Rams’ offense better but still comes up short in flash, grit

FORT COLLINS» Efficiency can be interpreted different ways.

For instance, Colorado State’s offense isn’t bad on third down, converting 42 percent of the time. In the red zone, the Rams rank fourth in the Mountain West at 88.9 percent, with 14 touchdowns in 18 trips. That all looks pretty good.

But the bottom line is on the scoreboard, where CSU ranks 10th in scoring offense at 25.3 points per game in the conference.

In the end, the Rams don’t appear to be all that efficient, which is coach Mike Bobo’s point. For him, it’s a stepbystep process to become the offense he expects.

They finally produced a run game last week, and that will help bring balance. When an offense has balance, there’s a better chance to be explosive. The offense hits that point, then efficiency can truly be achieved, with an asterisk.

A team has to be fully vested in the playbook.

“We haven’t really had a run game, and it’s kind of hard when you’ve been onedimensional to be explosive,” Bobo explained. “We haven’t been efficient enough throwing the ball to be explosive. I think if we get that balance, I think we’ve got a chance to be explosive as the year goes on. I like some things we’re doing this week, I like some things we did last week. We’re just ... There’s not really ... You can’t call really everything in our playbook yet. You’re limited in some things, and that makes things harder for you offensively for you to be as efficient as you need to be.”

Even last week, when CSU put up 28 points in the first half against San Jose State, there was a feeling of loss. Lost chances and lost points. The four scoring drives were great, and the touchdowns all came on redzone passes.

But there were other drives that were left for dead. In the final 30 minutes, the third quarter became the dead zone and the fourth quarter produced one good drive.

“That was the overall feeling in the offensive locker room,” offensive tackle Barry Wesley said. “That was a great win, but we left points on the board. We can’t do that. We have to capitalize on all the opportunities that we get to score. I felt that would have been the height of our offense.”

Bobo was encouraged with the fact the Rams proved they could grind out a long drive, doing it twice against the Spartans, going 87 yards in 12 plays and 83 yards in 11. He’s also seen his offense go south too many times this year, be it penalties, missed throws or dropped passes, where the momentum lost is selfinflicted.

Being explosive eliminates the chance for mistakes, and while the team sits 31st nationally in plays of 10 yards or longer, plays of 20, 30, or 40 yards have been harder to come by. In Saturday’s win, the big gain was a 32yard throw on a free play.

“We were pretty efficient that we were able to drive the length of the field and get four touchdowns in the first half. I loved what we did at the end of the second quarter when we scored a touchdown and then scored another touchdown right before half,” Bobo said. “We were definitely efficient in the red zone, but we’re not efficient enough in our passing game.”