Four is healthy progress for CSU football, isn’t it? Six or more is superlative, given the moving parts.

My Rams pals aren’t just psyched for The Jim Mora Era to get underway in five weeks. They’re jacked the way

Some have even tried to convince me that anything short of a bowl this fall, right out of the chute, is a failure. To them, Mora was CSU athletic director John Weber doing his best Chris MacFarland, pushing any and all chips to the middle of the table, rocking the right-now,

After all, they say, Mora is the highest-paid football coach in the new-fangled Pac-12 ($2.4 million), which is more than Boise State’s Spencer Danielson ($2.1 million), who’s 24-8 over his first 32 games in charge. And more than Utah State’s Bronco Mendenhall ($2.06 million), the man who’s coaching the CU Buffs right now in several of the alternate-universe timelines that aren’t this one.

“I think it would be unfair to make an assessment after one year,” Weber told me last month when I asked about where to set the bar for Mora’s first season. “When I made that decision last fall, I made the decision knowing the type of person that I needed to go get, and the type of person that this university needed.”

On one level, it’s perfectly OK for expectations to match the investment. Besides, Mora’s track record says he’s probably good for it. The man’s first UConn team in 2022 went 6-7 and bowled after he’d inherited a 1-11 mess from the previous regime, which ain’t a bad parallel for the present.

His first UCLA team finished 9-5 and first in the old Pac-12 South in 2012. Heck, his initial Atlanta Falcons squad went 11-5 back in 2004, although that lone Seattle Seahawks season five years later came and went with a 5-11 whimper.

But before you take the nearest claw hammer to grandma’s piggy bank and start penciling in bowl plans, we’re begging you to keep a couple things in mind.

The first is CSU’s recent history. Since Leon Fuller, God rest his soul, grabbed the reins in 1982, only two Rams football coaches in the 44 years since have won six or more contests in their debut season: Steve Fairchild in 2008 and Mike Bobo in 2015, both with matching 7-6 marks.

Earle Bruce was close, at 5-5-1 in 1989. The legendary Sonny Lubick went 5-6 in ’93 to kick off the greatest era in modern Rams football lore. Heck, Jim McElwain was 4-8 in Year 1. Over the last five decades, first-year CSU coaches have posted an aggregate record of 36-50-1, or won about 42% of the time. Stretch that out over a 12-game slate, and precedent likes Mora to go 5-7.  So do I.

The second is the fight card. Look closely. You can find four wins on the season fairly reasonably, including Wyoming in the opener. A 2-0 start after home victories against the Pokes and Southern Utah definitely could be in the cards. But I defy you, with a straight face, to come up with four more locks after that.

Oregon State at home on Oct. 3? That’s one. But most of the remaining toss-ups — at Texas State, at Utah State, at Fresno State — are on the road, which puts more of a squeeze on nabbing a home upset against either San Diego State (Oct. 24) or Boise (Nov. 7).

“It is no secret that we have had sporadic success, and I sought an individual that could come here and help us truly assess what it takes as a university to be successful in the football program,” Weber continued.

“You see nice shiny objects like that beautiful stadium, and you see a head coach salary, and that sets a level of expectation for people, and I get it. What we haven’t done enough of is all the other foundational aspects that it takes to build a perennially successful program. And that is what we’ve been focusing a lot on over the last couple years. And you know that it takes a different level of commitment to make things like that happen.

“And back to Coach Mora … we were already well down that path, and felt like we understood what we needed to do. And he’s come in and certainly validated a lot of what we needed to do. And has helped continue to push us in that right direction.”

Mora — who steered UConn, of all places, to three bowl bids in four years at a hoops school — became the best FBS college football coach in the Front Range the minute he walked into Canvas Stadium with a green tie and Wyoming on the brain. CU’s Deion Sanders still has to prove there’s steak left in BoCo after Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders took their sizzle to the pros. Air Force’s Troy Calhoun is coming off two seasons with a combined record of 9-15 and the Zoomies’ first back-to-back campaigns with seven or more defeats since 2017-18. The harder the offense in Laramie is to watch under Cowboys coach Jay Sawvel (7-17 since 2024), the hotter it gets under his seat.

On paper, Mora feels like the right man at the right time, a step up for a program that’s aching to do the same, a presence that immediately ticks off a ton of boxes. Pac-12 roots? Check. California pipelines? Check. Colorado-friendly? Check. Proven winner at a coaching graveyard? Check. NFL bona fides? Check.

Although, when you think about it, a lot of the same bullet points also applied to Jay Norvell’s resume when he arrived from Nevada four-and-a-half years earlier. If you don’t get QB and the offensive line right, and Mora should, FoCo can become an awfully slippery slope. Despite the best of intentions.

As projections go, Kenneth Massey’s like 3.4 wins in ’26. DraftKings.com sets the over-under at 3.5 wins, which looks like easy money on the former.

But any higher than 4.0? With that schedule? Brother, it’s your wallet.

“(He’s) got 68 new players this fall,” Weber said, “and that staff will be doing everything they can to bring that group of young men together as a team. That’s a lot of new people to bring together, right?”

Sure is. The Mora Miracle is well underway. Cam’s walking a lot prouder these days. It’s a big ask to walk on water overnight.

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A native of Nederland, Texas, Fuller starred under legendary coach Bum Phillips as a high schooler before playing for Bear Bryant at Alabama, where he was an All-SEC safety.

CSU hired Fuller, the defensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns, in December 1981, to revive a program that had bottomed out at 0-12 that season. He was 25-55 during seven seasons in Fort Collins, which included a 6-5 mark in 1986. Fuller returned to Texas following his dismissal after going 1-10 in 1998, but wound up back in Colorado in 1994 after Wade Phillips hired him to coach defensive backs for the Broncos.

Fuller is credited with bringing Sonny Lubick to CSU as his offensive coordinator and Dave Lay as the offensive line coach. Lubick, hired to lead the program ahead of the 1993 season, won six Western Athletic Conference and Mountain West titles during his 15 seasons coaching the Rams. The program peaked at No. 14 in the AP poll in 1994.

Fuller is also responsible for CSU’s modern look, ditching the yellow helmets with green horns that the Rams had previously worn for green helmets with yellow horns. CSU football has worn dark green as its primary helmet color for the last 45 seasons. He’s also the only Rams coach to play a game outside of the United States after accepting a bid to the Gridiron Bowl in Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 4, 1987, where CSU fell to BYU, 30-26.

Among those who starred under Fuller in Fort Collins were Keli McGregor, who later played for the Denver Broncos and worked in the Colorado Rockies organization, as well as Steve Bartalo, a walk-on who became the school’s all-time rushing leader with 4,813 yards.

During the 1986 season, Fuller also delivered the Rams their first victory over in-state rival Colorado since 1958. After humbling losses in 1983 and 1985, Fuller’s Rams decked the Buffs in Boulder on Sept. 6, 1986, winning 23-7.

“Trey!”

“Come here!”

HUG!

“Trey!”

“Thank you for coming!”

HUG!

“Trey!”

“So glad you could make it!”

HUG!

The two-time Pro Bowler and ex-CSU Rams star spent at least half his lunch hour Friday in a black cut-off t-shirt, signing autographs for kids at his free football camp at Legion Field, his old stomping grounds. He spent a lot of the other half greeting old friends and making new ones, country roots and cowboy boots.

“Still think of you as Fort Morgan,” I told him.

McBride grinned at that one.

“So do I, man,” the Arizona Cardinals receiver said. “I try not to let anything change. I’m just very grateful for the situation I’ve been put in. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m just excited to be here to give back to these kids. And that’s what it’s all about, man — just giving back.”

, with free admission for grades 3 through 8. Some 300 youngsters showed up, roughly 150 in each session, a new record-high for attendance. Everybody on-hand was a volunteer; lunch for the kids came via donations. Former Broncos great Joel Dreessen, another Fort Morgan native with NFL bona fides, supervised one station; brothers Toby and Dylan worked another.

“It’s cool. It’s a lot of fun. I love being back here, being around the guys,” Trey continued. “This is a place that’s meant so much to me, and I’m just hoping I can give a little bit back to it.”

They can take McBride out of Legion Field, but you’ll never take the Legion Field out of McBride.

“You’ve got to credit a lot of that to Fort Morgan, too,” said Toby, who works a sales gig in Denver these days. “Just growing up  humble. That’s what we were taught out here — just do it the right way. And he didn’t really know how good he was going to be until he got out of Fort Morgan, got out of Fort Collins.”

Really good. Like, crazy good. The debate isn’t whether McBride is the best player to come out of Fort Morgan, but whether he’s the best tight end in the NFL. His 126 catches last fall were the most by any player at that position in NFL history. He’s the first tight end to ever to rack up 100 or more catches in back-to-back seasons. of more than 70 coaches, executives and experts that rank the top 10 players at each position, the former Rams star jumped from fourth in ’25 to second in the circuit this year, behind only the Raiders’ Brock Bowers.

“He’s still a great dude. He’s still my younger brother. And we’ve got the same great siblings, great parents,” Toby laughed. “Dylan and I still hold it over him, that yeah, he’s the No. 1 tight end in the NFL, (but) he never won a state title in high school. I’ve got a few. Dylan’s got one. We’ve still got some things to hold over his head.”

Toby went to two CSU bowl games. Trey’s era had two coaches in FoCo — Mike Bobo and Steve Addazio — and won a Mackey Award, but never saw the postseason.

Although that Mackey’s got a bit of narrative to it now, too. Trey told the “Busin’ With The Boys” podcast earlier this month that someone in the Rams athletic department four years ago had grumbled when informed by McBride that he was keeping the original trophy and that the school would have to spring for the money to purchase a replica of its own to display. (It wasn’t former athletic director Joe Parker, a source told me Friday.)

“I mean, (CSU fans probably) weren’t super-thrilled with it. I probably shouldn’t have said as much as I did,” Trey McBride cracked. “I’m very proud to be a Ram. I love Fort Collins. I wasn’t trying to to diss on them at all. Maybe it came out that way, but that wasn’t the intention at all … CSU holds a special place in my heart. So I love everything about it.”

He loves Jim Mora, too. McBride even hung out with the new Rams football coach and his staff a little during spring ball a few months back.

“Very excited for him,” McBride continued. “I think he’s going to do a really good job there. Hopefully you can turn that program around, man. It’s a great place to live. And I think he’s the guy for it.”

The Broncos’ Zach Allen, a former Cardinals teammate, remains a pal. So are the guys in the tight end room in Dove Valley. McBride got to know Vance Joseph when the latter was the Cardinals’ DC. On October 25, the defending AFC runners-up take on Arizona in Glendale.

“They might have to close Fort Morgan that weekend,” I said.

“I mean, I love the Broncos. I grew up cheering for them,” McBride said. “But, Week 7, it’s Cardinals all the time.”

When McBride broke the NFL’s tight end reception record last fall, Fort Morgan athletic director Greg Edson sent a congratulatory text.

“And 100% of the time you reach out, he gets back to you. Which is pretty cool,” Edson told me. “Speaks volumes of his character and the kind of man that he is.

“Yes, there’s a lot of God-given ability there. But, boy, if you don’t put your nose to the grindstone and do something with your ability, it’s useless. And I think that’s the lesson kids need to draw from.”

That, and to leave a place better than you found it. McBride was named the Cardinals’ nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 2024, parlaying that into the launch of The McBrides are working on its launching the foundation’s first fund-raising golf event down in Arizona soon.

Fort Morgan is a town of 11,000 and change. The typical graduating class at the high school is around 220 or so. Yet the city’s produced three NFL players over the past 25 years, with McBride following in the footsteps of Dreessen and former Tampa Bay Bucs lineman Ryan Jensen into the pros. That’s a pretty good ratio.

“I mean, the Cherry Creeks and the Valor Christians and our premier programs in the state produce great athletes every year,” Edson said. “And for us to be able to get through guys at that level and with long NFL careers, man, it’s really cool,”

Even cooler: Edson’s getting the wheels churning with the school board this summer to clear a runway for Fort Morgan retire the numbers of McBride, Dreessen and Jensen at soon as next year.

That’s not really up to me, so we’ll see,” Trey said. “Hopefully, one day, I can get that to happen. But very grateful to be back home to put on a camp. Man, this is a very special day.”

A special dude, too.  Between sessions, Trey sat at tiny table underneath a little tent at the 50-yard line, inscribing for a queue that nearly stretched to the red zone.

At one point, he handed a youngster back a white football with a Cardinals logo and his John Hancock in black. The kid responded by tearing out of the VIP area like he’d stolen the thing. His old man, meanwhile, just stood there, aghast.

“Hold on, hold on. Stop.” his dad demanded, turning to the prodigal blur behind him.

The kid stopped.

“What do you say?” Dad asked.

The kid turned back to the big man at the tiny table.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Trey replied.

The young man looked at the football again. Then he ran like the wind to join his friends, a legend’s unseen smile at his back.

“It makes no sense to me to make, at this point in time, a decision that no one can ascend or descend,” the Rams athletic director told The Denver Post recently. “That’s irresponsible.”

Our conversation had turned to the Protect College Sports Act, which could soon be up for a vote in the Senate. And, specifically, its impact on “Group of 6” schools such as CSU.

Weber likes a lot of what’s in the bill. Save for Section 205. If the Protect College Sports Act becomes law, it could lock in conference membership at the highest level of college sports as is. The musical chairs at the top of the NCAA food chain would come to a screeching halt.

Section 205 of the Protect College Sports Act, as written, prohibits collegiate conferences that generate at least $700 million in revenue from merging with one another or adding new members.

The Big 12, ACC, SEC and Big Ten are all expected to meet or exceed that benchmark in the  ’25-26 fiscal year.

“If you look at the attributes of (our) university as a whole — 34,000 students, 277,000-plus alumni, strong academics, , great college town, great facilities, all that stuff,” Weber stressed. “We look just like a Big 12 school. That’s exactly (a) Big 12 school, right?”

If not, it’s pretty darned close.

“Now we have to consistently deliver better on the athletics leg of that stool,” Weber said. “But it’s certainly something that we want to make sure we keep in our sights. And we continue to work toward the opportunity (that’s) there for CSU to ascend.”

Weber’s not trying to stick the Rammies’ cart before any horses, just to be clear. He’s just learned, post-COVID-19 pandemic, that universities would be nuts to burn any bridge with a bigger payout on the other side of the gorge.

CSU isn’t exactly walking gingerly into its Pac-12 phase on Wednesday, either. Jim Mora, plucked from a successful run at UConn, is now the highest-paid coach in the newly reconfigured conference ($2.4 million), with higher expectations to match. Canvas Stadium is getting a new rug for the first time in about seven years. Moby Arena has a new court coming. Last month, during the university’s annual “Day of Giving,” athletics raised $1.5 million in donations over 24 hours. Weber said his first “Giving” two years ago brought in $67,000.

“There have been some things that maybe somewhat quietly, maybe some not somewhat quietly, (that) are, I think, pointing towards some real momentum,” Weber said.

Including, he added, his new league.

“The huge thing that’s going to help us going into the Pac 12 (is that) every single one of our games is on linear (platforms),” the CSU administrator said. “That’s massive … the opportunity for us to compete and have people watch us, that’s where the value comes … eyeballs matter.”
Rivalries matter, too, even with television networks pulling the strings for college sports behind the scenes and chucking geography out a sixth-story window. Weber made a point of preserving the Wyoming series as a non-conference enterprise, but Air Force looks to be in the rearview mirror. And we’re still three years away (2029) from a renewal of the Rocky Mountain Showdown with CU.

“I know (Buffs athletic director) Fernando (Lovo), actually, from (his time at) New Mexico,” Weber said of the new CU boss. “We have not had a conversation around the future of the Showdown … we’ve talked about other things, we haven’t talked about that yet … It’s not a, ‘No’, it’s not a, ‘I’m not interested.’ Literally, we just haven’t talked about it yet.”

In the meantime, he’s hoping the conversations in Washington continue about Section 205 of the Protect College Sports Act.

“(We’re) serious about the work that we’re doing. We’re serious about our move to the Pac 12. We’re serious about the future of the Pac 12,” Weber said. “(But) if you lock in membership there — that is, I think, problematic for a whole lot of people. There are members in those conferences that are not there by intent.”

Realignment since 2021 has made for strange bedfellows all over the map — the four former Pac-12 powers snatched up by the Big Ten; Stanford and Cal, bastions of the Bay, in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Yet the new Pac-12 is a particularly curious marriage of oddball brethren.

The football membership, in particular, is rooted in provincial programs that were snubbed by the Big Ten, Big 12 or ACC (Washington State and Oregon State) during their latest acquisition phase, or “big” mid-majors (Boise State, Fresno State, CSU) that never quite made the cut to join the big boys, despite repeated pitches.

“That sort of an approach (in Section 205) has the possibility of harming what really is our core mission of higher education,” Weber continued. “It’s groundbreaking research, and it’s educating our youth. And if we look at it through that lens, if you are consolidating athletic, and therefore marketing, power within a relative few, it’s not unreasonable to think that you could be challenging the educational research missions of a whole lot of schools, right?”

Although 205 at present feels more specifically targeted at the largest football brands in the ACC (Clemson, Miami, North Carolina), several of which have been, or will be, on the radar as potential SEC or Big Ten additions. Let’s put it this way: If the Buffs got an offer to join the Big Ten next week, you couldn’t get them to Columbus or Ann Arbor quick enough.

In the meantime, the so-called lesser schools in the Big Ten and SEC — think Minnesota, Ole Miss, Purdue, Vandy, Northwestern, etc. — see the Protect College Sports Act as a means to keep their powerful leagues intact. Sources told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports recently that those conferences want provisions in the act that prevent an outside entity or broadcaster from cherry-picking the most-watched college football brands to form a national Super League or College Premier League. (An arrangement that might be beneficial for, say, CU and North Carolina, who hired “viral” coaches in Deion Sanders and Bill Belichick, in part, to enhance their television appeal.)

“Our opportunity to compete at the (FBS) level enables our ability to attract more people to CSU,” Weber noted. “‘People’ includes students, it includes faculty, includes a lot of people that make this enterprise go. And (the Protect College Sports Act) is going to be incredibly important to not just CSU, but a whole bunch of schools that would be in that bucket.”

CU hosts Texas Tech on October 3. Red Raiders quarterback Brendan Sorsby has no business inside Folsom Field, unless he’s bought a ticket. Presumably with blood money from a three-team parlay that hit a few days earlier.

Sorsby is 22. He’s young. We’ve all done dumb stuff when we’re invincible during those young, dumb isolated moments. Sorsby, though? He’s a repeat offender, dodging accountability as if it were a blitzing linebacker.

According to court documents, the Texas native placed at least 40 wagers on Indiana football while he was a member of the Hoosiers. He reportedly used others’ online sportsbook accounts to place bets totaling roughly $90,000 over four years. He gambled in Bloomington. He gambled as a member of the Cincinnati Bearcats.

Basically, Brendan is the Art Schlichter of Generation Z. Remember Art? One of the great wasted careers in NFL history. Ohio State star. Drafted No. 4 overall by the Colts in 1982. Got the gambling bug as a teenager in small-town Ohio, an addiction that would ruin his life at almost every stop.

If only he had Sorsby’s lawyers. Or some friendly Texas judges.

On Monday, one of those justices, a man named Ken Curry, ruled that the NCAA would be causing “probable, imminent and irreparable injury” to Sorsby if it prevents him from playing this fall. Curry granted the young man a preliminary injunction that prevents NCAA brass from punishing Sorsby for violating — again, repeatedly — its rules on sports betting.

Now let’s get this out in the open first: The NCAA is a rotten, wage-fixing cartel that’s deserved, for years, to feel the wedgies that it’s been getting lately from the courts.

Just not this one. The NCAA was wrong to create the idea of a “student-athlete” as an indentured servant who would have to work sports as a full-time job while never being technically paid for that time and commitment.

Yet it was right to take a hard line on sports wagering, given the audience and devotion to its entertainment product. Much of the NCAA’s enforcement has been selective, arbitrary and occasionally silly. But if you don’t enforce competitive integrity, you might as well give up the ghost.

Now Texas Tech is haunting CU and the rest of the Buffs’ Big 12 peers. Oh, sure, Red Raiders officials will say they’re backing Sorsby to bring awareness and outreach to the cause of mental health, and how dare you shame an addict. Horse hockey. The Red Raiders are digging in their heels because said addict is a 6-foot-3 gunslinger who tossed 27 touchdowns at Cincy last year against just five interceptions while sporting a 140.8 lifetime passer rating as a collegian. If Brendan didn’t have NFL arm, Bubba Bootstraps would shrug and look the other way. Only now that it’s running with the blue bloods, Texas Tech wants back in the College Football Playoff again — and Sorsby is one of those keys that unlocks the penthouse.

“The injunction issued (Monday) regarding Brendan Sorsby is troubling,” new CU athletic director Fernando Lovo said in a prepared statement released earlier this week, “as his admitted actions are a clear violation of long-held standards of integrity in college athletics … this injunction is a clear affront to the competitive principles that have been the foundation of college sports for more than a century. We will continue to engage with the Big 12 Conference and our peers on this issue.”

Why? Tech didn’t consult with any of you when it came to picking up Sorsby, skeletons and all. Last July, the Red Raiders signed a five-star lineman, Felix Ojo, for what was reportedly a three-year, fully-guaranteed $5.1-million contract. Context: The No. 11 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft is slotted to make $5.26 million this fall.

If I’m Lovo, I don’t wait around for Big 12 commissioner Brent Yormark to grow a spine. I cancel anything I’ve got scheduled with Texas Tech, in all sports, until Sorsby is off the roster.

Then I call CSU athletic director John Weber.

How’s this for a twist in the tale? Instead of playing a dirty, tainted Red Raiders squad on Oct. 3, the Buffs should host rival CSU on Oct. 10. Bring back the Rocky Mountain Showdown three years early.

CU keeps that home game — now with potentially a bigger home gate, to boot. New CSU coach Jim Mora gets to tangle with his old pal Deion Sanders and gets a chance to shock the world, and put his stamp on the Front Range, in Year 1.

Before you laugh, look at the calendar. CU and CSU both have concurrent bye weeks on Oct. 10. The Buffs host Utah on Oct. 17. CSU visits Texas State on Oct. 15.

Now, granted, that’s a lousy turnaround for the Rams, given a Thursday nighter on the road. Ah, but lookie here: The Bobcats don’t play a game between Oct. 16 and Oct. 24. As recently as March, Texas State athletics presented the CSU tilt as a flexible date, Surely, CBS Sports Network can find something else to fill that prime-time Thursday night window.

Why not here? Why not now? The Buffs and Rams wrapped up a home-and-home, two-year mini-series in ’23 and ’24 that made Colorado the center of the college football universe. Studio shows from ESPN and FOX were tripping all over themselves for Front Range real estate. The games themselves featured biting coach-on-coach smack talk, sellout crowds and epic performances (Shedeur Sanders in ’23; Travis Hunter in ’24).

Which is why it’s a shame that there isn’t another CU-CSU football game on the docket until September 15, 2029, in Fort Collins. That’s a five-year gap — which would be the longest in the history of the rivalry since it was renewed in 1983. The Buffs and Rams have tussled 34 times in the last 43 years, with CU winning 26 of the matchups.

It’s too good, too juicy, to keep mothballed in the attic for this long. If activist judges are going to burn college football to the ground, you might as well dance in the ashes with the time it’s got left.

In The Year of Our Lord 2026, Stevens remains the last CSU quarterback to be named to the Mountain West’s all-conference team. That was, what, 2017? Rams faithful are staring at a nine-year drought. Imagine how much more fun the New Belgium Porch would’ve been if Trey McBride or Tory Horton were celebrating in front of it.

In fact, if Jay Norvell had given CSU a Strong passing game, chances are, he’d still be here. As in,

You’d like to picture every outgoing CSU coach, like Presidents of the United States, leaving a note of good-luck-and-Godspeed for their successors to find on that desk whenever they take over at Canvas Stadium. It could afford the outgoing boss a chance to reflect on what he did wrong. Or would do all over again, if given a chance.

2019: Dear Steve Addazio, try not to lose all those rivalry games. Signed, Mike Bobo

2021: Dear Jay Norvell, try not to be a complete @#$&%#  jerk. Signed, The Daz (P.S. Go sign some duuuuudes)

2025: Dear Jim Mora, try not to make QB promises you can’t keep. Signed, Jay

Norvell was hired four years ago, in part, because he was a good guy — a refreshing personality contrast to the coach (Addazio) who directly preceded him. He was also hired because of Carson Strong, the strapping young QB who’d put up video-game-level numbers under Norvell at Nevada from 2018-2021 — 32 games, 74 TDs, 19 picks, 293 passing yards per game. It was promised, if not expected, that Jay would find Rams fans a Strong of their own to embrace.

As we know, that … never happened. Clay Millen was supposed to be “the guy” and got thrown into the fire as a true freshman behind an awful offensive line. The roof fell on his head routinely. Millen got shell-shocked, got phased out and eventually transferred out.

His replacement, Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, looked more comfortable throwing and processing while also running for his life, which seemed like an upgrade at the time. BFN also had unusual moxie, if terrible mechanics, for a redshirt freshman, and was blessed with one of the best wideouts in program history, Horton, to play pitch-and-catch with. The problem? Fowler-Nicolosi more or less peaked as a redshirt freshman. Kid got shell-shocked, got booed, got booed even louder, got phased out annnnd … eventually transferred out, too.

Neither of them turned into Strong. In fact, funny enough, the closest CSU ever got to having its own Strong was having Strong himself working on Norvell’s staff at one point. Rams AD John Weber didn’t give his coach a third chance to try and groom a “franchise guy,” canning Jay last Oct. 25 after a 2-5 start.

The new Pac-12 will be a strange, hybrid footballing beast, a marriage of strange bedfellows. But the passing verities never throw out of style. The last five Mountain West champions post-pandemic — Boise State thrice (’25, ’24 and ’23), Fresno State once (’22) and Utah State once (’21) have had one thing in common, offensively. All possessed one, if not two, quarterbacks who could find the end zone consistently.

The last five MW champions featured offenses that averaged 26 touchdown passes per season. CSU hasn’t had a season with more than 24 TD tosses since 2017, when Stevens — there’s that name again — threw for 29 (against 10 interceptions).

If anyone knows about Pac-12 signal-callers, it’s Mora. At UCLA, his passing games averaged 26 passing scores per season, thanks largely to Brett Hundley and Josh Rosen. Once Joe Fagnano turned a corner under Mora at UConn, so did the Huskies — his QBs averaged 28 passing touchdowns over the ’24 and ’25 campaigns.

Which is why I asked him Saturday afternoon at Canvas Stadium: What exactly are you looking for from your QB1?

“I would say that the keyword is consistency,” the first-year Rams coach replied.

“Can he operate in our offense with consistency? Can he take care of the football? Can he make great decisions with the football in his hand? And that may be throwing it away. At times, that may be taking a sack. (Or) That may be running and getting out of bounds. Is he going to slide and protect himself? Is he going to be able to operate down-to-down and move us down the field and get us in scoring position? And do all those things on a consistent basis that we can count on as a staff?”

He’s got options. The official word is that it’s a two-man derby between Ksaan Farrar, who transferred in from UConn, and former TCU and former Oklahoma State signal-caller Hauss Hejny, another transfer. The latter’s got the best straight-line speed and elusiveness of the group, but is also slight in frame, standing about 6-foot-even in stocking feet.

“Why should you be the No. 1 guy for Wyoming?” I wondered.

“Shoot. I’m not going to say why I should be the guy,” the young Texan replied. “But, I mean, I’m going to work my ball — er,  work my nuts off until Week 1 to be that guy, just because that’s who I am.

“I’m a competitor, and no matter if I’m named a starter three weeks ago or I’m named the starter (in) Week 3, I’m going to compete just the same and be the same person every day.”

Points for swagger, at least. CSU hasn’t featured a QB who threw a consistent deep ball since Stevens — or maybe Garrett Grayson, the slinger who predated him. Locals insist that a little unknown behind center, for now, is a good thing. Mora insinuated that an honest-to-goodness QB battle in FoCo could continue through the summer months.

“Well, first of all, we’re a long ways from making that decision,” Mora said. “A long ways. I mean, we’ve got (time) … we don’t have to make that decision until kickoff before the first game.”

He knows the drill. Hundley was an All-Pac-12 choice under him in 2014. Rosen made the conference’s second-team offense three years later. If CSU is to live well in its new neighborhood, FoCo can’t be a place where QB careers go to die. When the right arm pops, the Rams can’t afford to pass him up.

The Rams released their 2026 football schedule on Wednesday evening,

CSU will play four of its first five games at home, including a season-opening tussle with rival Wyoming in the Border War on Sept. 5. It’s the earliest Battle For The Bronze Boot in the game’s history.

The opener is followed by an “Orange Out”/Ag Day game against Southern Utah on Sept. 12, then a visit from Big 12 power BYU on Sept. 19. After three home dates, the Rams visit UTSA on Sept. 26 before hosting Oregon State for homecoming on Oct. 10.

Following an Oct. 17 bye, CSU will finish the season with four out of its next six games on the road. San Diego State visits Canvas Stadium on Oct. 24; Boise State visits on Nov. 7.

The Rams’ first league slate will feature a unique wrinkle at the end — a home date on Nov. 28, Thanksgiving weekend, against a “flexed” opponent. Per the university’s news release, the “Pac-12 will retain the right to adjust the matchup based on the best interests of the league, including College Football Playoff (CFP) considerations at that time.”

The Rams will officially join the Pac-12 on July 1, the start of the new university fiscal year. CSU and former Mountain West members Boise State, Utah State, San Diego State and Boise State will join Pac-12 holdovers Oregon State and Washington State and newcomer Texas State in the league’s inaugural season.

“Think about this: I’m sitting in an office with a guy who was a coach for 25 years in the NFL,” Mullen High coach Jeremy Bennett told me Friday. “Having never met with him before, talking with him, it was like being with a buddy I’ve known for 20 years. It was comfortable. It was authentic.”

How authentic? Last Wednesday, Mora, the CSU Rams’ new football coach, popped his head into the football offices at Mullen just to say, “Hi.” Only as Bennett remembers it, that ‘pop’ lasted for about 55 minutes.

They talked shop. Mutual friends. The insanity of the transfer portal. Twenty minutes became 30. Then 40. Then 45. After 50, Mora glanced at his watch. Oh, crud.

“Coach, I gotta get going,” Mora said to Bennett. “My wife’s been out in the car this whole time.”

“Coach,” Bennett laughed, “she could’ve come in.”

“No, no, she gets it,” Mora said. “I just got caught up in the conversation.”

Time flies when you’re having a Rams run. Or a Rams Rush, in this case.

“And here’s the thing: We could have sat there for another hour,” Bennett recounted with a chuckle. “We would have just kept chopping it up.”

Mrs. Mora was left waiting, Bennett was told, because the couple planned to do some car-shopping in Denver on their way back to FoCo. Talk about Front Range multi-tasking at its finest. While we’re running errands, why not make new friends, build some bridges, while we’re at it?

“So I feel we’re going to see out of (CSU) better (recruiting) coverage in-state,” Bennett said. “I really do … it’ll be interesting to see how many ’26 guys (are signed) and how many offers are out in ’27. You can say, ‘We’ve got to see.’ But I think it is going to be better out of Fort Collins. I do.”

National Signing Day — like drive-ins, yes, it’s still a thing — falls on Wednesday. The Rams have just one in-state signee so far for the Class of 2026, They’re trying to improve on that number for 2027, for obvious reasons.

“We want Colorado kids to play in Colorado,” Mora told me by phone early in the week. “Now, they have to fit our profile. But the only way you find that out is if you spend time around them and build those relationships … (so) it’s not just a one-time thing. It’s an ongoing process.”

To that end, this past January 15, with the transfer portal spinning at about 50,000 rpm, Mora and CSU tried something a little different:

The Rams had 11 staffers out on the highways, driving to and visiting with Colorado high school coaches as part of Operation: Ram Rush, posting updates to social media with the hashtag #RamRush.

Mora’s ‘pop,’ in fact, was the Rams’ second trek to Mullen in 13 days. Bennett said that was new, too.

“It was way, way different,” Bennett said. “It was apologetic. And not that they needed to be, but they understand (the dynamics).

“You hear (that) all the time, but for some reason, it just hit different. They understand they’ve got to take the top guys in Colorado to be successful — not only on the field, but in the community. You’ve got to recruit your backyard.”

And now, maybe, more than ever. Why? For one, open transferring and revenue-sharing for players have made Power 4 schools more inclined to swoop in and pluck smaller schools’ more finished products rather than develop their own. CU football coach Deion Sanders’ newest portal haul reads like a Group of 5 all-star travel team.

Part of the CSU football brand is baked into getting the not-quite-fast enough, not-quite-big-enough Colorado prospects that the Buffs traditionally take a pass on. Some of the best Rams teams of the last 30 years had enough chips on their respective shoulders, collectively, to fill the entire snack aisle at King Soopers.

Based on the 247Sports database, CU offered eight in-state recruits for the Class of ’26 and had one Colorado signee as of last Friday afternoon. They’ve reportedly got five in-state offers out for 2027. CSU has 12.

“(Sanders and I) know each other very well,” Mora said of Coach Prime. “But I’m not competing against anybody but our standard. We don’t spend one section of our day worrying about other people. We just do the best we can.”

Sanders has targeted players that the Buffs can plug-in-and-play immediately, be they freshmen or former Mid-American Conference/Sun Belt Conference seniors. CU has checked in — but so have about 25 other major programs.

In fact, local coaches will tell you that The Prime Method of transfers first + recruiting nationally has only opened doors for CSU’s new staff when it comes to Colorado kids. If they want to run through them. The Rams haven’t produced a class with more than two in-state prep recruits since 2023. They haven’t produced one with more than seven since 2014.

Mora, no dummy, has already noticed. CSU, per 247, had 23 in-state offers out in the Class of ’26 and a dozen so far for the Class of ’27. This after the Rams offered one for the Class of ’25, 13 for ’24 and 14 for ’23.

“Like I said when I took the job, you’ve got to try to win your state (by) recruiting high-school players,” Mora told me. “And the only way that you can do that is to get out and meet people and create relationships and build trust.”

Unlike his previous three predecessors, Mora’s already got one foot in several doors on that last front. His dad helped coach Dave Logan while the latter was starring at CU. His quarterbacks coach/pass game coordinator, Matt Mitchell, is the brother-in-law of Valor coach Mike Sanford. He’s known Legend coach Jake Heaps for years and the Pagano family forever.

“We want to be able to go and to see people,” Mora continued, “but it’s important that we try to get as many players and coaches as possible up to our campus to watch our spring practices and get with our coaches and exchange football ideas.”

And not just at clinics, either. Bennett says he landed a personal invite to Canvas Stadium. One he plans to accept.

“For all that he’s done, everywhere he’s been, for all the success he’s had in our industry, (Mora) didn’t treat me any differently,” the Mustangs coach recalled. “He just sat, and he talked to me like a ball coach. It was different.

“My staff was in there with us. And every one of them, when he left said, ‘Wow, what a great guy. That was cool.'”

He wants every kid in Colorado to grow up dreaming to play for the Rams. But that requires signing a few with 303, 970 and 719 area codes.

In the current 2026 class, CSU and CU added one player each from our state among 247Sports’ top 47 recruits. The Rams welcomed Arvada West safety Atticus Tillman, while the Buffs inked Thompson Valley offensive lineman Josiah Manu. The Buffs show little interest in recruiting in their own backyard, not helped by the fact that coach Deion Sanders cannot be bothered to leave campus for at-home visits.

Mora plans to throw a fence around the state, aiming to keep elite recruits in Fort Collins. Coaches make these promises, but rarely keep them. It was understandable when our state was not producing many D1 players. That is no longer the case. The top 25 players are all going to big-time schools.

You don’t think Cherry Creek tight end Ty Goettsche would draw comparisons to Trey McBride if he chose CSU over BYU? He is the ninth-ranked tight end in the country. What about Windsor’s tower of power Deacon Schmitt? You are telling me he would not be an upgrade over the sieve that CU passes off as an offensive line? He is headed to Oklahoma.

And I challenge you to find a player in the state that fits the scheme of new CU offensive coordinator Brennan Marion better than Cherry Creek’s Jayden Fox. He flipped to UCLA along with Legend High quarterback DJ Bordeaux.

Here’s the deal. CU and CSU will always land in-state walk-ons like Charlie Offerdahl, who love the school, learn the fight song and spend Saturday nights enjoying off-campus dinners with family. Mora needs to put his words into action with his next class, and prioritize in-state stars and a handful of risks.

Getting a few of the best to stay will help the Rams in multiple ways.

It builds the brand, shows CSU cares about Colorado preps. It also improves relationships with high school coaches, and leads to the identification of prospects with potential. That two-star offensive lineman can become a starter in his third season if you have a vision for him. Those are the ones that form the foundation of the program, make you less desperate to get old and stay old in the portal. They build camaraderie and chemistry, something that is hard to bake in with transfers.

Mora has called CSU his last stop. He wants people to be proud to support the program. They will if he keeps more local kids, the best and projects alike, around.

Bruising Broncos: What our eyes told us last Sunday, the facts support. The Packers-Broncos game felt like a playoff game, defined by eye-opening physicality and multiple injuries. That is not the first time we have seen Denver throw down the sawdust and engage in a bare-knuckle fight. Teams are 3-10 the week after playing the Broncos. It is why the Bears are expected to punch the Pack this weekend.

Adios Diego: Quarterback Diego Pavia has been a great college football story. He willed Vanderbilt to relevance. But it is clearly time for him to move on. He turns 25 in April. On my first Heisman Trophy ballot, he was second. When he did not win, he posted on social media “F all the voters” with a thumbs down emoji. He doesn’t owe me an apology. He owes the winner Fernando Mendoza one for acting so selfishly and immaturely.

Portal Patrick: Dylan Raiola hit the transfer portal, leaving Nebraska. The quarterback was supposed to restore glory to the Cornhuskers, a program where his father played, but never met expectations. His lack of a mobility is an issue. And the Temu Patrick Mahomes act is getting old. If he transfers to Texas Tech, Mahomes should insist that Raiola change his hairstyle and number — both of which are identical to the Chiefs star — or get hit with a restraining order.

“Yes. 100%,” Rams athletic director John Weber told me with a straight face Monday. “If other programs out of the Mountain West and the Pac-12 can do it, CSU can and will do it.”

“You’re convinced Jim will get you there?” I asked.

“Yes,” Weber replied. “Absolutely.”

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t stutter.

“I love to go uphill,” Jim Mora, CSU’s fourth new football coach in seven years and sixth since 2010, said during his introductory news conference at Canvas Stadium on Monday.

“And I think that’s a metaphor for my personality in general, because I love to embrace hard things. And I stood here (Monday) and I (looked out) there and I saw the top of those mountains. I said, ‘I’m going to get up there, you know?'”

At that point, the Rams coach stopped. Turns out he had a question for the rest of us.

“How many 14ers are there in this state?” Mora asked the crowd.

“Fifty-four,” came the reply.

(Actually, it’s 53. Or 58. Or 74.)

“I didn’t say I was going to tell you all our goals, OK,” Mora continued with a grin. “We’re going to win a Pac-12 championship. All right? We’re going to go (try) to win a national championship. And I’m going to scale 54 14ers.”

The football mountains facing CSU might be the tougher climb. Although give him credit for this much — Mora, an outdoors enthusiast, arguably rolled into town Sunday as the best FBS football coach within a 90-mile radius of Fort Fun.

Deion Sanders made the CU Buffs marketable and sexy, yes — but also maddeningly inconsistent on the field. He’s 16-21 since 2023. Air Force’s Troy Calhoun, long the gold standard, is just 9-15 with the Zoomies over the last two seasons.

Mora won at UCLA. He won at UConn.

“It’s about the opportunity to compete for a championship and get in the CFP and win when we get there,” Weber continued. “That’s what we’re about, that’s what we aspire to, that’s what we’re focused on. And he was clearly set on an opportunity that allowed him to do the exact same thing. That’s how we came together.”

Connecticut’s path to the College Football Playoff, as an independent, is a pipe dream. CSU, meanwhile, hosts BYU next fall. Arizona is slated to visit FoCo in ’27. CSU heads to Wisconsin in September 2027 and Oklahoma the September after that. The Rams have got CU at home in ’29 and away in ’30.

Keeler: How did CSU Rams land Jim Mora? Give assist to this former Broncos QB

Nail one solid Power 4 hide toyour wall in August or September, followed by a league championship with an undefeated (or close to it) record, and who knows?

"Go look at the Tulanes of the world, the North Texases," former CSU offensive lineman Jake Bennett told me Monday. "To say, just because you're in Fort Collins, you can't do it?"

Bennett's a believer. Mind you, he's been fooled before. Mora spoke to a full house on the fourth-floor suites at Canvas, with Rams football alumni scattered among the staff, alumni, boosters and reporters. The No. 1 complaint I get from CSU friends is they're backing a program that hasn't performed anywhere near the levels aspired to by the construction of Canvas in the first place. Jay Norvell is the only football coach to win more than seven games with a Rammie squad since the building debuted in August 2017. Over the last nine seasons, seven have been losing ones.

"I was here when we opened it, and we went 7-6 (in '16) and 7-6 (in '17) and from there, it's just been kind of woefully underperforming," Bennett, who was among the Rams letter-winners in attendance to hear Mora. "Like he was saying, (like) every coach that's been here before him, the foundation’s here. The city's great. Why can't you get it done?"

To that end, Weber said, he put Mora's name down for consideration early in the process. TurnkeyZRG, the search firm CSU hired, had also pegged the former collegiate and NFL coach as possibly looking to move away from UConn.

"We continued to work our way through that entire process and came back to him -- and came back to him again," Weber recalled. "(Mora) definitely knew about us, knew about the area, knew about the opportunity, knew about the investment that we've been making here."

That's because Mora admitted he'd actually put his name in the hat for the CSU job back in 2019, when Mike Bobo was relieved of his duties. And oh, lordy, what might have been. Only in this timeline, Urban Meyer was running the CSU search then, more or less, and put forth his old pal and Florida coordinator Steve Addazio -- who wasn't exactly beloved at Boston College for reasons that became all too obvious once he showed up.

COVID-19 set Rams football back about a year. The Daz set it back about four.

Alas, what's done is done, and there Jim was Monday, six years after the fact. If you're of a certain age, the Mora family looms large in your folk memory. Jim's father, in particular. Before Sean Payton hoisted the Saints to another level, the elder Jim Mora helped put the 'Aints on the NFL map two decades earlier. Although the old man's most famous sound bite came during a trying 2001 news conference while coaching the Colts after an even more trying defeat to the 49ers. Someone had asked Mora about playoff hopes after Indy had fallen to 4-6.

"Playoffs?" the senior Mora countered, voice climbing three octaves in just two syllables. "Don't talk about ... playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game."

They won two more and finished at 6-10. Trivia: Peyton Manning was the QB on that team -- one that, did, in fact, miss the playoffs. The Colts' defensive coordinator? Vic Fangio. The Colts' receivers coach? Jay Norvell.

"Jay coached for my dad," Mora said of Norvell, who was let go by Weber in October. "I grew up in this business, so I'm always very, very sensitive to the changes that take place. But as a football coach, we all understand that change is inevitable, and it's something that we have to accept if we're going to be in this business. When the program decided to move on from Jay, I was immediately interested."

In a weird way, this is home for Jim. Always has been. The new CSU football coach spent his grade-school years along the Flatirons while his father was an assistant at CU under Eddie Crowder. Mora's son Trey, who was part of the family entourage, is a Buffs grad who's currently studying at CU's Leeds School of Business. The coach's mountain-scaling exploits are already the stuff of legend.

"There is no top to the mountain. There is no top," Mora said. "You just keep going, you keep climbing. And when you reach one peak, you find a way to get to another peak ... I will never put any limitations on what this football team can be ever, if we do the work. Which we will."

It took three minutes during the presentation for Sonny Lubick's name to come up. It took another 22 or 23 minutes for Wyoming to cross anybody's lips, and Mora did so with the relish of a man itching for a friendly scrap.

"I think it's Sept. 5 or 6, the Border War," Mora said. "Let's go!"

It's Sept. 5, but time flies when you're having this much Fort Fun. Jim's line about this being his last coaching job, according to those who know him better, came from the heart. Mora had his Lane Kiffin phase. He'll be 65 next November. Fort Collins is the kind of college town you aspire to retire in -- that's true for coaches too, from Lubick to ex-Nebraska volleyball coach Terry Pettit, who won a national championship and 21 league titles with the Cornhuskers.

Playoffs, though?

That's some serious uphill, coach.

"It's very realistic," Mora said. "We have the resources -- and when I speak about resources, I'm not speaking about money. I'm speaking about people and the vision and the commitment ... The commitment that we make, that will determine how far we go. I'm very confident that we can do those things."

On Monday, that confidence proved contagious. One of those proud Rams who was here to see Mora stopped me as we disembarked from the elevator at Canvas.

"That was good," she wondered. "Wasn't it?"

Sure was. How good, we're all about to find out.