Strike 3: Fall camps start soon, and the only returning quarterback among the state’s big three college football schools (there will be a new starter at Colorado and projected Air Force starter Josh Johnson started one game in 2024) is Colorado State’s Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi. He’ll have the brightest spotlight all to himself, at least for the preseason.
Last year at this time, all eyes were on then-Heisman candidate Shedeur Sanders at the University of Colorado. The attention was justified as Sanders was named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year in leading CU to a bowl game before turning pro. Meanwhile, Fowler-Nicolosi, coming off an attention grabbing redshirt freshman season, was making the wrong kind of headlines. After telling people that Kansas State had tried to poach him away from the Rams during the offseason (K-State people strongly refuted the claim) he made some inflammatory comments about the Buffs prior to the season that ended up going viral. The Buffs were none too pleased, and none of that ended well for CSU.
Then, after having a big campaign in 2023 (3,460 passing yards and 22 TD’s) Fowler-Nicolosi’s 2024 numbers dipped. A shift in offensive philosophy by head coach Jay Norvell – away from the all out passing attack in favor of a run-heavy scheme – limited BFN’s opportunities to throw the football.
On the plus side, his turnovers were way down last season (he had five fumbles and 16 interceptions in 2023) but so was his productivity through the air. The sophomore had 90 fewer pass attempts, averaged roughly 70 fewer passing yards per game, and threw just 14 touchdown passes.
However, the nine interceptions was a big improvement, and his quarterback rating held pretty steady (132.6 in ’23 to 129.5 in ’24.) His yards per pass attempt were identical at 7.4.
Most importantly, the Rams won eight games and made a bowl game for the first time since 2017.
So this year, the question going in will be what kind of offense CSU will roll out against the Washington Huskies on Aug. 30. Will it be the same somewhat conservative, ground-based attack that helped get them to a bowl game last season, or will Norvell go back to his favored “air raid” concepts and let his big armed QB show his stuff?
Most importantly, how will the junior QB handle things either way?
Norvell gutted his defensive coaching staff after last season, and it became clear that the control-the-clock offensive approach was implemented to help cover for a defense that the head coach was less than confident in. Now, with a new defensive coordinator in Tyson Summers – who returned to Fort Collins after having served as the Rams DC under head coach Mike Bobo back in 2015 – Ram fans are hoping there will be more confidence in the defense and that they can see a few more pigskins flying through the air.
While it’s doubtful that Norvell or Fowler-Nicolosi will come right out and answer that question prior to taking the field in Seattle, there’s no doubt that having been through two full seasons as the starter, and having experience doing things both ways, the Texas high school product should be ready for anything.
There was no mention of Fowler-Nicolosi leaving Fort Collins during this past offseason. The commitment to see things through at CSU seems to be in place (although there is no such thing as any college football player being 100% “committed” to a single school anymore) and having a veteran under center who is familiar with how the coaches want things done is more uncommon than normal in the college game anymore. And it should be an advantage.
CSU followers are hoping that Year 3 of the Norvell-BFN combination will pay dividends in the Rams final season in the Mountain West conference. Winning their first conference title since Sonny Lubick was on the sidelines way back in 2002 would be a great way to go out.
