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New Rams Coordinators Dealing With Unknowns Heading Into Season Opener
Plenty Of Concerns With Bobo Out
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More Questions Than Answers Heading Into Start Of Season For Colorado State
With head coach Mike Bobo currently sidelined with peripheral neuropathy and their home opener a little over a week away, questions mount for a Colorado State Rams team that finished 7-6 a year ago. If Bobo doesn’t return, who calls the plays? Can K.J. Carta-Samuels find execute the offense without Bobo on the sidelines? Will the defense improve under a new defensive coordinator?
Before the bowl game against Marshall, Mike Bobo new he would be looking for two new coordinators. Defensive coordinator Marty English had already announced his retirement and offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Will Friend had decamped for Tennessee to work with his old college roommate in new Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt. Dave Johnson and John Jancek filled the rolls of offensive and defensive coordinator. Now they are on their own going into game week.
Mike Bobo has called the plays since he has arrived at Colorado State. One would imagine that the handoff of those duties to Will Friend would be pretty fluid but with Dave Johnson in his first year, there is no history to rely on.
Sprinkle in a new quarterback behind a new center and only four returning starters on offense and there is enough there to make any Rams fan a little bit nervous heading into the opener against Hawaii.
On the defensive side of the ball, John Jancek has big game experience but has only five returning starters. Early in the season defenses are usually ahead of the offenses but the concern here is game management. If Bobo doesn’t make it back for the first game, who steps in to manage the game? Who allocates timeouts, etc?
As the first game of the season approaches, there are a lot of unknowns. Most will be alleviated if Mike Bobo can make it back to the sidelines for Colorado State’s game against Hawaii. If he can’t, then we won’t know the answers to these questions until after the kickoff.