CSU football coach Mike Bobo remains in hospital 5 days from season opener

Kelly Lyell | The Coloradoan

Show Caption Hide Caption CSU AD offers update on football coach Mike Bobo's hospitalization Joe Parker, Colorado State University's athletic director, discusses continued hospitalization of football coach Mike Bobo and contingency plans

Mike Bobo remained in a Denver-area hospital Monday undergoing diagnostic testing to determine the source of nerve damage causing numbness in his feet.

Just five days before his Rams open their 2018 football season against Hawaii, it remained unclear whether the coach would be able to return to work in time for Colorado State University's home opener.

Bobo, 44, has been hospitalized since Aug. 11 with what he described last week as peripheral neuropathy. Bobo said he was “undergoing a multiple-day treatment” in a statement posted Wednesday on his Twitter account.

The coach was in a local hospital at that point, athletic director Joe Parker said Monday, but has since “transitioned” to a Denver-area hospital where the coach and his family “felt like there were a few more resources in the diagnostics pathology area.”

There are a wide range of medical issues, including diabetes, vitamin deficiencies and degenerative diseases, that can cause peripheral neuropathy, according to local doctors and the Mayo Clinic’s website.

“They’re still working through diagnostics at the moment,” Parker said. “We’re encouraged by what the medical staff that’s helping him through this is learning and encouraged, too, that they’re going to get to a diagnosis where they can arrive at a firm treatment.”

CSU faces Hawaii at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in one of the first games of the 2018 college football season. The Rams play again Aug. 31 in Denver against the University of Colorado.

MORE: Hawaii at Colorado State football: TV, ticket, game info

Contingency plans are in place for the Rams to play that first game, and possibly others, without their head coach, Parker and the team’s offensive and defensive coordinators said while filling in for the coach at his usual game-week Monday news conference at Canvas Stadium.

Parker and offensive coordinator Dave Johnson declined to share details of those plans, with the AD emphasizing that Bobo is still in charge of the program.

“There’s still some unknowns at the moment,” Parker said. “There is an expectation that, any day now, he could be discharged from the hospital.

“I also want to make it absolutely clear we have a singular leader of our football program, and that’s Mike Bobo. He’s done a remarkable job through the last nine days in staying engaged with this football team, and even though he’s not physically present, his presence is felt each and every day as he relates directly to staff and students and is continuing to do probably too much.

“But, you know, it’s hard to keep a man like Mike Bobo down, and we expect at some point yet to be identified, he’ll be able to rejoin this football team.”

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CSU football has contingency plans in place if coach Mike Bobo misses first game Offensive coordinator Dave Johnson says Colorado State Rams have contingency plans in place if hospitalized coach Mike Bobo isn't back for first game

Johnson and defensive coordinator John Jancek, both new to the program this season, said they continue to follow plans that were put in place earlier this summer to prepare the Rams for the upcoming season. They said they are in regular contact with Bobo and able to make adjustments to those plans as necessary. The coach has been watching video of practices and pointing out things he believes need to be corrected, both players and assistant coaches have said.

Time spent working on contingency plans for playing one or more games without Bobo on the sideline hasn’t detracted from the coaching staff’s preparation for the opener, Johnson said.

“We’re still going forward, guys are still planning, as we talked about Coach Bobo has been in contact with us on a regular basis, and so the plan's in place, the things that we’ve been working on all summer for this game," he said. "We’ve tweaked a few things, you know, in the last week or so, but nothing that is far off from what we talked about how we were going to attack this game earlier this summer.”

“… It’s just a matter of who’s going to have the call sheet and make those decisions.”

Bobo had quarterbacks coach Ronnie Letson, the assistant head coach, and tight ends coach Joe Cox call offensive plays at a scrimmage Aug. 11, with the head coach listening in on a headset. Bobo was at Canvas Stadium for that scrimmage, which was closed to the public and media, and met with reporters afterward. He was hospitalized later that night.

Johnson said the staff has been collaborating on different combinations of coaches on the sideline and in the press box and who might call the plays on game day if Bobo is not back by then.

“It’s still a little bit premature of us right now to finalize that.

“… We’ll probably finalize that, if need be, towards the end of the week.”

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310) and 8:45 a.m. Saturdays on Denver’s ESPN radio (AM 1600).