FORT COLLINS — The dead cat was back. The bounce was gone.
“(I) really want to commend our fans and our administration for the amazing turnout,” CSU Rams coach Jay Norvell said after a 31-19 Homecoming loss to Hawaii on Saturday. “Biggest crowd at (Canvas Stadium), and we needed to do a better job and respond to that environment as a football team. And me as a head coach.”
Bingo.
So many eyeballs. So many hands. It was the game plan. It was the execution. It was the adjustments. It was the offense. But it was the timing, too. Saturday saw the largest football crowd in Canvas’ young, somewhat sad, checkered history — 40,416 strong. They left cold and confused.
Which sums up the Norvell Era so far as much as anything, doesn’t it? A football program striving for the next level, reaching with arms and fingers stretched, only to miss the ledge whenever the heat cranks up. One step forward in darkness, two steps back in the light.
CSU has drawn crowds of 30,000 or more at home 12 times since 2022, Norvell’s first campaign at the helm. The Rams’ record in those games? 5-7, and 1-3 this season. The lone victory? Northern Colorado. A moment that felt like anything but.
It’s hard to build momentum among locals with that kind of variability. It’s really hard for an athletic director to ask those who turn out, the perennially disappointed, for more money.
And harder still for a coach to ask for a contract extension.
The hands on the Norvell doom clock froze to a halt after a resounding, thorough, 49-21 demolition of Fresno State on Oct. 10. Fresno CSU resembled peak 2024 CSU — physical and poised on offense, opportunistic on defense, complimentary from stem to stern. If a 2-4 record became 3-4 and then 4-4, who knows?
We should’ve known better. Hawaii CSU was San Diego State CSU. And Washington State CSU. The Rams (2-5, 1-3 Mountain West) were a step shy and three steps too slow.
And a sellout crowd in Fort Fun seeing Timmy Chang’s Rainbow Warriors up close only made the contrasts sharper — like the edge of a cavalry saber.
Hawaii (6-2, 3-1) was everything CSU was supposed to be in 2025, and just isn’t. Nimble, accurate QB1 who plays fearless and free. Speed everywhere. An air raid that looks air-tight. Warriors coach Timmy Chang is an apple who dropped from the Norvell Family Tree, having coached under the latter at Nevada from 2017-2021.
The acolyte’s freshman quarterback, Micah Alejado, threw for 301 yards and three scores. The sensei’s quarterback, Jackson Brousseau, got sacked six times.
Stanford ran for 177 yards on the Rainbow Warriors. Arizona ran for 183. Utah State rambled for 166. CSU, four deep at tailback, managed just 85 for the evening.
“We really needed to run the ball and keep it away from their offense and play complimentary football,” Norvell said, sounding as defeated as I’ve ever heard him after a home game. “We did not get that done, obviously.”
Canvas Chaos? Not this time. Not with this passing game. Keep ahead of the Rams by at least 10 points, and you’re home clear.
Brosseau is a gamer. A plugger. He’s also a plodder, and when the pocket breaks down, so does the play.
Oh, there was some life in the dying embers. Just far too little. And far too late. A Tahj Bullock dive out of the wildcat formation for a 3-yard score got CSU to within 24-19 with 6:50 left.
Yet rather than attempt an onside kick and gamble for a short field after the Rams found some rare offensive sync, Norvell elected to kick it into the end zone. Chose to trust his defense. Which, it should be pointed out, had to be fairly exhausted at that point.
Things came to a head with 2:23 left at the CSU 35. The Rams had forced a fourth-and-1. Alejando, who had thrown it 38 times to that point, completing 26, handed off to Cam Barfield on a dive.
Barfield squirted through the line for the first down — and kept on trucking. The CSU defense lost contain, Hawaii went up 30-19, and whatever undergrads were left high-tailed it to Old Town Square.
To call CSU’s offense abysmal would be kind. The Rams punted after three plays on their initial drive. Of their first six offensive possessions, three were three-and-out, five ended in punts, and one — a promising jaunt to midfield late in the second quarter — hit a wall when Jalen Dupree fumbled at the Hawaii 41 after a 10-yard reception.
For a half, it was almost as if Fresno had never happened. The Rams opened the contest by going run, pass, pass, punt. The Warriors responded with cruel, cold, surgical precision.
CSU forced a third-and-7 at their own 27, only for Barfield to find himself all alone in the middle of the field — turning a short toss into a soul-crushing 21-yard gain. Two plays and two flags later, the Warriors were pushed back to a second-and-goal at the CSU 17. With space, Alejado dropped back and quickly spotted another wide-open target, Nick Cenacle. The receiver walked, untouched, into the end zone.
The last bit would become something of a theme. CSU tailback Javion Kinnard’s 91-yard punt return for a touchdown at the end of the first quarter gave the big crowd something to cling to. It also seemed to delay the inevitable.
CSU trailed 14-7 at the half, and was blessed, in hindsight, to be within a touchdown. The Rams could run laterally, hash to hash, with the Warriors. Vertically? Different story. And it was only a matter of time before a tired CSU defense started to show signs of collective, repeated wear.
It was tough enough that Alejado, unlike E.J. Warner a week earlier, could really throw. But from the jump, he also showed, save for a few exceptions, the ability to throw on the move — and throw on the move with touch. With 5:54 left in the first half, a flummoxed Rams defense lost track of another Hawaii wideout. This time it was Jackson Harris, who outran every horned helmet on a first-down toss for a 75-yard score and a 13-7 Warriors cushion pending the extra point.
The Rams’ response?
Run, pass, pass, punt.
That’s no way to win games. Let alone hearts.
