CSU Rams vs. No. 8 Michigan: Jay Norvell era begins on the road at The Big House

When Jay Norvell first met his new Colorado State team, he had a few statistics to share with them.

They all had to do with the Rams’ performance in the second half of the last five seasons, but the message was clear.

“Overall the last five years, CSU is 8-21 in the last 6 games [of the season], 5-7 in home games, 3-13 in road games,” Norvell said. “I started that way with our football team because obviously I was hired and our coaching staff and our current staff have to ask the question why. Why hasn’t our team had more success, especially in the second half of the season? Football is about responding to adversity, it’s about accountability and we’ve always had teams that have improved and gotten better the more that they’ve practiced.”

Safe to say he doesn’t want his team peaking in Week 1.

And given the opponent, that would be hard to do anyway.

Norvell’s first game with the Rams is against one of the final four teams standings from last season, No. 8 Michigan and it comes in one of the toughest environments in the country –– in front of 110,000 fans at the Big House.

Here are three storylines heading into the Rams’ season opener:

A ranked test in Game 1

Future nonconference schedules are rarely ever enough to deter a coach from taking a job, but Norvell couldn’t have been too thrilled when he saw the reigning Big Ten champions were the first team he’d have to face with a team still trying to get to know each other.

But at this point, after a long training camp, Norvell just wants to see his team play a football game, regardless of the opponent.

“We have found out as much about this team as we can without playing games,” Norvell said. “Obviously Week 1, we’re going to play an outstanding team. They were the Big Ten champions a year ago, really strong in all three phases. They’re an established strong football team under Jim Harbaugh in his seventh year. I think that’s the strength of their offense. Defensively, they gave up 17 points a game last year. Really excited about the opportunity and the challenge to go to Ann Arbor and start our ‘22 season.”

Sure, Norvell and the Rams would love to shock the college football world and pull off an upset, but this is a big chance to learn about themselves.

“I just think it’s about us,” Norvell said. “I’m less worried about Michigan than I am our own football team. For us, it’s about establishing how we like to play. We want to play great, physical defense. Offensively, we want to get all of our skill players involved, protect the football and be able to execute and get in the scoring zone and score points. It’s more about establishing how we want to play and less about the magnitude of playing in a great stadium and against a top 10 team.”

Millen time

Norvell had plenty of success in his last two seasons at Nevada and a lot of that had to do with the strong quarterback play he got from Carson Strong, who won back-to-back Mountain West Player of the Year awards.

Now the player who was Strong’s backup last year is the starter at CSU –– redshirt freshman Clay Millen.

FORT COLLINS — Jay Norvell walked into the Colorado State football facilities after Sunday morning mass a few weeks ago and found one player in the building watching film — Clay Millen.

Both Millen and Strong are tall, strong-armed quarterbacks and there’s potential for Millen to have just as much success, if not more. It all starts Saturday, which will be a major learning experience for a young QB.

“We had Carson for so long as a starter and it’s interesting [to see] the personality of the guy when you’re with him everyday in meetings and on the field and you see all his little mannerisms,” Norvell said. “[Millen’s] been through a lot in these last two years and just his experiences of being around Carson has helped him. He’s at the point now where he needs that game experience with his playmakers so he can learn from it.”

A first time for everything

This will be the Rams’ first time in program history with a game in Ann Arbor and will likely be the largest crowd the team has ever played in front of. The team’s two trips to Alabama in 2013 and 2017 each had over 100,000 people in attendance, but there will almost certainly be close to 110,000 fans at Michigan Stadium on Saturday.

This will also be the first time that this new group will take the field together. There’s 59 new players in the program this year, some came with Norvell from Nevada, others from a variety of places. Now it’s time to find out what the identity they’ve molded looks like.

“It’s a new football team,” Norvell said. “The attitude of this team is going to be very important. Our leadership needs to understand that if we want to be different then we’ve gotta do things differently. Winners do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Those kids are doing that right now.”