Colorado State arrives in the rebuilt Pac-12 with a little bit of baggage, a little bit of buzz, and one very familiar name on the sideline.
For Washington State fans, the Rams are not strangers. They were the team that slipped out of the 2014 New Mexico Bowl with a 48-45 win over WSU in a finish that still feels hard to believe.
Since that night, though, Colorado State has had only four winning football seasons, and a two-win 2025 campaign pushed Jay Norvell out the door. In came Jim Mora Jr., the UW grad and former Seahawks, Falcons and UCLA coach who most recently was at UConn - and who was also keenly interested in the WSU job this past offseason.
That hire is the headline, and for good reason. Mora is carrying a $2.4 million salary and brings a résumé that gives Colorado State something it hasn’t had in a while: real attention.
As Kevin Lytle of The Coloradoan put it, "It's a combo of excitement because Jim Mora obviously comes with a pretty hefty resume of what he's done in both college football and the NFL," Lytle said. "And I think most particularly is that he won at UConn, which I think most people notice because no one wins at UConn in football.
"There’s excitement, but also caution, because Colorado State has had some false hopes in football. They want to see it happen.
"Mora would be asked every now and then about (the challenges) of Year One and he would always push back really strongly that 'we plan to win now' So the national expectations are pretty low. Most places project Colorado State at or right around the bottom of the Pac-12. But I think internally, they feel pretty strongly about their chances for this season."
The football program may be the first thing people notice, but Colorado State has been much more than that across the board. The Rams have had strong basketball teams in recent years and are usually solid in track and field and volleyball. Men’s basketball is 112-58 over the last five years, while women’s basketball is 110-53.
The school itself has a long, straightforward Western identity. Founded in 1870 as Colorado Agricultural College, it changed names twice before becoming Colorado State University in 1957.
It sits in Fort Collins, a city of 172,000 about 65 miles north of Denver near the Wyoming border. CSU is a public land-grant R1 research university with notable programs in life and environmental sciences, veterinary medicine and agriculture.
Its endowment is $667.5 million, enrollment is 26,833, and it has 169,000 living alumni.
The Denver media market, meanwhile, gives the Rams a bigger stage than plenty of their old Mountain West neighbors ever had. It ranks 16th in the country and reaches about 1.8 million TV households.
Colorado State’s conference path has been a long one: Mountain West from 1999-2026, Western Athletic from 1968-1998, and independent from 1962-1967.
There are also a few names WSU fans may recognize in the CSU orbit. Associate director of football strength and conditioning Tim Hicks was at WSU from 2020-22.
Special teams coordinator Kyle Krantz was at WSU in 2021. Assistant offensive line coach Luke Hyde was a graduate assistant at WSU from 2022-23.
And on the basketball side, new men’s coach Ali Farokhmanesh - who is set to make $900,000 per year - is the son of WSU Hall of Fame volleyball coach Cindy Frederick.
Colorado State’s last meetings with WSU across sports have been mixed. The Cougars won 20-3 in Fort Collins in football in 2025.
CSU beat WSU 79-69 in men’s basketball in the Cayman Islands in 2019. The Rams won 83-71 in women’s basketball in Fort Collins in 1997.
Women’s soccer has never met. Volleyball went to CSU, 3-1, in Pullman in 2004.
And if the Rams are trying to sell themselves as more than a football afterthought in the new Pac-12, they do have some recognizable alumni to point to: actor John Amos, actress and comedian Leslie Jones, Academy Award-winning actor Keith Carradine, All-Pro running back Lawrence McCutcheon and All-Pro linebacker Joey Porter.
In Other News...
Cougs In Pro Ball Has Plenty For Wazzu Fans To Track
A dozen former Washington State players are still working their way through pro baseball, giving Coug fans a long list of familiar names to follow as the season rolls on. The group is spread across multiple organizations and levels, with some at the big-league level and others grinding through the minors, which is exactly the kind of scattered baseball footprint that keeps a Wazzu follower checking box scores well beyond Pullman.
Kyle Manzardo and Ryan Walker are the most visible names on that list, with Manzardo in the Cleveland Guardians lineup and Walker handling late-inning work for the San Francisco Giants. Ian Hamilton is another one to watch after spending the last three seasons with the Yankees before landing with the Atlanta Braves, while Jonah Advincula has fought his way back onto the field after a spring training injury and is now getting games in with Double-A Akron. [Read more 🡒]