The onside kick game. Probably one of the most improbable endings you’ll see, and it looks like you’ll never see it again because hardly any video of this game exists online. CSU didn’t even put together a highlight package for their YouTube channel.
The game started off as a defensive struggle and the Rams led most of the first half 3-0. It wasn’t uncommon for the 2016 defense to pitch a shutout for an entire half. They did it against UTSA, Northern Colorado, Utah State, UNLV, Fresno State (x2), and almost against SDSU, who scored a garbage-time TD late in the 4th quarter. People liked to talk trash about Marty English (myself included), but this was by far the best defense of the Bobo era.
And the defense was one stop away on from another shutout. Boise State 3rd-and-10 from the 50, running back Jeremy McNichols motions out of the backfield and lines up at receiver. Evan Colorito follows him out there. Colorito was our best defender that year, but he’s not covering McNichols out in space. Colorito was a “linebacker” by name only, he was a defensive end.
So you have the quickest running back in the conference on an island against a defensive end. I vividly remember this play. We had one timeout left in the half. “CALL TIMEOUT YOU ASSHOLES”, I yelled at my television. They didn’t hear me.
McNichols runs a simple go route and is wide open for a 33 yard gain. WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING?? We wanted to save that timeout for half time??? Shit like that drives me up the wall.
BSU score two plays later and we go into half down 7-3. Boise must have made some Halftime AdjustmentsTM because they scored touchdowns on their first three drives of the 2nd half.
Down 28-3, this game was over.
.
.
.
OR WAS IT!
Rams score on their next drive to make it 28-10 and then the unthinkable happens. The Rams bring in two kickers who motion in opposite directions so Boise didn’t know which way the onside kick was going. It worked perfectly!
I love watching Hayden Hunt celebrate. Legend.
Next play:
LET’S GOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Still down two scores, we need the ball back:
The mad lads did it! They run the same play but to the opposite side! Boise in shambles!
Rams score 20 points in the span of two minutes and it’s a one score game!
We wouldn’t convert the next onsider and Boise ran the clock down to 15 seconds before CSU got the ball again. The game would end in the most anti-climatic way as possible with a 10-second run off of the clock after the Rams threw an illegal forward pass.
As far as losses go, this one wasn’t that bad. At the time Boise was 15th in the country and a 28-point favorite. Moral victory!
And in a cruel twist of fate, Boise would steal the two-kicker onside kick concept and use it against us in our next meeting:
As if that loss wasn’t bad enough.
If you want to watch the 2016 game again… good luck finding it!
I have a hard time ranking 2019 games because the season sucked and most of us had given up hope by that point. This game was a terrible loss, but it didn’t hit as hard as losses in previous years.
Before we get into the game, I want to highlight my favorite play of 2019:
I think this is when Barry Wesley became my favorite player on the team. Watch him for the entire play; he starts off with a cut block that springs Dante Wright for about 10 yards, then he gets up, sprints over to Wright and carries him for 5 more. This is the most impressive individual effort of any Ram in the 2019 season.
“That’s a play that doesn’t show up in the box score,” a generic color commentator would say. And he would be right:
Come on, give Wesley some credit!
The Rams started out the game pretty well. The game was delayed by lightning for about 30 minutes and it looked like Utah State came out flat. Manny Jones forced a fumble on the Aggie’s first drive:
Unfortunately, the CSU offense wouldn’t take advantage, getting stuffed on a 4th and 1.
Next Aggie drive was three-and-out, and then this happened:
Troy Golden! Blocked Punt! Our first blocked punt in five years! FIVE YEARS!
Last Ram to do it was Jakob Buys back in 2014 against Nevada. Almost a mirror image:
Golden’s block led to the Wesley play above which led to a Jaylen Thomas touchdown. Rams up 7-0! It felt like watching a Sonny Lubick team from the good ‘ol days, with the defense creating turnovers and the special teams making plays.
Unfortunately, a boner in the kicking game snapped us back to reality as Utah State ran the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown.
Warren Jackson sat this one out with a shoulder injury, but Nate Craig-Myers was able to pick up the slack with his best game as a Ram. He’d finish with 3 catches for 97 yards, including this big gainer:
The play would lead to a Marvin Kinsey touchdown, but you know NCM got grief in the film room for stumbling and getting caught from behind.
Back and forth game with a bunch of turnovers but the game really turned towards the end of the 3rd quarter. Game tied 24-24, Patrick O’Brien completes a 35-yarder to EJ Scott, who fumbles. Aggies get three points from that, 24-27.
Two drives later, the Rams have great field position to take the lead or tie, but Marvin Kinsey gets in on the action with a fumble of his own. Rams defense holds, but then this happens:
Two plays on offense, two Kinsey fumbles. Aggies go up 34-24 and that’s your ball game!
A game that started out as a throwback Sonny Lubick game ended up being just another classic Bobo loss with too many turnovers, boners in the kicking game, and soul crushing Marvin Kinsey fumbles.
The full replay is here and it’s actually fun to watch because the defense made so many plays. Just stop watching midway through the fourth:
Did any of you watch Sesame Street growing up? Let’s play a game from it. First, let’s queue up the music:
All right, now which one of these is not like the other:
2019 Homecoming vs San Diego State (10-3) 2018 Homecoming vs New Mexico (3-9) 2017 Homecoming vs Nevada (3-9) 2016 Homecoming vs Utah State (3-9) 2015 Homecoming vs Air Force (8-6)
If you chose 2019 Homecoming vs San Diego State, YOU WIN!
Traditionally you want to schedule a patsy for your homecoming game, but CSU really didn’t have a choice in 2019. September 21st vs Toledo was a little too early for a homecoming game and San Diego State game was the only home game in October.
So a crowd of 30,000 homecoming revelers were treated to one of the worst football games in CSU history. I’m not talking about worst losses, I’m talking about the worst games overall. I suggest that researchers show this game to insomnia patients, it might lead to a cure.
The game featured 13 punts. Only four plays of over 20 yards. Both teams combined for 473 yards of offense (120 of which came on two meaningless garbage time drives to end the game.) They combined to go 7 for 27 on 3rd downs.
Warren Jackson didn’t play in this game, and if this is a preview of what the CSU offense is going to look like after he graduates, I’m a little concerned.
Even the touchdowns were boring. Two short TD’s to a receiver wearing number 92, another short TD pass to a running back, and a garbage time TD for CSU.
FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!
This was probably the best play of the game for the Rams:
It led to a field goal.
The game was truly decided by a couple of plays at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd. With a minute left, the Rams had the ball on the SDSU 1 yard line with an opportunity to tie the game at 10.
Rams would get the ball first in the second half and the first play would be a classic soul crushing Marvin Kinsey fumble:
Aztecs score three plays later to take a 17-3 lead, and that’s your ballgame!
I actually left this game early. Not out of protest to the product on the field, but because it was freaking cold and I was wildly unprepared. As Ron Swanson would say:
A condensed version of the game is here if you’re having problems going to sleep:
As part of the deal to bring Coach McElwain to Gainesville, Florida agreed to play CSU in 2019 for $2 million. That was the largest amount ever paid for a single “buy game” according to ESPN. (Not sure if still true.)
I remember when the deal was struck in 2014, some wiseguy on Ramnation commented that McElwain wouldn’t even be at Florida to coach the 2019 game. What a call by that guy! (I tried to find the actual post, but gave up after about 5 minutes. That’s the type of effort you can expect from a free blog with 100 views a day!) It seemed absurd at the time, but the McElwain Era at Florida fell apart quick.
As we’re all aware, McElwain’s time at Florida was just… odd. He won quite a few games, but his tendency to say a lot of words without actually saying anything kind of rubbed everyone in Gainesville the wrong way. He got a free pass for that in Fort Collins where the media scrutiny is Charmin soft, but they weren’t going for it in SEC territory. Later he’d make love to a shark and then he’d claim he was getting death threats and then he was gone.
In case anyone was wondering, McElwain’s million dollar house on 863 Riparian Way eventually sold, and it looks like it has changed hands a couple times since then:
I wonder if it still has that sweet custom CSU outdoor kitchen.
Anyway, instead of facing off against Coach Mac, we got to play against some guy named Dan Mullen. I don’t watch too much football outside of the Mountain West so I’m not going to pretend to know who Dan Mullen is.
When I think of this game, the first memory off the top of my head is that Ryan Stonehouse was absolutely bombing his punts. He was averaging 53 yards a punt. Unfortunately, if your first memory is of the punter, things probably didn’t go well.
Outside of a couple Stonehouse bombs, the kicking game was an absolute disaster. You know I hate nothing more than boners in the kicking game, and this game had an entire season’s worth of boners in the kicking game.
Ladies and gentlemen, Boner Jam ’18:
(Who kicks a 41-yard field goal on 4th and 1, on the road, against an SEC team?)
(Florida scored, but I couldn’t get close to fitting the entire play into a 10-second GIF.)
So that’s basically your game right there. 17 points directly from kicking game boners and 6 points worth of missed field goals. I can’t remember, was this the year we actually had a Special Teams coach or no? What a friggin joke.
This was the rare game where you give up 48 points and the defense actually wasn’t that bad.
I have nothing else to say about this one. We’re at the point of the countdown where it’s just us getting our butts kicked by 10-win team. Not all that interesting. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel though, the wins are coming.
The Countdown to Kickoff is on hold for now until we get an idea of when kickoff will actually happen (could still be September 5th for all we know), but for now let’s keep ranking the games of the Bobo Era. We’re so close to getting out of the losses and into the wins so we’re not stopping now.
This complete and utter ass whoopin’ from Boise State would have ranked higher (lower?), but my arbitrary proprietary ranking system factors in the fact that this Boise team was ranked, finished with 9 wins, and we were wearing pink socks. Hard to see any team winning under those circumstances.
Coach Bobo played two QBs during the game and as the old football adage says: if you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks. That proved to be the truth on this Saturday night in Fort Collins as Nick Stevens went 8 for 10 for 60 yards and Coleman Key went 5 for 19 for 56, 1 TD, and 2 picks.
As you can imagine, not too many highlights from this one.
Kevin Pierre-Louis killed a guy:
So that was cool?
I remember when I used to complain so much about KPL and Trent Matthews. “Anyone could be better than this,” I would say as a random Air Force quarterback noodle-armed yet another 20-yard completion down the seam. But I had no idea what kind of safety play was waiting for us after their graduations. I would like to take this moment to apologize to KPL and Matthews. And Nick Januska. I took you all for granted and I’m sorry.
Anyway, it’s hard to have sour grapes about a game where you get beat by five touchdowns while wearing pink socks, but look at this play:
We have no margin of error against Boise, but it seems like shit like this happens every time we play them.
(Man… I kinda forgot how gorgeous Hughes Stadium could be during late autumn afternoons when the stands were packed. Maybe someone should have tried to save it?)
That was Coleman Key’s first interception of the game. Not really his fault as Xavier Williams was probably a foot taller than the Boise guy. This second interception though… definitely a boner by Key:
Key would get one more drive which ended in a punt and then he’d never play a meaningful down for CSU ever again. Whammy!
Some lunatic actually uploaded the full broadcast version of this snoozer onto YouTube and I can’t think of any reason to watch it unless, of course, you hate yourself:
So far: Sherard is the highest rated recruit remaining from the 2018 class. He picked the Rams over reported offers from Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, Tennessee and others.
He went to T.L. Hanna High School, which was the setting for the movie Radio, that Cuba Gooding Jr movie based on a true story. (I knew it sounded familiar.)
T.L. Hanna was also the home of this acting legend:
Sherard redshirted his freshman year and didn’t see the field in his redshirt freshman year. That means his legs are fresh, Coach Dazzle! Put him in!
What’s next: He makes his CSU debut in 2020! (I have no idea.)
Brewery nearest Anderson, South Carolina: Carolina Bauernhaus Brewery & Winery
According to the internet, “bauernhaus” is German for farmhouse or cottage. Personally, I would have gone with Carolina Cottage Brewery because alliteration sells. They teach you that in day one of business school.
It turns out there is, in fact, a Carolina Cottage Company; a home builder based out of North Carolina. I know nothing about them, but it’s safe to assume they are the most successful home builder in all of the Carolinas (perhaps the world?) based off the triple alliteration in their name. Just look at these titans of business:
I like the jackass who couldn’t be bothered to find a button-down for their little team photo. Let’s put him in the front of the picture, they thought.
Lowest Yelp Review for Carolina Cottage:
Pretty good reviews overall for this place. The only one-star came from our friend Jervis G. He complains that the wine “quickly warms to a mulled sensibility.”
Just imagine being a server at that place, it’s super busy, you’re bringing out pints, flights, and glasses of wine. Jervis G motions you over, swirls his wine glass in the air and says, “My dear? May I bother you for one cube of ice? This wine is beginning to have a mulled sensibility.” Lol, for real? No wonder Server Hannah was rude. The only mulled sensibility here should be Jervis G’s face after Hannah slaps it.
Ranking Every Game of the Mike Bobo Era, #37 2015 San Diego State, The Halloween Game
Final Score: Colorado State 17, San Diego State 41
Line: Colorado State +3
Venue: Hughes Stadium
I hate games played on Halloween, I never have a good feeling about them. I think it comes from the infamous Broncos vs Colts Halloween game on Monday Night Football in 1988. For all the kids reading this, playing on Monday Night Football was a huge deal back in those days. (Also in those days, we wore masks for fun, not as a precautionary measure to avoid murdering grandma.)
We were going house to house collecting our Halloween candy and we’d ask for the score of the game throughout the night. It seems like every time we asked, Eric Dickerson and the Colts had scored another touchdown. Dickerson had 124 yards and 4 touchdowns in the first half! The Colts won 55-23, and I can’t express enough how massive this game was. It scared me for life.
Even though the Rams were coming off a win over Air Force and a bye week, I wasn’t feeling good about the game at all. (Too bad sports gambling wasn’t legal yet, SDSU -3 was the lock of the century.)
The game gets off to a spooky start when Jasen Oden somehow fumbles at the goal line on the Rams opening drive:
How does that ball even come out? Was it a g..g…ghost????
CSU would actually keep it close for a half, going into the locker room down 13-10. Unfortunately, they didn’t mind showing up for the second half and got outscored 28-7.
Look, I totally get it. We’ve all lived in Fort Collins and we’ve all had some epic Halloweens up there. The costumes are all either super hilarious or super revealing and it’s just a great time. One year in particular my girlfriend bought a long blonde wig and dressed up like a “sassy” cop. It was the best. There is no way I could have played a football game that day.
So I give the Rams a pass on the egg pumpkin they laid in the second half. (Plus, that Aztec team was pretty good. They’d run the table in the Mountain West and finish 11-3.)
There is hardly an video of this game on the internet, here are some CSU highlights:
Owen Snively • Offensive Line • Freshman • Tilton, NH
No 58 on the roster yet. Snively wore 57 on his recruiting visit, but 57 is already taken, so I’ll put him here for now.
So far: Snively was a three-star recruit who picked CSU over offers from Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn, and others. He took an official visit to Rutgers, so it’s easy to assume it came down to CSU and Rutgers.
The folks on a Rutgers message board claimed that Snively “likes the outdoors”. (I don’t know if that’s true or not, but lets pretend it is.) The top minds at Rutgers took this information and decided to impress Snively on his official visit by taking him to… Times Square. So that’s pretty funny if it’s true.
It’s pretty funny that they take any recruit to Times Square, to be honest. “Your new home in New Jersey is butt, so let’s hop on the Turnpike and drive 30 minutes to somewhere better.” It would be like Wyoming taking all their recruits down to Fort Collins to experience modern civilization. (That’s actually not be a bad idea. You’re welcome, Craig Bohl.)
What’s next: I’m a broken record here, but I doubt any of the true freshmen offensive linemen see much playing time in 2020.
Brewery nearest Tilton, New Hampshire: Kettlehead Brewing Company
This place is currently serving a stout named Chardee McDennis. If you’re familiar at all with Always Sunny- the inspiration for Always Sonny moniker- then you know all about Chardee McDennis, the Game of Games. Next time I’m in New Hampshire (probably never) I need to make sure to swing by Kettlehead and pay tribute. (Those black & tans/snakebites in the background look pretty good as well.
Lowest Yelp Review for Kettlehead Brewing:
“Doesn’t know her ass from her elbow” is a wonderful idiom that I should probably be using more. Thank you for the reminder, Dana G.
Management of Kettlehead, just a head’s up if you’re reading this: if you make all these huge changes to your brewery, Dana G from Little River, South Carolina (920 miles away) will make a return visit and give you a better Yelp review. A tempting offer. Your move, Kettlehead.
Ranking Every Game of the Mike Bobo Era, #38 2018 Boise State, Friday Night Lights-out
Final Score: Colorado State 28, Boise State 56
Line: Colorado State +23.5
Venue: Albertson’s Stadium
Friday night, national TV audience on ESPN2. What could go wrong?
Everything. Everything could go wrong. Just look at this 4th-and-36 (4th-and-36!!) play:
Lol, down 21-0 after that shit? Might as well load up the buses and leave town.
By the way, it wouldn’t have made a difference in the grand scheme of things, but I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to do this:
Or this:
But who am I to doubt the competence of world-class Mountain West officiating?
The Rams would have gone into halftime down 35-0 if not for a last second bomb to Preston Williams. I don’t know if you can even call this a Hail Mary because he was so wide open:
What the hell is the Boise safety doing there? You have one job on that play! That safety doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. (I did it, Dana G!)
We’ve recently gone over the illegally touched Hail Mary against Utah State and the two Hail Marys that came up short against Toledo. Those plays would have been game winners. It really is classic CSU to complete a Hail Mary while down 35-0.
Nothing much else to say about this game, other than this bullshit:
It just wouldn’t be a Bobo Era loss without a boner in the kicking game to cap things off.
Good news is that this is the last game in the countdown where the Rams give up more than 50 points. And we’re down to only nine losses left overall!
Here is a condensed version of the game if you hate yourself and want to watch it:
There is no #59 on the roster. I was one of the millions of people who watched Hamilton on Disney+ over the weekend and all the political drama and backstabbing got me thinking about all the political drama and backstabbing in the Mountain West. The Airport Meeting! The Project! Whatever that Boise State to the Big East Thing Was Called!
So why not waste some time comparing Mountain West football programs to characters from Hamilton? What else do you have to do? Work? Work!
Alexander Hamilton • Colorado State Rams
1998. Denver International Airport. Four university presidents and the superintendent of the United States Air Force hold a top-secret meeting. The topic? Revolution. The ring leader? Colorado State president Al Yates.
The 16-team WAC had become an unwieldy mess. Wyoming being put in a different division was the last straw for Yates, prompting him to gather the heads of Wyoming, Utah, Air Force, and BYU to start a new break-off conference.
2012. The Big East comes west and captures the Mountain West’s most prized possession, Boise State, along with the coattail-riding San Diego State. It is a done deal until rumors of another secret meeting surface. This time involving Boise State president Bob Kustra, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, and CSU AD Jack Graham. Graham’s sales pitch: keep what you kill. (Not as eloquent as Hamilton, but effective none-the-less.) Boise State can negotiate their own television contract outside of the conference TV deal and keep the profits. The maneuver works, Boise stays west.
Time after time whenever something significant happened in the Mountain West, Colorado State was in the room where it happened.
Even though Hamilton is the protagonist and starts off the show pretty strong, he never becomes president and he ends up suffering huge defeats in the second act. So… Colorado State, basically.
“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”
During BYU’s time in the Mountain West, they had a habit of never really taking a stance. CSU took the lead on the airport meeting. BYU had to go a long, what other choice did they have? The controversial Mtn Network? Not BYU’s fault, they had a new president and athletic director and couldn’t be bothered with the details of launching the first conference-specific network in the history of college athletics! How could they have known there would be issues? The Project? Not their fault! It was the WAC who approached them with a plan to destroy the Mountain West. They were just listening! Is that so wrong?
The cowards from Provo spent years in the Mountain West not taking a stance on any important issue. There were also the constant rumors of independence, but that didn’t happen until Utah blew past them and it was too late. Their dreams of a Power 5 conference waved goodbye and they really had no other choice. (You get nothing if you wait for it, wait for it, wait for it.)
Burr’s duel with Hamilton is BYU leaving the Mountain West. Their time as an independent football team and the member of a bus league in all other sports can be equated Burr’s later life, where he spent years in obscurity until his death.
I wasn’t totally sure which Mountain West team should be Burr until the scene where Burr approaches Hamilton after his wedding:
Burr: I came to say congratulations!
Mulligan: Spit a verse, Burr!
Burr: …I see the whole gang is here…
Lafayette: You are the worst, Burr.
Yep, totally BYU.
George Washington • Utah Utes
The general of the Mountain West army, the Utes were kicking ass on and off the field. The Utes would win four conference titles and become the first non-AQ team to make a BCS bowl. They’d repeat the feat a couple years later and blow out Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
They were the first college ever to have the number one draft pick in the NFL (Alex Smith) and NBA (Andrew Bogut) in the same year. Off the field they made major investments into athletics and academics. While other Mountain West schools were having their ups and downs, the Utes were a giant middle-finger to Bill Hancock and the BCS powers.
“I can’t be everywhere at once people. I’m in dire need of assistance.”
They’d eventually leave the Mountain West for greener pastures, their version of not seeking re-election and moving back to Mount Vernon.
King George III • WAC Commissioner Karl Benson
King George III singing “You’ll Be Back” to the upstart Americans immediately made me think of former WAC commissioner Karl Benson. Just imagine Commissioner Benson singing this after hearing news of The Airport Meeting and his best teams revolting against his rule.
Imagine him scheming The Project and how destroyed he was when it blew up in his face at the last moment. In an email to Utah State he’d write, “This has been a very emotional day for me — both on the professional and personal side.”
LOL, get bent King Karl! Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da!
“Yo, I’m John Laurens in the place to be Two pints of Sam Adams, but I’m workin’ on three Those redcoats don’t want it with me ‘Cause I will pop chick-a pop these cops till I’m free”
Drinking? Fighting? Reckless courage? Yep, that’s our Wyoming Cowboys. And who else but the Wyoming Cowboys would teach us the 10 Duel Commandments?
Laurens was always looking for a fight and kicked major ass throughout the Revolutionary War and then died in a meaningless battle after the war was over. Kinda like how the Craig Bohl Cowboys tend to put together good teams that lose to the likes of Eastern Michigan, San Jose State, and North Dakota.
Hercules Mulligan • Fresno State Bulldogs and Nevada Wolf Pack
The Project. A clandestine plan hatched by King Karl Benson, BYU president Cecil Samuelson, Utah State President Stan Albrecht, and Fresno State president John Welty. It would allow the WAC to strike back against the traitorous Mountain West and leave them in ruins.
After the Mountain West added Boise State to replace Utah, the WAC had been pushed around for the last time. Their survival plan was to convince BYU to leave the MW, place their Olympic sports in the WAC, and have football go independent with a scheduling agreement with the WAC. In turn, the Mountain West would be mortally wounded with Utah, TCU, and BYU gone. The WAC would now be in a power position and poach schools like San Diego State and UNLV from the Mountain West. How the tables have turned!
Boise State- who had been openly campaigning to join the MW for years– would now be joining a Mountain West dumpster fire. Albrecht famously emailed the group saying that Boise president Bob Kustra’s “world is crumbling around him and he is desperate.”
Little did they know, Fresno president Welty was playing the role of Hercules Mulligan- a spy behind enemy lines. He warned Mountain West powers know about The Project and used it as leverage to get an invitation to join the Mountain West.
Nevada joined Fresno in the double-cross and also got a Mountain West invite, similar to how Mulligan had a partner in his espionage, a Black Patriot named Cato. Cato served as Mulligan’s slave and was granted unprecedented access to the British as he wasn’t seen as a threat. (Cato wasn’t mentioned in the Hamilton musical.)
Samuel Seabury • Utah StateAggies
Utah State spent most of their WAC days as spineless loyalists for Karl Benson and BYU, similar to the weasely British Loyalist Samuel Seabury. After the Revolutionary War, Seabury was allowed to stay in the United States and actually did some important work with the Episcopal church. Similar to how Utah State was eventually allowed into the Mountain West after The Project blew up in their faces, and have actually been a pretty good conference member in football and men’s basketball.
Charles Lee • San Jose StateSpartans
Charles Lee was put in charge of the Battle of Monmouth and failed miserably. Lack of communication (attack! retreat! attack! retreat!) led to confusion and mass casualties. George Washington would have to take over and clean up Lee’s mess. Lee would then get shot by John Laurens in a duel.
In summation, Lee sucked and brought nothing to the table. The San Jose State of the founding fathers.
Thomas Jefferson • Boise State Broncos
Thomas Jefferson doesn’t show up until the second act, prancing around the stage asking “What did I miss?”. He’s immediately installed as Secretary of State. A charmed life, similar to Boise State’s.
His fellow patriots are a little annoyed. While they were fighting the British in the Revolutionary War (the 9-team MWC fighting for AQ status), Jefferson was off having a great time in Paris (beating up on the hapless WAC).
Jefferson would go on to be the most powerful man in the United States, similar to how Boise State football would become the most powerful team in the Mountain West, and the original members would always resent him.
James Madison • San Diego State Aztecs
In the Hamilton musical, James Madison was portrayed as nothing more than Thomas Jefferson’s side-kick. Like how San Diego State played the role of side-kick when they tried to hitch their wagon to Boise State and join the Big East. Again, San Diego State tried to join the Big East. (I love typing that, it’s so absurd.)
Boise State would eventually renege on their agreement and the Big East was pissed. They sued Boise, requiring them to pay a $5 million exit fee. Boise filed a countersuit, arguing that the Big East they agreed to join no longer existed. It had a chance to get pretty ugly, but the suits were eventually dropped with Boise agreeing to pay a $2.3 million exit fee.
Meanwhile, the Big East made no effort to keep San Diego State in the fold. They were just like, “Nah, we’re good.”
In reality, Madison was actually a very influential figure in American history. He wrote the Bill of Rights, was known as the Father of the Constitution, and served as the fourth POTUS. The real version of Madison is a more fair comparison for the Aztecs. Their football team has won three Mountain West titles and the basketball team has been the most successful MW program by a considerable margin.
Philip Hamilton • UNLV Rebels
I had a hard time coming up with a good comparison for UNLV. Philip Hamilton was Alexander Hamilton’s son and UNLV is 50-115 all-time in the Mountain West, so that makes them the conference’s son? I guess?
Like I said, I had a hard time with UNLV football and I’m reaching here.
The Bullet • New Mexico Lobos
On first look, The Bullet just seems like an extra but she plays an important role in the musical. Everyone The Bullet interacts with dies. Reminds me a bit of the New Mexico athletics in the Mountain West: everything they touches dies.
Rocky Long “steps down” as football coach and goes on to build a juggernaut at San Diego State. Mike Locksley comes next and starts punching coaches, harassing female staff members (allegedly), and losing a shit ton of football games (2-26). Athletic Director Paul Krebs has a scandal of his own, embezzling $64,000 for a golf trip to Scotland for him, his family, and his buddies. He faced five felonies for stealing the money and trying to destroy the evidence. FIVE FELONIES!
They replace Locksley with Bob Davie, a TV announcer who wanted to run the option, but not really. Davie eventually gets suspended over allegations of assaulting players, obstructing a rape allegation, and frequently making racist comments.
Meanwhile, the once proud basketball program becomes a shell of its former self with lots of losing and multiple player suspensions. At one point a suspended player actually sued the university. A remodeled Pit can’t even re-open without fire alarms going off.
I could go on, but you get the point. Everything New Mexico touches dies (like their men’s soccer, beach volleyball, and skiing teams).
Angelica Shuyler • Gonzaga Bulldogs
The true object of our affection. The one that got away. Nothing was more exciting than those couple of days where it looked like Gonzaga basketball was moving to the Mountain West.
“The conversation lasted two minutes Maybe three minutes Everything we said in total agreement It’s a dream and it’s a bit of a dance A bit of a posture, it’s a bit of a stance He’s a bit of a flirt, but I’m ‘a give it a chance”
You’ll never be Satisfied in the West Coast Conference, Gonzaga! Join us!
…and Peggie! • Hawaii Rainbow Warriors
The forgotten Shuyler sister is the forgotten Mountain West team.
The Mountain West consists of 11 schools that compete in 18 NCAA sanctioned sports… and Hawaii!
The Mountain West just signed a new TV contract that will pay each school $4 million a year to televise football and basketball games on CBS and Fox… not Hawaii!
There you have it, the Mountain West as characters from Hamilton. Apologies to Air Force, I couldn’t think of anything for you. The British Navy, I guess?
Florian McCann • Offensive Line • Redshirt Sophomore • Denver, CO
So far: McCann is not only a Colorado RecruitTM, but he’s the best type of Colorado RecruitTM: top football program (Mullen) and no other reported FBS offers (chip on his shoulder!) McCann redshirted his first year in Fort Collins and then saw the field once against UNLV in his Redshirt Freshman season.
What’s next: His recruiting profiles list him as a tackle, but if I remember correctly the plan was for McCann to play center or guard. If that’s the case, playing time might be tough to find in 2020, but you never know with a new staff coming in, everyone has a fresh start.
Brewery nearest to Mullen High School: Boggy Draw Brewery
Strange, I’ve never been to Mullen High School and I didn’t know it was that far west and that far south. I used to work in the area and I also had no idea Boggy Draw Brewery even existed. Was I missing out? Let’s take a look at the Yelp reviews:
Lowest Yelp Review for Boggy Draw Brewery:
This place has been open since 2015 and no one-star reviews yet, pretty good! “The I” thought their beers were “flat and warmish”. Is he describing his beers or my date last Saturday night? HELLO!! ZING!!
(I’m actually married and don’t go on dates, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make an incredible joke like that. It also got me thinking, do people actually go on dates any more during These Uncertain TimesTM? What a terrible time to be single.)
I love how “The I” antagonizes the reader with his last sentence: You may like it, but we won’t be back. Well screw you, “The I”, I do what I want.
Ranking Every Game of the Mike Bobo Era, #39 2019 Toledo, The Two-Hand Touch Game
Final Score: Colorado State 35, Toledo 41
Line: Colorado State +6.5
Venue: Canvas Stadium
When the home-and-home with Toledo was announced in 2016, I wasn’t the biggest fan. Year-in and year-out, Toledo is usually the most dangerous team in the MAC, typically winning 9 games a year and putting up a ton of points. Since we don’t recruit Ohio, what was the point of this series? Wouldn’t a series with a CUSA or Sun Belt team serve as a better opportunity to get us in front of our recruits? (This series is my only critique of Joe Parker’s scheduling record, he’s nailed everything else.)
Anyway, by the time 2019 rolled around, this version of Toledo was a lot less threatening. They would end up going 6-6 and stay home for bowl season. Definitely a game CSU had no business losing.
The game was super frustrating as the effort seemed to be missing on the defensive side of the ball. I call it the Two-Hand Touch Game, because even if we were playing two-hand touch rules, Toledo still would have ran up the score.
Look at this, untouched:
(It gets worse.)
Untouched.
(It gets worse.)
and then…
One-hand touch! We’re improving!
Bah, no one-hand touch this time, we’re regressing.
Fortunately, Toledo’s defense was equally as horrendous and huge games from Marvin Kinsey (246 yards, 2 TDs) and Warren Jackson (12 catches, 132 yards, and a TD) kept us in the game.
We also had this near miss Hail Mary right before the half that felt like it encapsulated the entire Mike Bobo era:
Of course he gets tackled at the one because apparently we’re not allowed to have nice things.
That play would foreshadow the end of the game. A late Toledo field goal put CSU down 6 with 31 seconds left in the game. Patrick O’Brien drove the Rams to the Toledo 35, but the drive kinda stalled there. A couple plays later, the Rams are at the Toledo 25 with 2 seconds left. Hail Mary time:
This is a “throw your remote against the wall and take a walk around the block with your hands on top of your head” type of ending. Brutal.
No full replay exists for this game, just a highlight video:
It's Always Sonny in Fort Collins 