Jay Norvell showed them the Mumme. It’s time for CSU to show him the door.
It’s hard to say. But Heaven help us, it’s harder to watch.
The Rams, 1-4 on the page but 0-5 in our heads after a 45-24 shellacking at San Diego State late Friday night, have run out of buttons to push.
There are no more cards to play. No more deck chairs to shuffle.
Norvell benched Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, his franchise quarterback.
Same Rams.
Norvell handed the play-calling sheet to longtime confidant Matt Mumme.
Same Rams.
CSU football is in a far better place than it was in 2021 — for six days a week.
But that seventh day is gameday. And it’s not just unacceptable right now. It’s borderline untenable.
Sean Lewis’ Aztecs managed all of six points and zero touchdowns at Northern Illinois — future Mountain West member and CSU replacement — last weekend.
Against the Rams, they’d piled up 45 points with 10:21 still left on the clock. The Aztecs could’ve scored 50 if they wanted to.
Norvell has 14 months left on a contract that ends next December. Every week since the Northern Colorado win, gifted by a dubious reversal of a Bears TD, has felt as if athletic director John Weber was merely delaying the inevitable.
Norvell can’t recruit on an expiring deal. CSU can’t extend him with the alumni and fan base bordering on open revolt over what they’ve witnessed this past month. It’s become FoCo’s biggest game of chicken, with CSU faithful riding shotgun to nowhere.
Norvell was hired in December 2021 to be everything his predecessor, Steve Addazio, wasn’t. Classy. Respectful. Successful. Throw the ball. Dominate Wyoming and Air Force. Beat CU again.
In Year 4, he’s ticked two of those six boxes, and they’re the first two. The off-field two. Which is what makes the continual on-field failures, the continual on-field disappointments, harder for Weber. Harder for everybody.
The future of CSU football is in limbo. The present is backsliding into a gorge of apathy. All of the best arguments to retain Norvell have been taking on water for a fortnight.
Conventional wisdom says the Rams can’t afford a full-scale rebuild in Year 1 of a meatier, nastier Pac-12 next year. Yet the eye test says they’ve already peaked.
With Friday night’s loss, Norvell is now 3-9 at CSU against future members of the Pac-12. Washington State and SDSU just outscored the Rams by a margin of 65-27.
Ask yourself this: What about the last two weekends — or the last five — makes you think the Rams are ready for a conference where SDSU is the norm and not the exception?
The penalties. The turnovers. The silly, self-inflicted wounds, week after week. Still, the most damning failure of Norvell’s offense — and, indeed, his program — is how the engine refuses to turn over without a quarterback.
Plan A, BFN, looks ready to hit the reset button. Plan B, Jackson Brousseau, had 69 passing yards midway through the third quarter. And 49 of those came on CSU’s only first-half touchdown, a high-arcing flea-flicker to an Armani Winfield so wide open that Bo Nix couldn’t miss him. Probably.
Brousseau’s other five completions netted a total of (checks notes) … 20 yards. Man, we’re getting Patrick O’Brien vibes again.
Yes, injuries have gremlin-ed this coaching staff’s best intentions. But the gap in pace and athleticism between Lewis’ Aztecs and Norvell’s Rams was alarming.
And, yes, the heart of CSU’s defense has been ripped out, piece by piece, with the absence of linebacker Jacob Ellis and linemen Gabe Jones and Mukendi Wa-Kalonji. Defensive coordinator Tyson Summers has been blitzing to cover up the cracks, only for the foundation to crumble away.
Whenever CSU sent an extra rusher at Jayden Denegal, the SDSU QB read the danger immediately and found an open pair of hands effortlessly.
CSU ran with the Aztecs the way Mines would run with the Aztecs — trailing by two steps. If SDSU wideout Jordan Napier was zipping up the boundary, they trailed by three or four.
Napier did to the Rams what a healthy Tory Horton did to everybody else. By halftime, the sophomore had piled up 136 receiving yards and a score, with 61 of those coming on the back-breaking 41-second drive that gave the hosts a 28-10 lead at the break.
The only part of the first half that went worse than the end for the Rams was the beginning. CSU launched its Mumme Era with:
• A WR screen that Jordan Ross turned into a 6-yard loss.
• A botched center-QB exchange that sailed past Brousseau, only for the signal-caller to hurry back, retrieve the rock, and somehow throw it away.
• A Brousseau 2-yard scramble on third-and-16.
Three plays. Minus-4 yards. Ninety-one seconds that nobody ever gets back.
Wazzu made the Rams look small. SDSU made them look slow.
CSU’s 0-2 in the Pac-12. Guy Fieri was spotted on the sidelines at Snapdragon Stadium under those Friday night lights. The Aztecs, to paraphrase the celebrity chef, didn’t just shut the front door. They locked the back door. Then they boarded up the windows. All with the Rams still trapped inside.
If that’s a taster of what’s to come, CSU fans are going to start throwing entrees against the wall. Or, worse yet, eat somewhere that doesn’t leave them feeling sick to their stomachs when the check arrives.
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