Opinion: CSU football makes right move at right time with defensive coordinator's retirement

Anyone who watched the CSU football team play this season realized a change was needed.

Marty English had to be replaced as the Rams’ defensive coordinator.

The defense he oversaw allowed three of Colorado State's last six opponents to score 42 or more points, knocking one of the country’s most-productive offensive football teams out of the race for a Mountain West title following a 4-0 start in league play.

So, it really wasn’t much of a surprise when the news came Sunday evening. English, “intends to retire from coaching at the conclusion of the 2017 season,” coach Mike Bobo said in a news release,

English will continue in his role as the Rams’ linebackers coach and defensive coordinator through whatever bowl game Colorado State University plays in and then step down.

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Bobo showed class in how the move he knew had to be made was announced.

After 31 years as a college football assistant, spent entirely at three universities along the Front Range — Northern Colorado, Wyoming and CSU — English has certainly earned that retirement.

English, one of three assistants Bobo kept from former coach Jim McElwain’s CSU staff, was praised for his “dedicated service” to the CSU football program, his teaching and leadership abilities, his loyalty. He is “somebody for whom I have a great deal of respect,” Bobo said.

I don’t doubt him at all. English is first-class all the way. He always has been.

CSU players, past and present, were quick to praise English on social media as soon as the news came out.

But it would appear the “retirement” wasn’t entirely English’s decision. There were no statements from the 54-year-old English in the news release, and Bobo declined to make English or anyone else in the program available this week to discuss the move, citing his usual in-season media policies.

Assistant coaches are generally not available for comment, and neither the head coach nor any of his players will be available again until Sunday, when the Rams’ bowl destination and matchup are announced.

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Was English, a Colorado native, asked to take a demotion to just coaching the Rams’ linebackers and providing a vital pipeline to in-state recruiting efforts? Or was he shown the door, period?

Or maybe the longtime loyal assistant really is ready to hang it up. Maybe he wants to spend more time with his wife, Suzie, and his two grown children, daughter Kelsey and son Tyler, who were both married over the summer?

We might never know. English isn’t the type of person to publicly share the details of whatever private discussions he and Bobo had.

The timing of the announcement seemed a bit odd at first, on a Sunday night following a holiday weekend in which the Rams didn’t practice or play.

A closer look reveals why Bobo made the move when he did.

A new recruiting “contact” period began Sunday, allowing college coaches and their assistants to meet with prospective recruits through Dec. 16.

If Bobo and his staff are going to make their defense better through recruiting, they need to let prospects know about the coaching change; let them know the defensive scheme could change, depending on who the new coordinator is. And, that with a new defensive coordinator, evaluations will start over, giving incoming freshmen the same opportunity as fifth-year seniors to prove their worth.

The coach also needs to start the search for a new defensive coordinator and linebackers coach immediately, as new coaches are being hired and assembling staffs at more than a dozen Football Bowl Subdivision programs. The pool of available assistants is shrinking daily and will be reduced further when schools start hiring the 10th on-field assistants they’ll be allowed to have beginning in January under an NCAA rule change.

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That new rule gives Bobo a lot of flexibility in how he chooses to replace English.

He can hire one coach for his linebackers and another to oversee the defense as the coordinator. He can shuffle the position assignments of his current defensive assistants — line coach Ricky Logo, cornerbacks coach Terry Fair and safeties coach and special-teams coordinator Jamie Bryant — to make room for a new coordinator who might have a different area of expertise than coaching linebackers. He can then use the new position on someone with strong in-state recruiting ties, regardless of what position group that person might best fit.

There are no assurances that the rest of Bobo’s assistants will return next season, given the number of high-profile schools assembling new staffs.

With CSU’s regular season over and no scheduled bowl practices until next week, there was no reason to delay the announcement.

It’s never easy for a head coach to let a loyal and trusted assistant go.

It would have been nice to hear from English himself that he had chosen to retire.

But this was the right move for the Rams and as good a time as any to make it.

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).