Colorado State’s (2-4, 0-2 Mountain West) football team suffered a 41-10 dismantling Saturday night against conference powerhouse No. 25 Boise State (5-1, 2-0 MW). 

(Video by Eric Wolf CTV 11 Sports) 

Dealing with adversity

“It’s a big gut-check, and I expect out of everybody that’s involved in the football program to come to work,” CSU head coach Mike Bobo said. “Life’s not easy. Things aren’t getting to you on the timeline like you’d want. … We’ve got to regroup and we’ve got to play out the season.”

The Broncos came into the game as the AP poll’s no. 25 ranked team in the nation, and proved why in all three phases of the game.

“They’re a good defensive football team, we knew it was going to be a struggle all game to move the football and we wanted to try to establish the run … and we weren’t able to do that,” Bobo said.

Giving Boise State its due

Rams’ starting quarterback Nick Stevens also took notice of the Broncos’ defensive prowess.

“They are a great defense, you’ve definitely got to give credit to them,” Stevens said. “They are talented and disciplined on both sides of the ball, but their defense specifically was really good at creating turnovers and not really letting up any big, explosive plays.”

The Broncos were stout on the other side of ball Saturday, too. Lead by freshman quarterback Brett Rypien, the Broncos offense had the Rams on their heels all night.

“You have to give him credit,” sophomore linebacker Kiel Robinson said. “I think he came out and played very well against us, you never really see that with a true freshman so you have to give him all of the credit.”

Rypien finished the night 22-of-35 with 339 yards, one touchdown and an interception.

“He did a really great job,” Stevens said. “He came out quick and was able to move the ball on offense, didn’t make very many mistakes, and had one pass to their running back down on their sideline that was perfect placement. I’m really impressed with him and I thought he did a great job.”

The bright spots

Rypien’s only big mistake of the game came in the third quarter, when he was picked off by senior safety Nick Januska.

“We rolled cover three and I dropped down and I didn’t actually even see the ball coming, that’s why it hit me in the chest,” Januska said. “Right when I snapped my head back around I got it and I thought I was going to be able to break the tackle and advance the ball a little bit more but he brought me down.”

Unlike Boise State’s high octane offense, CSU struggled to get momentum going throughout the whole night.

“You’ve got to give Boise State credit, they were the better football team,” Bobo said. “We had a chance to grab momentum a couple times in the game but couldn’t do it and they were more consistent, made more plays, and out executed us all night.”

Boise State head coach Bryan Harsin was pleased with the way his defense handled CSU’s offense and playmakers.

“They made a few plays,” Harsin said. “They’ve got arguably the best wide receiver in our conference, and our guys did a great job against him. We played a really good team.”

The big loss may cause some teams to throw in the towel and coast through the rest of the season, but the Rams have the character and leadership to keep fighting.

“I think we’ve got a ton of competitors on this team so we’re going to take that and let it define us,” Stevens said. “We’re going to come back and get as many wins as we can and play every game like we can win it. We’ve just bit ourselves in the rear, shot ourselves in the foot a couple times this year and we’ve just got to quit doing that.”

Getting back to work

Senior offensive lineman Sam Carlson was ready to get right back to start improving, and prepare for next week’s match up with Boise State.

“We will be ready to just come to work everyday,” Carlson said. “That’s all you can really do at this point, so just like the coaches have said, we’re just going to come get better every day as a team.”

The Rams aren’t pleased with their results thus far in the season, but they can at least go into practice Monday knowing they left everything on the field against an opponent that the whole team – and country – respects.

“They are a good team, and they have been since we’ve played them,” junior linebacker Kevin Davis said. “They are a well coached team, they have good players and they came out and played hard tonight. They gave it their best against us.”

Collegian Football Reporter Geoff Huebner can be reached by email at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter @Huebnermedia93.