Colorado St Rams 2025 College Football Preview
Posted June 22, 2025
2024 Recap
Record – 8-5
ATS – 7-5-1
“It would kill some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it.”
<Ray Kinsella> <Field of Dreams>
The Rams started the season at 2-3 and were coming off a brutal 2-OT loss at Oregon St. Things looked grim. And then the Rams went on a major HEATER and won their first five Mountain West games. They controlled their own destiny to make the conference title game for the first time in school history (!) but they lost a close one at Fresno St to essentially kill their hopes and dreams. Colorado St finished the regular season with eight wins but got smoked in the Arizona Bowl by Miami Ohio (L 43-17).
Colorado St Rams 2025 Outlook
OFFENSE
The Rams were finally a bit more balanced on offense LY (168 YPG rush, 219 pass) but they still struggled to SCORE the FOOTBALL (24 PPG, #94). The erratic and somewhat lovable QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi returns to lead the offense and he’s gotta find a way to be more efficient (60.5%, 14-9 TD to INT) if the offense is to truly flourish this season. The WR/TE corps needs to be rebuilt and they’ll certainly miss Tory Horton (NFL – Seattle), although to be fair he missed quite a bit of time in 2024. The Rams will be relying heavily on transfers such as WR Kojo Antwi (Ohio St), WR Tay Lanier (Northern Arizona), and TE ROCKY BEERS (FIU). It’ll be tough to replace 1,000-yard RB Avery Morrow (9 TD) but the Rams still have a tasty looking 1-2 RB combo in Justin Marshall (746, 4 TD) and Tulsa transfer Lloyd Avant. The offensive line is an area of concern as they lost some key cogs including star center Jacob Gardner and recall that Colorado St allowed a mere 10 sacks in 2024 (#4 FBS).
DEFENSE
Colorado St was midpack in the Mountain West LY in terms of both run defense and pass efficiency defense and their biggest weakness was an inability to achieve significant PENETRATION (17 sacks, #122; #111 TFL/game). The Rams are undergoing a major transformation on defense this year as they only retain two (!) starters and will be without eight of their top-nine tacklers from the 2024 team. The DL should be stout as they retain DE Mukendi Wa-Kalonji (5.5 TFL, 6 QBH) and they added a small handful of promising transfers including DE JaQues Evans (Baylor, WKU). The LB unit is inexperienced and they’ll need Iowa St transfer Jacob Ellis to be a big contributor in the middle of the defense. We’re not quite sure what to make of the secondary as they lost every (!) starter from the 2024 unit that was pretty decent, but they managed to scoop up quite a few experienced bodies to plug the holes. A couple of guys to keep an eye on are CB Jahari Rogers (SMU) and safety Jake Jarmolowich (Holy Cross).
SPECIAL TEAMS
The Rams performed well on special teams in 2024 but they’ll be making a lot of changes heading into this season. Hopefully former Baylor PK Isaiah Hankins (14/19 FG LY) and new Aussie punter Nathan Sutcliffe can rise to the occasion. Unfortuately, it’s not gonna be easy to replace ace return men Kobe Johnson and Tory Horton (each with a PR TD LY) so we expect the Rams to drop a bit in the Phil Steele special teams rankings in 2025 (#58 LY).
Schedule Analysis
Overall – The non-conference schedule is favorable after the road opener at Washington as they’ve got three non-conference home games before Mountain West action begins. They only play five road games and miss San Jose St, so that’s good. We have a sneaky suspicion that November will be a yuuuge month as they face UNLV (H), Boise St (A), and Air Force (H).
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – Hawaii (Oct 18)
This game is sandwiched between a tough battle with Fresno St and the BORDER WAR at Wyoming. Hawaii has the potential to be a SURPRISE PACKAGE in the Mountain West and they’ve taken down the Rams in 3L4 meetings.
Season Win Total
Market consensus June 22
Over 6.5 -130
Under 6.5 +100
MEGALOCKS says:
No leanage.
This is a tough call. 24 of our 26 models have the Rams at 2-2 after the non-conference schedule so they’ll theoretically need to go 5-3 in conference play to hit the ‘over’. They’ve only won five or more MW games once since 2017 (LY, 6-1).
MEGAmazing Tidbits
HC Jay Norvell has steadily increased the Rams’ win total (3,5,8) during his time in Fort Collins. Last year marked the first time that Colorado St won eight or more regular season games since 2014 when the BUCKTOOTHED ASSASSIN Jim McElwain led them to a mark of 10-2 before losing in the Las Vegas Bowl to Utah (ended the year 10-3).
Colorado St won Mountain West titles in 1999, 2000, and 2002 under the great Sonny Lubick but haven’t turned the trick since those good old days.
The wonderful folks at Young Communist Magazine voted Fort Collins and the surrounding area as one of the Top 10 Communist Petri Dishes in America ****.
**** Needs fact check but it passes the initial smell test.
MEGALOCKS Forecast:
The Rams have built themselves into a Mountain West contender just in time for their move to the PAC 12 next season. These guys are a clear notch below Boise St in the conference pecking order and they’ll be competing with five or six other teams for a spot in the Mountain West Championship Game. We’re not crazy about the all the roster turnover and it’s critical that they get off to a good start when you consider who they’ll be up against in November. We’ll call for six, maybe seven regular season wins.