FORT COLLINS — He’ll miss the dig routes to Texas Roadhouse on Timberline Road most.
Tory Horton would order steak. Jordan Ross would order salmon. Horton was a senior last fall, one of the best to ever grace the Mountain West. Between courses, he made a point to always leave Ross, a freshman, with something to chew on.
“Everywhere he wanted to go, he’d be like, ‘J-Ross, you want to come with me?’ It’s like he put me under his wing when I got here,” Ross, now a sophomore wide receiver with the CSU Rams, told me earlier this month. “And that’s what I needed.
“I needed a leader to just take me over so I could see how they run stuff, so I could be the next leader. And Tory showed me everything I needed to see. Even if he didn’t physically tell me, I still watched what he did. What he did, it just (carried) over to me. And that’s what I want to be.”
Jay Norvell’s Rammies need a guy to become the guy in the passing game this fall. Several guys, now that you mention it.
CSU has to replace its top three pass-catchers from a year ago, and four of 2024’s top five. Quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi is a grizzled veteran now, a junior who’s seen darn near everything twice over. Dude can’t carry the Rams to the postseason again all by his lonesome.
“I’m definitely going to try to shoot for that 1,000-yard receiving mark,” Ross said. “And I feel like with the mindset I’ve got going and how I’m carrying myself, it’s going to happen.”
Ross has proven hard to miss during CSU’s scrimmages this month. He’s been the one either leaving a vapor trail or breaking defenders’ ankles.
All of which tracks. One of the jewels in CSU’s 2024 recruiting class, Jordan ran a 10.4-second 100-yard dash during his senior year at Warren High School in Downey, Calif. He was once timed with a low 4.5 in the 40-yard dash. As a 13-year-old.
“I remember,” the Rams wideout recalled, “because I just saw the faces that (the coaches) made after I ran it.”
As one of the marquee burners in the talent-rich fields of Los Angeles, Ross has Power 4 quicks — Notre Dame, Washington and Auburn were among the blue-blood offers — on a mid-major frame (5-foot-10, 180 pounds). He’s the kind of how-the-heck-did-UCLA-not-sign-this-guy talent that Norvell would love to have four or five more of.
The things Ross does well, you can’t teach. Which is why he leaned on Horton last summer and fall to show him the stuff he needed to learn. The hard way.
“How (Horton) read coverages, how he run his routes based off those coverages, I felt like that’s what I needed,” said Ross, who caught 15 balls for 218 yards as a true freshman.
“I didn’t know that if I see a linebacker right then and there, I’m supposed to sit. But when I’d seen Tory (do it), how he told me, told me why, and then explained it, it was, ‘Oh, OK, I get it. I’ve got to be on the same page with the quarterback, and it’s not just me running off the defense.’
“So coming in as a freshman, it was a lot that I learned just based off of him, how he practiced, how he carried himself, and just being consistent with everything.”
The Rams need to establish perimeter threats in the passing game, especially for that opener at Washington on Aug. 30. Horton, now turning heads as a 6-2 rookie in the Seattle Seahawks’ camp, was the Rams’ Courtland Sutton, only with more “giddy” and less “up.” Ross is closer to Marvin Mims Jr., a gadget guy who can turn upfield on a dime, a slasher with the vision to find a sliver of daylight from anywhere on the field.
As eye tests go, Ross looks the part of a prototypical slot receiver. Then again, looks can deceive.
“He’s a stud,” Fowler-Nicolosi gushed when I asked about Ross. “I think Tory was definitely just that vertical threat, runs incredible routes. Going to J-Ross, he’s one of the twitchiest people I’ve ever seen. He’s got an incredible ability to get the ball in his hands and make people miss in space. And so, I think they’re pretty similar in that way, (in) being able to make people miss in the open field. But I think, really, one of the big differences is just the size. But they’re both studs.”
Ross is nimble enough to outrun those comparisons, shifty enough to outrun those expectations, and fast enough to outrun Horton’s shadow. The kid wants all the smoke. Beneath that sinewed chest beats a Power 4 heart.
“That’s how I need to carry myself, because obviously it led (Horton) to be an (NFL) draft pick in the field,” Ross said. “And I feel like that’s going to (rub) off to me, and that’s going to show me that, ‘OK, he did the right thing, so let’s do that stuff.’ But let’s do it the Jordan Ross way.”
Which is?
“I feel like my mindset now as a sophomore (compared to) freshman year is a lot more explosive and different,” he replied. “I can actually be comfortable with myself now that I know the place, now that I know where I need to be.”
When it came to rebuilding CSU football, Horton raised the steaks. We’re about to find out if Ross can match the sizzle.
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