FORT COLLINS — The long wait is final­ly over. The Bronze Boot belongs to Col­orado State.

CSU defeat­ed Wyoming, 34–24, on Thurs­day night at Can­vas Sta­di­um for their first Bor­der War vic­to­ry since 2015. Rams play­ers rushed to the vis­it­ing side­line postgame to take back the icon­ic rival­ry tro­phy. Their out­pour­ing of emo­tion punc­tu­at­ed a sig­na­ture vic­to­ry for CSU head coach Steve Addazio in just his sec­ond game lead­ing the program.

“The boot belongs in Fort Collins,” CSU tight end Trey McBride said. “Going out there and get­ting that boot — hold­ing it, kiss­ing it, lov­ing on it — it’s just excit­ing to have it back.”

The Rams’ dom­i­nant first-quar­ter defense laid the groundwork.

Wyoming quar­ter­back Levi Williams, on his sec­ond throw of the night, was inter­cept­ed by CSU defen­sive back Mar­shaun Cameron — who ran it back 30 yards for a touch­down. On the Cow­boys’ next pos­ses­sion, fac­ing third-and-long, Cameron strip-sacked Williams and the foot­ball was recov­ered by defen­sive tack­le Man­ny Jones. The Rams’ offense cap­i­tal­ized imme­di­ate­ly with a 29-yard catch-and-run to the end zone from McBride.

CSU, after a long missed field goal, led 14–0 after the first quarter.

“We had talked about cre­at­ing turnovers all week,” Cameron said. “The first thing in my mind was to get the ball back. I saw the oppor­tu­ni­ty and I took it.”

The Rams made a change at start­ing quar­ter­back on Thurs­day with senior Patrick O’Brien get­ting the nod over first-year grad­u­ate trans­fer Todd Cen­teio, who start­ed in the Rams’ pre­vi­ous loss at Fres­no State. O’Brien, a for­mer Nebras­ka trans­fer, touts the rep­u­ta­tion for a big arm.

He deliv­ered against the Cow­boys. O’Brien com­plet­ed 18-of-26 pass­es for 255 yards, two touch­downs and zero interceptions.

“Patrick com­pet­ed real­ly hard and did a good job,” Addazio said. “He was able to man­age the game very well and had some big throws. He had good poise.”

CSU’s air attack also great­ly ben­e­fit­ed from the return of wide receiv­er Dante Wright, a fresh­man All-Amer­i­can last sea­son, who missed the Fres­no State loss due to quar­an­tine pro­to­col. On Thurs­day, Wright hauled in 10 recep­tions for 146 yards.

“Dante’s ver­ti­cal speed was a huge fac­tor in the game,” Addazio said.

CSU’s lead grew to 17–0 in the sec­ond quar­ter with a chip-shot field goal from kick­er Robert Liss.

Sud­den­ly, Wyoming’s offense woke up from its slum­ber with con­sec­u­tive dri­ves capped by rush­ing touch­downs. The Rams fired back when O’Brien snuck into the end zone mid­way through the sec­ond quar­ter to main­tain a two-pos­ses­sion advan­tage at half­time, 24–14.

CSU’s defense bent, but didn’t break in the third quar­ter as Wyoming reached the Rams’ 5‑yard line fol­low­ing a 6‑minute dri­ve. Yet the Cow­boys were stuffed on third down and set­tled for a field goal. Then CSU’s offense did its part to widen the gap.

O’Brien threw a 38-yard strike to McBride over the mid­dle — a sec­ond touch­down for the senior tight end — to take a 31–17 lead. Wyoming added a touch­down mid­way through in the fourth quar­ter on a Williams rush­ing score, but it was too lit­tle, too late. O’Brien made sev­er­al big throws down the stretch to drain the clock and Liss con­nect­ed on a 48-yard field goal to secure a Rams’ victory.

“It’s the best ener­gy I’ve felt since I’ve been here,” O’Brien said of the postgame lock­er room cel­e­bra­tion. “The boot has been gone from Fort Collins for a long time. It’s real­ly spe­cial for me.”

CSU’s rep­u­ta­tion for stum­bling in rival­ry games, a sig­nif­i­cant rea­son for coach Mike Bobo’s 2019 dis­missal, has been tem­porar­i­ly alle­vi­at­ed under Addazio. The Rams snapped their com­bined 12-game los­ing streak against CU, Air Force and Wyoming.

“We beat our rival and we beat them with phys­i­cal­i­ty,” Addazio said. “Our team showed a tremen­dous amount of ener­gy, tough­ness and courage. … We’re still a new pro­gram. We’re still devel­op­ing. I’d like to think that we’ll con­tin­ue to improve.”

On Thurs­day, the stands were emp­ty at Can­vas Sta­di­um to com­ply with Larimer Coun­ty health guide­lines amid the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. In 2018, the Bor­der War drew 32,125 in atten­dance to Fort Collins.

CSU (1–1) trav­els to face Boise State next Thurs­day. Wyoming (1–2) hosts Air Force on Nov. 14.