nebraska, transfers, the quarterback derbies that ended with a place or a show instead of a win — O’Brien’s commitment never wavered, even as events seemed to conspire or crumble all around him.

“I think everyone has those moments,” said O’Brien, the redshirt junior QB who’s slated to finally make his first collegiate start Saturday when Colorado State (1-2) hosts Toledo (1-1) at Canvas Stadium. “But at the end of the day, you realize why you do this. It����ap for moments like this.”

This was a long time in coming. A four-star pocket passer as a prep prospect at San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., O’Brien was courted heavily as a teen by CSU, CU, Texas Tech and UNLV, ultimately electing to cast his lot with the Cornhuskers and the pass-happy philosophy of former Nebraska coach Mike Riley.

O’Brien redshirted in the fall of 2016 to much promise, but only made sporadic appearances in relief of Huskers starter Tanner Lee in 2017 during a 4-8 campaign that caused athletic director Bill Moos to clean house.

Riley and his pro-style offense got supplanted by Scott Frost and his option-friendly zone read attack, and the 6-foot-5, 244-pound O’Brien became a square peg as the new staff installed round hole after round hole. He transferred to CSU, ultimately coming out of last spring pegged by coach Mike Bobo as the backup to junior Collin Hill.

“My one saying to all the quarterbacks I work with is, ‘We’re going to break big rocks into little rocks with a small hammer,’” Calhoun said of O’Brien. “The hammer we have is just a little bit bigger than our thumbs. Let����ap just keep chipping away.”

O’Brien chipped, sticking to the diet prescribed by the CSU training staff, sticking to the plan, until fate intervened — this time, by opening a door.

During the third quarter of last Saturday’s 55-34 loss at Arkansas, a Razorbacks defender rolled into Hill’s left knee, a knee the Rams quarterback had already had surgically repaired twice. O’Brien replaced Hill, whom Bobo said Tuesday will miss the rest of the season because of surgery on that left knee, and completed 7 of 10 throws for 106 yards.

“I think (on Saturday) you’re going to see a guy,” Calhoun said, “who has a really big chip on his shoulder,”

A big arm, too. O’Brien’s first pass off the bench at Arkansas was an 8-yard completion to tight end Trey McBride. His fourth throw, with 2:26 left in the third quarter, was more spectacular. O’Brien eluded pressure in the pocket, spotted freshman speedster Dante Wright up the left boundary and fired a 75-yard touchdown strike that would set up the game-tying extra point. O’Brien’s stat line in Fayetteville earned him the Pro Football Focus’ top passing grade for Week 3 among Mountain West Conference quarterbacks (79.8).

“Last year, sitting out, I didn’t really know what to expect,” O’Brien said. “This season, I knew what my role was, and going into the season, that anything could happen at any moment.”

That moment����ap here. Finally. Even if the vision O’Brien had for his first college start three years ago didn’t exactly look like Fort Collins under the lights.

“Going back then, probably not,” O’Brien chuckled. “I was probably full-on Nebraska. Everything happens for a reason.”

Redshirt junior quarterback Collin Hill has torn his ACL for the third time of his collegiate career following a third-quarter hit that caused him to leave CSU’s matchup against Arkansas last week.

Hill’s 2019 season has reached an end amid what had the looks of a breakout campaign while leading the Rams under center. The South Carolina native amassed a career-best 374 passing yards in CSU’s first game this season before accumulating 351 yards through the air and four touchdowns in the first half of the Rams’ second contest versus Western Illinois.

Bobo and company now turn to either Patrick O’Brien or Justice McCoy for production at quarterback. O’Brien entered the game for Hill last week and totaled 106 yards off 7-10 completions through the air. Though Bobo hasn’t named a starter yet, the Nebraska transfer operated with the first-string offense at Tuesday’s practice as it appears O’Brien is the frontrunner to land the job.

McCoy, a redshirt sophomore, thrived during fall training camp upon working his way toward a tie with O’Brien for the second-string duty on CSU’s season-opening depth chart.

An update on our quarterback, Collin Hill…

— Colorado State Football (@CSUFootball)