Toby McBride told his Col­orado State team­mates not to look away, to embrace the hurt, and wit­ness Wyoming play­ers lift the Bronze Boot.

It prac­ti­cal­ly lives in Laramie these days.

“I’ve even called out the whole team to look over there and see it,” said McBride, a senior defen­sive line­man. “Take this feel­ing in of defeat and how bad that makes you feel watch­ing these guys celebrate.”

CSU enters the 112th edi­tion of the Bor­der War at home Thurs­day night with four con­sec­u­tive years of Wyoming night­mares. The Rams last claimed the Bronze Boot in 2015, mean­ing no cur­rent play­er on their ros­ter has tast­ed vic­to­ry in the annu­al con­fer­ence show­down. That includes the coach­ing staff in their first sea­son under Steve Addazio’s leadership.

CSU offen­sive line­man Bar­ry Wes­ley recalled the feel­ing after a 38–17 loss to Wyoming in 2016 when the Cow­boys began their stretch of rival­ry dominance.

“We had the boot. They ran across the field and took it from us,” Wes­ley said. “Try­ing to describe that feel­ing is hard, to reflect on that, and try to get some­one else to under­stand that. (My team­mates) know the impor­tance of this week and how impor­tant it is to the guys who have been here.”

The Rams are 3 ½‑point under­dogs against Wyoming after stum­bling to start the sea­son in a lop­sided defeat at Fres­no State. The Cow­boys (1–1) enter the game fol­low­ing a 24-point beat­down against Hawaii.

Tak­ing back the Bronze Boot will require that CSU halt Wyoming’s tra­di­tion­al­ly strong rush­ing attack, as reflect­ed by the Rams’ prac­tice men­tal­i­ty this week.

“We had very, very phys­i­cal days,” Addazio said. “But we have to, because we’re still in the infan­cy of build­ing our pro­gram. That’s more important.”

CSU’s online ros­ter cur­rent­ly lists 31 play­ers from Col­orado. But many of the Rams’ top tal­ents hail from out of state, includ­ing sopho­more wide receiv­er Dante Wright (Navarre, Fla.), a 2019 fresh­man All-Amer­i­can. His under­stand­ing of the Bor­der War didn’t take hold until after kick­off last season.

“Being in the game, you could tell there was a lot of ten­sion,” Wright said. “This year, we’re com­ing back even hard­er just try­ing to get the boot back.”

Added senior defen­sive back Mar­shaun Cameron: “We’re going to make sure that we take it this year.”

Addazio has reg­u­lar­ly stressed the impor­tance of win­ning rival­ry games — some­thing his pre­de­ces­sor, Mike Bobo, proved unable to accom­plish. Thurs­day marks Addazio’s first oppor­tu­ni­ty to make good on his goal.

“We have a clock in our weight room count­ing down the days to kick­off against Wyoming,” McBride said. “This isn’t a one-week thing. It’s been all offseason.”