BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

CSU is one of the worst Division One programs of the post War II era. Their only period of sustained success was when Lubick was there and the school was fortunate that he was willing to stay, For example Bob Devaney, Dennis Erickson and Joe Tiller were probably as capable as Lubick but quickly left Laramie for other jobs.

The school has in the Tony Frank era pumped a lot of money into football, building a new stadium and generally paying coaches above market rates for the MWC. Why has CSU struggled do much, especially considering that whatever disadvantages CSU confronts, Wyoming confronts more

 

It honestly makes zero sense why there has been no success. And not even a mediocre amount of success.

Mostly it can be attributed to really bad coaching hires. Some of that has had to do with unstable administrations. Even though Tony Frank was around for the Bobo hire, there was no AD. Then there was an AD for the disaster that was Addazio, but the president after Frank basically hired him (with a weird influence from Urban Meyer). I believe that is a huge part of why she isn't president anymore. There were a few other things that went with that and weren't necessarily unrelated -- a very bad COVID response in the AD and a few discrimination inquiries. Norvell seemed OK on paper, but in year three he just isn't getting it done and most fans have zero faith he will.

The AD that was involved with the last two football hires is also now gone. He had this ho hum attitude that this is just how things are at CSU. The lack of caring about rivalries goes into that too. Wyoming cares so much about their games with CSU. CSU just doesn't and thus hasn't beaten them, and that actually has seeped into other sports. Look at CU, as much as a circus as it is under Sanders and as much as they constantly say CSU isn't a rival, they sure treat CSU as a freaking rival and beat CSU every time.

Really, I think you can go back to when Lubick was rolling. There was no foresight. The facilities sucked. CSU played a huge role in the MW forming, which didn't seem bad at the time, but then kept this loyalty while everyone was getting better and bolting (Utah, TCU, BYU and CSU was much better than all of them during that time). And nothing was done to improve it. It is amazing Lubick stayed but he had the loyalty and is still a face today.

Frank took that step with the stadium and facilities, which are awesome. The new AD and president are basically successful CEOs with CSU loyalty. That may not work either, but it is definitely a change of pace. Their vision is much more than it has been since the stadium talks first surfaced.