CSU Football’s offense was offensive in 2022.
In all honesty, the Rams were repugnant when they had the ball, as their 13.2 points per game were 129th of 131 teams in the Football Bowl Series. Wildly, Colorado State didn’t score 20 points in a single game last year, Jay Norvell’s first with the school.
But the notably bad numbers don’t stop there, as Tom Fornelli pointed out on Friday:
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) June 30, 2023
What these “Finish Them” charts show is the rate of teams getting into the red zone on the X axis, and red zone scoring on the Y axis. The Rams were by far the worst in FBS, getting into the red zone only about 20 percent of the time. And then, once they got there, only scored about 20 percent of the time, too.
Ironically, it looks like the Mountain West Conference was the worst offensive conference in all of college football last year, with the Wyoming Cowboys, New Mexico Lobos, San Diego State Aztecs, and Utah State Aggies all coming in among the Rams in the bottom 10 of the greater five conferences.
Similary, the CU Buffs weren’t much better, as the second-worst in the power five schools:
Lot of "bend and then break" defense in the Pac-12 last year pic.twitter.com/FXbwWVOHPX
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) June 30, 2023
The Buffs also only made it into the red zone about 20 percent of the time, but when they did, at least they scored 50 percent of the time. However, they were up against some of the best red zone offenses in the country in USC, Utah, Oregon, Washington and UCLA all making the top-10.
But back to CSU; the good news is they hired an offensive head coach in Norvell. And he was in a tough spot last year, bringing over a handful of players from Nevada while not having a full compliment of players in terms of his first recruiting class.
And the players that were here were brought to Fort Collins by the former coach Steve Addazio, who employed a run-heavy offense.
The air raid certainly benefitted star wide receiver Tory Horton, but not many others.
This year, Norvell is set to bring in around 50 players, including speedy running back Damian Henderson, among many other offensive playmakers.
During CSU’s Green and Gold Game in April, quarterback Clay Millen and the Rams offensive line stepped up. That was good news considering how much of a weak point the line was last year.
Others on offense who shone were tight ends Jordan Williams and Dallin Holker as well as receiver Vince Brown, who hauled in a pretty, one-handed touchdown.
Colorado State looks to get their offense going early this year as they host Washington State on Saturday, Sept. 2 with a 5 p.m. MT kickoff at Canvas Stadium. The Cougars made the red zone just north of 30 percent of the time, but they scored more than 70 percent when they got within the 20 last year. It will be interesting to see if CSU can keep pace with WSU in Week 1.