Colorado State coach Mike Bobo didn’t feel good about his team’s performance — or his own — during a 3-9 finish in 2018.
So a couple of days after the Rams closed the regular season with a 27-19 loss at Air Force on Nov. 22, Bobo called CSU athletic director Joe Parker and told him to keep his $100,000 raise for 2019.
Bobo, who is 24-27 in four seasons with the Rams, signed an amended contract with the school last week, which leaves his salary at $1.8 million.
“This is an administration that stood behind me, and I felt like we didn’t live up to our end of the deal,” Bobo told ESPN. “I wanted to make a statement to our players that we’re in this together and you’ve got be accountable, starting with me.”
Bobo said Parker was surprised by his gesture.
“He said, ‘Are you sure?'” Bobo said. “I told him it was something I wanted to do. It’s how I was raised. I didn’t need to think about it. It’s what I wanted to do.”
“That’s not typical. That doesn’t usually happen,” Parker told the Loveland (Colorado) Reporter-Herald. “Again, that just makes me realize we have a pretty special person who recognizes his own personal accountability and doesn’t feel good about what occurred this season, and is pointing all of his efforts into 2019.”
Bobo, 44, was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy in August, and the condition caused him to miss nearly two weeks of preseason camp while he was hospitalized. He had numbness in his feet and struggled to walk on the sideline during games this past season.
Bobo said his condition is improving through rehab, and he has regained some feeling in his feet.
The Rams lost four of their first five games and ended the season with a five-game losing streak, including a 29-24 loss to No. 23 Utah State, in which a winning touchdown on the final play was nullified because CSU receiver Preston Williams stepped out of bounds before hauling in the pass.
“It’s easy to point fingers at your players and say, ‘You didn’t do this right and didn’t do that right,'” Bobo said. “I wanted to say that I’m a part of it as much as anybody, and I want to get it right.”