FORT COLLINS — College football adopted overtime rules for the 1996 season, and in the previous 19 campaigns, Colorado State had played in three total. Now, in Mike Bobo’s first season as head coach, the Rams have gone an extra session two weeks in a row, both losses.

In each instance, the Rams have had the ball first and have yet to score a point. Against Minnesota, a turnover ended the chance after one play. In the loss to Colorado, the Rams reached the CU 7, went backward and missed a 27-yard field goal, a kick that was low, pulled and eventually blocked.

While it hasn’t happened much in actual games for the program in its history — the Rams are now 1-4 in those games — there is a plan in place.

“Overtime is kind of red zone, and we’re actually going to work red zone today on Monday,” Bobo said as he met with the press Monday. “We worked it the first week on Monday before Savannah State, and the last two weeks, we did our normal deal of Wednesdays and Thursdays and Friday walk-through we work it. We’re going to add an extra period (Monday) and work red zone work, which is essentially overtime and try to have a better plan that we can execute and get points.”

As with all scenarios in a game, plans change as teams see what is working, what adjustments the other side is making. When it comes to overtime, there’s about a 5-minute break to come up with that plan of attack. It was over before it began against the Gophers, and after a CU penalty on the first play put the Rams on the 12, the running plays on first and second down weren’t executed correctly, and the third-down pass play was thrown for a loss.

“Give them credit,” Bobo said. “They bowed their neck on first-and-10 at the 12-yard line and held us to a field goal, and we didn’t execute that.”

Two prime scoring chances for a team that’s been pretty effective in the red zone so far (13 scores in 15 regulation chances) has been fairly mind-boggling.

“I think just not being able to control it, like having it out of our hands at the end is pretty frustrating,” center Jake Bennett said. “I’m sure it’s especially frustrating for the defense being put in that situation. We definitely want to fix that if that happens again.”

After failing to score, both Minnesota and Colorado have taken possession without a ton of pressure, just needing field goals for the win and having the ball set down well in range for their kickers.

Safety Trent Matthews didn’t say it has put more pressure on the defense at those points, but the facts are pretty clear to see by that point.

“The pressure’s not really on us. It’s more of a collective when we say we as a team,” he said. “I think the pressure’s not all on our defense or all on our offense. It’s both sides of the ball minimizing the mistakes that we have. I know this past game on defense we gave up a couple of big plays because I guess we wasn’t locked in hard enough for seeing something we never seen before. Offensively, they just have to keep clicking.”

Not real — Matthews is looking forward to going home this weekend, spending his prep days in the San Antonio area. Upon arrival in Colorado, he couldn’t believe the mountains were real.

“I fell in love with the mountains,” he said. “I’d never been. I thought they were fake when I came.

“I mean, when I got here, it just looked like they weren’t supposed to be there. Growing up, I’d never seen stuff like that. They just looked like they weren’t supposed to be there. It just looked weird to me.”

Naturally, Matthews has been working long and hard to collect as many tickets from his teammates to distribute to his friends and family back home. With a dozen other Texas players on the roster, that’s not easy, and Matthews thinks his group could attract up to 400 folks.

Good omen? — For the first time this year, Colorado State did not have a player win a conference player of the week award. Maybe that’s a good thing, considering the outcome for those players the following week.

Nick Stevens won it for his five-touchdown performance in the opener, then struggled in his second start. Wyatt Bryan was the special teams performer after his kick to tie Minnesota, but missed three field goals last week.

Sticking with it — Last week, Bobo fielded questions about having to help young quarterbacks grow up, and it’s the same process for Bryan, in his first year as a kicker. Bobo takes a definite hands-off approach with him, saying, “I don’t mess with the kickers.”

He reiterated the team still needs to keep putting pressure on Bryan (who is 4-of-8 this season) during practice and they’ll still keeping running him out there, at least for now. Pressure also comes through competition.

“We might get down there this week, we might stall out and we have to get points,” Bobo said. “Just keep encouraging Wyatt and putting him in those situations and maybe give Braxton (Davis) a couple of opportunities at practice to see how he would respond. We’ve got to create some pressure at practice.”

Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard