Why Colorado State?

The question elicits a knowing chuckle from first-year CSU head football coach Jim McElwain as if he has heard it posed before and often.

And he probably has.

The Rams’ 1-6 (0-3 conference) start, entering Saturday’s game with the University of Hawaii in Fort Collins, Colo., has certainly done nothing to make the question vanish.

Eleven months ago McElwain stood high on the “must-look” list of prospective candidates for schools seeking head coaches. High enough to have been able to pick and choose among several available openings.

At the time he was winding up his fourth season as offensive coordinator at national champion Alabama. He helped the Crimson Tide go 47-6 and win two BCS titles during his stay. That kind of resume, on top of stops at Fresno State, Michigan State, Louisville and the Oakland Raiders, opened a lot of doors and prompted calls from Fresno State, Southern Mississippi and Memphis. Legend has it a group of Fresno State boosters even flew out to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to plead the school’s case to their No. 1 pick.

Yet, McElwain  ended up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at CSU, home of the biggest fixer-upper of the bunch.

To be sure, the Rams were willing to pay handsomely and were thrilled to get him, anteing up a $1.35 million salary and a five-year contract, double the financial package of any of the other three new coaches in the Mountain West Conference for McElwain’s first head coaching job.

They also dangled the possibility of a new stadium to speak to their commitment to winning again and built a “new era” marketing campaign around McElwain’s arrival.

Still, it made for an eye-opening marriage. McElwain, who grew up in Montana, talks about being familiar with the area and having recruited Colorado. But McElwain had never coached at the school or even in the state. And CSU had hardly been a stepping stone to better jobs for previous coaches. Even former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce (22-24-1) couldn’t win there.

Only Sonny Lubick of the previous head coaches going back to the mid-1950s managed an overall winning record during their tenure at the school. And McElwain’s predecessor, Steve Fairchild, a former Rams quarterback, pretty much saw that success disappear in going 16-33 over four seasons while leaving the cupboards less than well stocked.

Four months into the job McElwain took the principled step of dismissing three players, two of them all-conference defensive players, after an off-campus beating. The heir apparent at quarterback transferred. Then, after a season-opening victory over in-state rival Colorado seemed to portend big things, the Rams lost six games in a row.

Ask McElwain “why Colorado State?” this week and he will come back with a vigorous “I think the No. 1 question is why not?” He talks with a recruiter’s zeal about the excellence of the school and “great vision, great passion and great leadership” and community surrounding it.

Maybe, in this season of deepening struggle, he is trying to remind himself.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.