FORT COLLINS — He’s still walking around — although half-hobbling is more like it — with a bum right knee and numbness in both feet. But Mike Bobo cracks that he hasn’t felt this dang good in ages.

“It’s coming back; it’s just not as fast as you’d like,” the Colorado State football coach said. “I had one of the doctors tell me, ‘It’s one millimeter a day,’ you know? And I don’t know what a millimeter is! I just know I wish I could take a pill and it would come back.”

There are days he wishes a pill could make some of the last four months of 2018 go away, too. The Rams coach spent 10 days in a hospital at the start of preseason camp, recovering from what doctors described as peripheral neuropathy — numbness in both feet and in his hands. Bobo recovered, but CSU never did, posting a 3-9 record, the coach’s first losing season in his fourth year in Fort Collins.

To try and get the Rams back on track, Bobo has brought back some old chestnuts, such as player accountability programs and an earlier spring practice, one that wrapped up this past Thursday night. The coach sat down with The Post at his office at Canvas Stadium to discuss the Rams’ past, present and future for a two-part Q & A. In Part I, Bobo addresses his health; his recovery; Izzy Matthews’ reddit comments; and the salary raise he bailed on…

•

SK: So how have you felt this spring, at least compared to last fall?

Bobo: I feel like I’m close to back to my old self, as far as being able to (participate), being heavily involved in all aspects of football. I’m still not 100 percent. I still don’t have feeling in the bottom of both feet right now. But my right hand has almost come back completely — because it was my right arm and both legs that kind of had the neuropathy and had numbness and pain. But my right arm is back and most of my left leg is back, except for the bottom of my feet right now. I’m not quite running yet. But that is my goal, to go where I’m running out there the first game (against Colorado at Broncos Stadium). Darn it, y’all are taking my rehab time (laughs).

SK: Fair enough. What exactly does that rehab entail?

Bobo: It’s toe raises. Balance. You’re on an underwater treadmill where you take the body weight off of you to do different exercises, you know, leg press stuff. Just as an example, when I started underwater on the treadmill, just getting in the water, I was up to my neck and I could do a toe raise. And now it’s down to my waist and I actually got about that far off the ground (raises foot several inches) the other day. Now, as far as shooting pain and all that stuff, I don’t have that. I just have kind of a constant numbness.

SK: How frequent are these sessions per week? How long is each one?

Bobo: It should be every day. I’m going to get down there. I’ve got a team meeting — I might have to start a team meeting and miss a little of the quarterback meeting to get mine in today, because I didn’t get it (in) yesterday. Right now, it’s about three days a week, the days we practice.

SK: Was there a rock-bottom moment? Was it the first week of camp?

Bobo: Actually, we were talking about it (last week). Sunday (was) my son’s birthday. We were all out to dinner, we’re talking about … he played (club) basketball and he was in Las Vegas; my wife had stayed after the Mountain West meetings and I was watching it online, his AAU team was playing. And it was me and my 10-year-old. At the time, we were watching Drew, my oldest, play. And this pain was shooting down my leg. And (my daughter last week) goes, ‘Yeah, I remember that, you kept yelling and screaming.’ And I’m like, ‘What in the world is going on?’

They put me on some medication and it kind of went away. I couldn’t sleep for like the first day of camp because of the pain. And then it went away, and they ran some bloodwork, and said, ‘We’ve got to take you off this medication, we have to run some more tests.’ They were concerned about — it’s not the central nervous system, which is really scary. And then they took me off the medicine and it went and started going into my left leg.

They were running their second scrimmage. That night, I’m out there, and I knew something was going on, because the day before, I told two offensive coaches, ‘Y’all call the scrimmage, I’m not calling it,’ because I was kind of trying to prepare them, like, ‘Hey, something could be happening to me.’ And that night, at the scrimmage, I had a pen to write notes, and I couldn’t write, I couldn’t hold the pen. And that was kind of rock bottom, that night, where they said, ‘We’re taking you to the hospital.’

I’m in the hospital and I’m in really bad pain and I just had the numbness in my hand, my feet and legs. That was kind of rock bottom.

SK: What was it like trying to coach from a hospital bed?

Bobo: “(I did) videos and sending stuff in, because I wasn’t in really any shape — I really didn’t want to see them. I kind of had to tape two or three takes and my wife said it looked good, and that I should send it in. But that was rock bottom, when you’re in the hospital and you’re away from your team. And then really when you get back, you put on a face like, you’re glad to be back, but I think it took me a couple of weeks to really just get over (it). Everybody’s like, ‘You’ve got to take care of yourself,’ and it’s true, but at the same time, you’re running a football program and you’ve got coaches and their families that are there, that came to work here, and then you’re sick, and you’ve got players, and … that wore on me more than anything, probably more than probably the illness: That I was letting people down for being in the hospital. And once I got over that and put everything in perspective, I thought I got a little bit better as the season went on. Now losing doesn’t help.

•

SK: One of your former tailbacks, Izzy Matthews, turned heads with a Reddit AMA in January in which he came down pretty hard on the culture inside CSU football, although he wasn’t as hard on you, personally. Did it rub you the wrong way?

Bobo: Naw. Izzy’s out there — he’s out there helping us right now, you know, helping coach (Bryan) Applewhite during practice and meetings. I obviously didn’t see it (initially). Of course, I walked in and a couple coaches go, ‘Did you see what Izzy (said)? Can you believe he …?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, let me see it, let me read it.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, what did you expect him to say, we were 3-9.’ If he says, ‘The culture was great,’ everybody would be like, ‘That’s the problem with those people over there: They think everything is great and they’re 3-9!’ Of course everything wasn’t great — you’re 3-9. And you know, you’ve got young kids that aren’t having success and they were emotional at times, and everybody has an opinion. I mean, it’s this far (holds hands a few inches apart) from being 9-3 to 3-9, sometimes. I truly believe that. My job as a head coach was to look at myself and take ownership for me, first and foremost, and then work on everybody else.

SK: Were you disappointed? Hacked off?

Bobo: No, I wasn’t. Neither, really. You’ve got coaches that get upset about things and might’ve said something. But I mean, it’s a kid being a kid. Would I have wished he’d have kept some of his comments to himself and maybe came to me? Yeah. But at the end of the day, we’re not gonna do things based off of what other people say. I’m going to do things based on what I believe.

SK: OK, that said, what did other coaches and agents think of your belief that you should decline a $100,000 raise you were due in 2019?

Bobo: Yeah, I got a lot of messages from coaches, like, ‘What are you doing? Are you crazy?’ (Laughs) Yeah, I got a lot of text messages like, ‘What are you thinking?’

SK: Would you do it again?

Bobo: I would do it again. You want to set the standard for your team as the head coach, and I thought that was a way of me showing ownership and accountability for what happened last year. It was one of the things I felt strongly about, and I talked to my wife about.

SK: Was she on board with that decision?

Bobo: Well, I knew she wasn’t that fired up about it. (Laughs). But I didn’t come back to her and have a third (conversation). I just went ahead and made the phone call and told my agent to get working on it and this is what I want to do. And then I told her I did it. She’s like, ‘Oh, you really did that?’

We obviously get paid a lot of money. And I never got into it for the money … I mean, I dreamed of being a high school coach. And to be sitting here and to have the opportunity to say, ‘Here’s some money back,’ it wasn’t like, ‘giving away’ $100,000. It’s not what I’m about. People say, ‘Well, you made “X” number of dollars.’ But that’s not why I do it.

Coming Monday: Part II, in which Bobo discusses athletic director Joe Parker, accountability, and why he felt he had to go back to the drawing board in Year 5.