What’s the biggest difference between the CSU team that opened the 2017 season with a resounding 58-27 victory over Oregon State and the one that suffered a disheartening 44-7 loss to Colorado last year to kick off the season? Toughness. Specifically, mental toughness according to CSU Head Coach Mike Bobo.
Bobo joined The Big Show on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 Wednesday ahead of the 2017 Rocky Mountain Showdown against Colorado, explaining the growth he has seen in his team since that difficult loss to the Buffs last year. Last Saturday’s big victory over another Pac-12 team to open CSU’s new on-campus stadium, showed the mental toughness Bobo’s Rams carry into the Showdown this year.
“It didn’t surprise me, but it’s something we’ve been talking about and harping on since last year is our mental toughness,” Bobo said. “Our ability to handle some adversity. Our ability to handle things when they aren’t going great. And I was extremely proud of our football team, because you had a test on Saturday [against Oregon State]. One, you had a lot of pressure coming into that game with the expectations of needing to play well and win that game, quite frankly. And you’re playing a good opponent that’s got good players and good speed and we were tested early. It was back and forth. Even though we were winning the first half, I believe it was 24-20, I mean they had 49 snaps and like 360 yards of offense, but we didn’t fold defensively. We didn’t fold as a football team. We played hard for 60 minutes, and I think we held them to something like 120 yards in the second half and created four turnovers. And I was really proud of our defense that day. Because we’ve been good at times, but we have been good when things have been going good. When things haven’t been good, or haven’t been clicking on defense we’ve kind of gone the other way. We didn’t do that Saturday. You never know until you play a game, until you really get tested, how you’re going to respond. We’ve been talking about it, trying to put them in those situations, and they were in that situation Saturday and [I’m] real proud of how they responded and just kept playing.”
Leading the way for Colorado is senior quarterback Nick Stevens, who had a dreadful start to the Rocky Mountain Showdown and the 2016 season as a whole.
Stevens was 6-for-20 as the starter, but did not last the entirety of the game. He was pulled after throwing a pair of interceptions and passing for just 31 total yards in last year’s Showdown. He lost his job through the next five weeks before eventually reassuming the starting role and leading the Rams to four wins over the final five games.
While Bobo knows that Stevens by nature will come out with something to prove, but wants his quarterback to remember what made them successful to end the season, not what happened in last year’s Showdown.
“It’s human nature,” Bobo said. “You know, you don’t perform well, that you want to go out and perform in your next opportunity. And what he’s got to realize is, he performed well when his opportunity came again later last year. This isn’t the next game from that game. He’s grown so much and improved since then, he doesn’t need to change what he’s been doing up to this point just because of the game last year against CU. I think he realizes that he wasn’t the only reason we didn’t play well offensively. We got handled in all three phases. In every area, offense, defense and special teams; it wasn’t just the quarterback position. And he’s grown, the players around him have grown and everybody’s got to realize that we we’ve grown through what we did. Not trying to change what we’re going to do or our thought process because of what we did a year ago. So much has happened since then. Let’s build on what we’ve done since that game, not that game.”
Another strong leader in the Rams’ locker room is senior Deonte Clyburn. The linebacker missed all of the 2016 season being treated for blood clots. After being cleared to resume football activities in March, Clyburn learned in late August that the clots had returned and he would have to undergo ongoing treatment. Despite the setback, Clyburn remains a huge part of the CSU defense and one of the catalysts for the positive attitude in the locker room.
“Attitude is great. Attitude is awesome,” Bobo said of Clyburn. “Attitude is better than what mine would be. You know, kids really show you a lot sometimes of who you are and how you would handle situations. I mean, I just think about Nick Stevens last year and how he handled his situation. He was a tremendous, good teammate to everybody else and it kind of wakes you up. These kids, I’ve got good kids on this football team, and Deonte Clybourne’s another one of those guys that’s been through a tremendous amount, fought his way back. Extremely excited. A guy that’s truly passionate about football and his team, and then it gets taken away again. It was a sad day. Before we even got the tests back, he knew the blood clots were back and it was one of those that all you can do it put your arm around him and tell him you love him and you’re going to be there for him. He’s at every meeting. He’s helping Coach English on game days. He just wants to be a part. He comes up to me Sunday night, we split up and watched offense and defense. He went and watched the offense, ‘Y’all could have done this…’ I mean he’s into it. I love the kid. I love his passion. He’s going to be great. His passion is to be a football player, like all these guys, is to play at the next level. But if that never comes, he’s going to be great at what ever he does because he’s got passion for what he does and he loves people and he just loves being around the guys.”
Bobo has a challenge on his hands in that his team played on Saturday and must turn around and face an even tougher opponent on a neutral site only six days later. He says the energy of the Showdown will help lift his team, but he’s especially proud of the way they have responded with a workmanlike effort ahead of this year’s game.
“It helps that we’re playing CU. It helps that it’s a rivalry game,” Bobo said. “It helps there’s going to be 70,000 people in the stands, and hopefully our guys feel the same way I do in that we started out in January that we’re going to make this season special. Certain standard of how we do everything, and that standard includes, win or lose, after you finish a game you go back to work and you control what you can control during the week. That’s part of being mature, that’s part of having some leadership and I like what I have seen so far this week through the physical part of practices. Being mature, not crying about, ‘Hey we just had a game and we didn’t get a day off.’ Because we didn’t have a day off. They come to work and now the next two days is a lot of mental preparation, little bit of pads stuff tomorrow. But that’s how you handle it. You just go back to work and focus on yourself, focus on what you need to correct, because there are a lot of things that we need to improve on. And you gotta be mature. Because everybody’s patting you on the back. Everybody’s telling you how great you looked, how awesome the day was. You get a lot of people patting you on the back and we’ve got to be mature enough to come back and realize we’ve got a bigger challenge this week in playing the Buffaloes.”
Bobo does have one minor gripe about the showdown, however. While he says that CU having home-field advantage at a neutral site doesn’t matter, he’s not sure why his team has to bake in the sun every year at the Showdown.
“I don’t think [home field] matters. The one thing I don’t understand is, we’ve been here three years and we’re on the same sideline every time. I haven’t figured that one out. I keep asking. We were over there in the sun, and then their press box looks at our sideline. That’s not to say anybody does anything like this, but you’re looking at signals. When I asked that first question when I first got here it was, ‘Well, it’s so the fans can know where their seats are, so we’re going to keep them on the same side every year.’ And I’m like, ‘It says where the seat is on their ticket. I’ve been playing in the Georgia-Florida game every year and you flip. I don’t understand why we’re on one sideline every year.”
Like his team, though, Bobo is staying tough and focusing on the game.
“We’re in the sun. That matters when you’re out there. It does. But it is what it is. We’re going to go play, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity.”
Listen to the full interview with Mike Bobo, including what he told Matt Stafford in a text after the QB signed his big new contract, in the podcast below…
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