CSU football wraps up long season with rivalry loss to Air Force

The ending always felt like it was coming.

A 2-10 record, a fired head coach, a roster held together by whoever could tape up and play and an Air Force team that knows exactly how to squeeze the air out of any afternoon. Friday wasn’t going to fix any of that. But it still said something about the group that kept showing up anyway.

Colorado State football closed its season with a 42-21 loss to AFA, a game that played out like the whole Fall compressed into four quarters. A bad start, a few real breakthroughs, not enough depth or stops to hold onto any of them. It was Senior Day, rivalry day and the last day of an long year that forced players into roles they didn’t expect, coaches into adjustments they didn’t plan for and everyone into something that couldn’t have been predicted.

Earlier in the week, interim head coach Tyson Summers talked about scars, about how hard years teach players how to walk when it isn’t easy. He said the team was learning that same thing too, even if people outside the locker room couldn’t always see it. Friday became a final test of that idea, the last checkpoint before the baton officially passes to new head coach Jim Mora.

The game itself never gave CSU much room to settle. 

AFA opened with a fake punt conversion, then hammered out run after run before a broken tackle turned a simple pass into a 55-yard touchdown. The Falcons didn’t complicate anything, because they didn’t have to and likely didn’t plan to. Instead, they attempted only four passes and ran the ball 67 times in a single game.

By the end of the afternoon they had 316 rushing yards, more than 40 minutes of possession and touchdowns on 6-of-8 drives. They turned the game into exactly the shape they wanted, the same way they’ve done for years in Canvas.

But like so many weeks before, CSU’s offense found something of its own.

Jackson Brousseau managed a fourth down sneak just days after wearing a boot, then played the best game of his season, finishing with 323 passing yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. Tay Lanier added a career high nine receptions, including a 20 yard touchdown. And by the third quarter the Rams trimmed the deficit to 21-14 behind a breakout sequence from Lloyd Avant, who finished with the team’s season-high 135 receiving yards.

And they kept throwing because they had to. 

CSU ran for just 12 yards the whole day, a number that says as much about the season as it does about the matchup. Instead of the steadiness the Rams had established on the ground in the past, the run game continued to fall apart as injuries piled up.

“We were down to like, what one offensive lineman subbing in for one practice,” tight end Rocky Beers said. “Guards were switching to centers. Centers were switching to guards, like we were very thin at one point. And then wide receivers, we had a lot of dudes go out. … I’m really proud about the offense trying to step up where they could.”

That thinness never stopped, and against AFA it caught up fast. 

CSU went 2 for 9 on third down and couldn’t stack enough stops to create more possessions. The Falcons went 11-for-15 on third down and 3-for-3 on fourth, the kind of conversion rates that shut a door in their smashmouth playstyle.

Still, CSU put together a major highlight when Brousseau hit Beers for a touchdown that broke the program’s single season tight end record. Beers said the record meant more because of everything around it, and because teammates pushed him toward it even when the season was falling apart.

“For the offensive side of the ball, we were struggling a lot,” Beers said. “And once people caught wind I was within striking distance of a record, they were really pushing me forward and rallying my corner. And coach (Grant) Chestnut became the (offensive coordinator) and was kind of force feeding me at some points this season, but I was just trying to do as much as I could for this team.”

He said this year didn’t feel like a normal year at all.

That became more or less the identity of the entire roster, as CSU had 50 different starters this year. Summers said he had never seen injuries stack like this in 25 years of coaching. At one point the defense had only four players who’d started every game. Everything else rotated, patched or leaned on someone who didn’t expect to be there in August.

Linebacker Owen Long, who finished Friday as the nation’s leading tackler and one of the brightest spots on the season, said the results weren’t what anyone here expected, but the effort never shifted.

Long said that even when wins stopped coming, pride didn’t.

“I mean, there is stuff to be proud of,” Long said. “And, you know, through all the bad there’s stuff to build on as well. You kind of find out, take a lot of pride in who you are as a man and what type of product you put out. And just continue to keep getting better through the off season now and into next season.”

Summers said the same thing in a different way. After the game he talked about families, support staff, trainers, academic staff, strength coaches, administrators. He barely touched scheme. Barely mentioned the score. He talked about people.

“I asked them when we started six weeks ago to reset and try to reset their hearts and reset their minds and continue to play,” Summers said. “And I think they’ve done that. A lot of teams could have packed it in, and a lot of teams could have continued to not work and continue to have problems and drama. And we had none of that.”

He said these six weeks were the most fun he’s had in a long time, even in a losing season.

“I really believe that success is right around the corner,” Summers said. “I think the CSU football team, what they persevered through, I think that you’re going to see a high level of success in the future.”

For the seniors, Friday wasn’t a clean ending but it was a complete one. They played to the last whistle of a season that gave them every reason to check out.

And now the program shifts. 

CSU showed proof they kept going clearly enough. The next step belongs to someone else now, but the way they finished this one still says something real about who they were, even in a 2-10 year most people will only see on paper.

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Reach Michael Hovey at sports@collegian.com or on social media @michaelfhovey.