FORT COLLINS — In the shadow of Canvas Stadium, the Colorado State football team kicked off the first of 15 spring practices under new head coach Jim Mora on Sunday.
After nearly three hours on the field, Mora described the first practice as ‘average’ and stressed the Rams have a long way to go to reach the standards he and his coaching staff expect of them.
Still, the Rams were enthusiastic and full of energy as the foundation for what they will be when they kick off the season in September against Wyoming began to be laid.
“Pretty average start,” Mora said. “Probably what I expected, though. It’s interesting. We’ve been doing some work inside and all you have to do is kind of change the setting a little bit and you throw people for a loop. We always want to be trying to put pressure on these guys, create uncertainty because that’s what the game of football is about.”
Pressure, uncertainty and a little bit of chaos are what Mora and his coaches will try to instill in the team as they begin their allotted number of practices over the next five weeks.
Even though Mora described the first day as average and stressed the team has a long way to go, he was appreciative of the team’s attitude, saying that their willingness and interest are what excites him the most about the team he has assembled through a brief recruiting period and the transfer portal.
“When you look at someone, you can tell whether they’re interested or they’re not,” he said. “Just observing, all these guys are were interested. They’re soaking it in. They want to be good players. They want to have a good football team.
“We’re never going to have a perfect practice. We’re never going to play that perfect game. But we can have a perfect attitude. We can have a perfect effort. We can have the desire to have perfect execution, and that’s what excites me.”
While the team is transfer heavy, there are several returning Rams who stayed around to play for Mora.
Offensive lineman Phillip Ocon is one of them, and he took good things away from Sunday’s initial session.
“It’s been great,” Ocon said. “OTAs and winter is one thing. We worked really, really hard to build a good base, and now that we’re on the field and in gear, we’re really seeing those values come to light. The coaching staff has done a great job really instilling those values in us. They really want us to lean into the hard work here and don’t want us to shy away from it.”
Mora said following practice that he and the staff were going to demand a lot from the players. They are going to create chaos and uncertainty and expect the players to react and respond.
He is looking for endurance as well. He expects the players to practice hard and put in the work. Even going as far as to say that guys standing around watching practice isn’t going to work with him.
Mora hopes once spring practice concludes, the team has an identity that will carry into fall camp and then the season-opening Border War and first season in the Pac-12 Conference.
“We expect to win,” Mora said. “What we need to come out of spring with is an identification who our playmakers are, who we can count on, who we can trust, who is dependable to us as a staff, who is dependable to their teammates, who has the mental toughness to do it the way we want it done.”
Over the next five weeks, Mora hopes to find the players with those qualities that will lead the team on Saturdays.
