By Adam Beadle
Multimedia Specialist
The Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl isn’t unfamiliar territory for Colorado State and head coach Jay Norvell.
The Rams were selected to play in the first installation of the bowl back in 2015, in which they had to match up against Mountain West Conference foe Nevada, who ironically at the time was led by Norvell, due to an issue fulfilling the bowl’s conference ties.
This rare occurrence marked the first time two teams from the same conference would play in a bowl game since Oklahoma and Nebraska played each other in the 1979 Orange Bowl.
CSU ultimately fell short of victory, losing 28-23 after Nevada’s James Butler scored a late touchdown to lift the Wolfpack over the Rams.
Now, almost 10 years later, Norvell is looking to commodore CSU to victory as he did against them as the Rams take on the runners-up from the Mid-American Conference in Miami (OH).
“This is our tenth game, and ironically, [CSU] was in our first game,” Arizona Bowl executive director Kym Adair told Javier Morales of AllSportsTucson.com in a video posted on X. "So it makes sense to have them back for our tenth anniversary.”
Though the Rams finished with eight wins in the regular season for the first time since 2014, CSU and Norvell couldn’t have taken a bigger gut punch to start the season.
Marching into Austin, Texas, the Rams were shut out by Texas, the No. 4 team in the country at the time, 52-0. Although CSU was able to win back at home against Northern Colorado, it lost to head coach Deion Sanders and Colorado for the second year in a row, starting the year 1-2.
It wasn’t until the Rams started Mountain West play that they could finally get things going.
All indications pointed towards the Rams facing up against Heisman Trophy finalist, senior running back Ashton Jeanty, and Boise State in the Mountain West Championship. But a 28-22 loss to Fresno State in the second to last games of the season would kill such hopes.
Despite not finishing the year the way they wanted, the Rams had several members of their squad earn All-Mountain West honors, including senior offensive lineman Jacob Gardner, who became the first CSU offensive lineman to earn first-team honors since 2017.
This season, Gardner, the highest-graded center in the FBS by Pro Football Focus, set a new Mountain West record by starting in 57 consecutive games.
Behind Gardner, the Rams’ offense has been piloted by redshirt sophomore quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, who finished the year throwing for 2,475 yards, 13 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. In a recent interview with The Denver Post, the third-year quarterback detailed his intention of staying in Fort Collins.
“I’m a Ram for life,” Fowler-Nicolosi told The Denver Post.
Enter stage left, a face familiar to those who have kept up with Arizona high school football — former Hamilton High School defensive back Jack Howell.
When the Colorado High School Athletic Association announced that high school football would not be played in the state due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Howell moved from Valor Christian High School in Fort Collins, Colo., to Chandler, Ariz. But after recording 98 tackles in his only year with the Huskies, the three-star Colorado native was drawn back home.
In his freshman season with the Rams, Howell became only the second player in CSU’s history to be named a Football Writers Association of America All-American.
Along with Howell, two other CSU players are returning to Arizona to play football for the first time since leaving for college: Sierra Linda alum redshirt freshman wide receiver Stephon Daily and Chaparral alum freshman defensive lineman Keegan Shank.
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