Goliath is not at all easy to take down.

And Colorado State football found that out pretty quickly during their 41-23 loss to No. 11 BYU on Saturday night.

After starting their season 2-0 with wins over Wyoming and Southern Utah, the Rams were unable to keep pace with the explosiveness of one of the best teams in the nation in the Cougars. CSU starting quarterback Hauss Hejny left the game in the late stages of the first quarter with an apparent hamstring injury, and K’saan Farrar took over at the helm.

From there especially, the Rams were unable to keep up.

Hope for quarterback health

The biggest storyline of the game doesn’t necessarily come from what happened all throughout — but rather the injury to the starter Hejny. On the second Rams’ offensive possession of the game, Hejny came up limp after a third-down play and got checked in the medical tent.

He played in the next CSU drive, but then on the following one, he stood on the sideline with his helmet off. Head coach Jim Mora said on the CBS broadcast that it was a hamstring injury for Hejny. He did not return the rest of the game.

To make matters worse, Farrar got hurt with 14:12 left in the fourth quarter, leading to the third-string QB Darius Curry finishing out the rest of the game. Curry is currently up next in the depth chart if Hejny and Farrar’s injuries were to be serious enough to force them to miss time.

For CSU, the long-term health of Hejny matters more than anything in a long season, as he is the biggest factor of a Rams’ offense that has been explosive when he plays.

His ability or inability to play in the coming weeks may have a large effect on the rest of season outlook for CSU.

Tackling issues for the defense

CSU’s defense was in for a long night after BYU running back LJ Martin took a simple handoff on the second play of the game 56 yards to the end zone — where he should have been taken down after gaining five yards.

Martin broke multiple tackles en route to the goal line where CSU defenders simply could not wrap up the ball carrier; and that did not stop the rest of the night.

All game, where the Rams had chances to stop BYU playmakers from getting extra yards, they simply could not. Time after time, the Cougars continued to add three, four, five or more yards after first contact, and those added up quickly.

The Cougars were moving the ball all-night with ease, and CSU not being able to simply bring down ball-carriers contributed heavily to that.

Blown defensive coverages lead to chunk plays

A big story in the first half was the Cougars simultaneously going on sustained drives while making them snappy with big plays. Most of those big plays came from miscommunication in the CSU secondary that led to a wide open area of green grass for BYU to take advantage of.

BYU had six plays of 20+ yards — which included a 70-yard pass from Bear Bachmeier to Legend Glasker as well as Martin’s 56-yard score — and those mainly came from CSU defensive breakdowns.

All through the night, the Rams safeties and cornerbacks were not on the same page in zone coverages, and a disciplined ranked team will always make a team pay for those mistakes.

Conservative playcalling post-Hejny injury

Farrar replaced the injured Hejny with 51 seconds left in the first quarter, down 21-7 following a BYU scoring drive. That drive stalled and ended in a CSU punt, while the offensive drive after was a combination of six straight runs to bring up another punt.

CSU’s offense thus far this season has been full of explosive plays and high scoring outputs. Scoring 23 points — the most of which came in garbage time — in this matchup and playcalling consisting of mostly runs and screen passes set up the Rams to have an even lesser chance of coming back after Hejny left the game.

If Hejny and Farrar were to miss any time with their respective injuries, the big question will be how offensive coordinator Pryce Tracy decides to gameplan with a new quarterback from the one who started in the season opener.

Don’t let the loss define the season

The Cougars are the No. 11 team in the country for a reason.

They made each and every scoring drive look effortless against a Rams defense that had many hiccups throughout the night. There will be definite learning moments for both sides of the ball in the film study — but nothing that should make CSU rethink their identity.

The team showed in weeks one and two that they are explosive on both sides of the ball. From deep passing touchdows, to peanut punch forced fumbles and everything in between, the talent is still there.

While the inury to Hejny — the star of the show for CSU in the early season — certainly delivers a brutal blow to the mojo that the Rams had in the first two games, Mora’s constant repetition of the next-man up mentality and only worrying about themselves will have to stand tall as the Rams prepare for their first road matchup against UTSA in week four.