Sonny’s Delight : In His Second Season, Lubick Has Guided Surprising Colorado State to a 7-0 Start and No. 12 Ranking

To find Bill & Ted’s Place in Coral Gables, Fla., you basically need, well, Bill or Ted.

Located about a mile from the University of Miami football offices, the bar is nothing more than a gray, one-story, concrete block building. There are no signs, no flashing neon, no nothing. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it’s where some guy named Louie fixes foreign transmissions on the side.

It doesn’t get much fancier once you walk in the door. There’s a pool table, a bar and a grill, where the best thing they serve is a hamburger with a half-inch-thick slice of onion. And, in a concession to the 20th Century, management just bought a color TV to replace the old black-and-white relic.

Sonny Lubick loved the place. He remembers the wall of fame, where framed photographs of Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson pass for interior decorating. Three Miami coaches, four national championships.

“You got to be a Miami guy to get on there,” said Lubick, a former Miami defensive coordinator. “You got to win a national championship. I mean, that’s an exclusive wall.”

Bill & Ted’s might want to make an exception, especially if Lubick and his 12th-ranked Colorado State Rams finish the season undefeated and, who knows, maybe make an improbable run at the national title themselves.

At last check the Rams were 7-0 and counting, with a game Saturday at Ft. Collins, Colo., against No. 18 and unbeaten Utah. Not bad, said Lubick, “for a kid in the park from Montana.”

Hurricane coaches have been going to Bill & Ted’s for years. Lubick was one of them. He’d have a few beers with the fellas, unwind, talk a little shop and, on occasion, allow himself a dream or two--something in the head coaching variety.

As on most staffs, the graduate assistants knew about every coaching opening in the country. They had a network of contacts and used one of those grease-pencil blackboards to keep tabs on possible job opportunities.

Lubick would stick his head in their office and marvel at that board.

“I used to laugh, but damn if they weren’t pretty accurate,” he said.

Just about every Wednesday night after practice, Lubick and the rest of the staff would stop by Bill & Ted’s for a drink, Erickson’s treat. Almost always the conversation would turn to job openings: what buddy got what job where.

Lubick listened and considered his own future. He was 55. He was happy. He owned two national championship rings. But was he fulfilled?

“I think there was a little part of me that wondered,” Lubick said. “But I was so happy there. We’re winning. We’re 44-4 in the four years I was there. We’ve got great defensive football players. Two national championships and we played for one every year. So you couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”

There also was Erickson, whose reputation as a coach’s coach made him Lubick’s favorite. There was the warm Miami weather. There was family.

“But I guess there’s always a yearning that maybe you look around and say, ‘OK, do I stay and do this for the next four or five years or should I try to take another shot at something?’ ”

Back in 1968, Lubick was the coach at Butte High in Butte, Mont. Ten years later, he was the coach at Montana State in Bozeman. And then four seasons after that . . . he wasn’t at Montana State anymore. Fired.

From there, he became an offensive coordinator at Colorado State, then an assistant at Stanford, then a defensive coordinator at Washington State, then a defensive coordinator at Miami. He was successful. He made friends. He developed contacts. He burned no bridges.

Maybe that’s why Montana State was the first to call again. It happened in 1991, about the same time Miami traveled to Tallahassee and left town with a thrilling 17-16 victory over Florida State. Afterward, Lubick saw his wife, Carol Jo, who looked at him and said, “You want to leave this?”

The next season, it was Colorado State that called. The program itself was a public relations disaster, thanks to a handful of allegations involving Earle Bruce and his coaching staff. Bruce was accused of hitting players, of exceeding the NCAA limit of allowable practice hours, of becoming Woody Hayes II.

So Colorado State dumped Bruce and asked Lubick to return to Ft. Collins. Lubick made some calls. He talked to his former high school coach, Jim Sweeney, now at Fresno State. Sweeney gave him thumbs up on the Colorado State job.

Lubick talked it over with Carol Jo and asked Erickson for advice. Erickson didn’t hesitate.

“He was trying to make a decision, particularly at this point in his career, if he wanted to become a head coach again,” Erickson said. “Believe me, I tried to convince him to take that job because I think it was a great opportunity for him and a great opportunity for Colorado State. As it’s turned out, he’s done a great job.”

The Rams finished 5-6 last season, but it was the way they finished that mattered. After a 2-6 start, Colorado State won its last three games and hasn’t stopped since. One more victory and the Rams tie the school record of 11 in a row set in 1924, which should tell you all you need to know about Colorado State’s dismal football past.

“This is great,” said junior defensive end Sean Moran. “And it’s about time.”

So Ram-crazed is Ft. Collins over Saturday’s game that a temporary bleacher section has been added. Hughes Stadium usually holds 30,000, but Colorado State officials expect it to bulge with 35,000 on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Lubick is setting a single-week record for interviews. He also has a TV show to do and a radio call-in program at one of the local restaurants.

“I don’t know what the hell’s happening,” he said. “Life was so simple a month ago.”

Of course, that was before Colorado State upset Brigham Young at Provo and three weeks later upset Arizona at Tucson. Now Lubick is a celebrity and his team is actually mentioned in the same sentence as Colorado, located a few hours away in Boulder. Imagine that.

“You know what? We’re a pretty good football team and improving all the time,” Lubick said. “This team, they’re thinking they’re pretty good right now.”

And they’re right. The Rams, led by quarterback Anthoney Hill, are averaging nearly 33 points. The defense is a telling plus-seven in turnover margin and has sacked opposing quarterbacks 31 times. It still isn’t Miami, but it’s getting there.

According to Lubick, there wasn’t an offensive or defensive lineman, a linebacker or running back from last season’s Rams--his first team at Colorado State--who could have started for the Hurricanes. There might have been a wide receiver or defensive back who could have challenged for a starting job at Miami, but that’s about it. Only Hill would have had a real chance to play.

This year is different. Lubick said as many as eight Rams could have played for the Hurricanes. Keep it up and Erickson might be calling Lubick for advice.

Easy as it might sound, the Colorado State transformation is the result of an attitude adjustment. The Rams had their winning moments with Bruce, but not enough to last. Then came the losses, followed by the allegations of wrongdoing.

“It was pretty much a drag to come over every day,” said Hill, who came to Colorado State from San Diego. “It’s hard to have a hell of a lot of confidence when you’re not winning any games.”

Now the Rams are whispering about the Western Athletic Conference championship and a Holiday Bowl appearance. This is heady stuff for a program with a 100-year history, but a 10-page scrapbook of highlights.

“Sonny Lubick--it’s simple,” Hill said. “Everybody latched on to what he was saying.”

And what he was saying was this: Be positive. . . . Expect to win. . . . Play as a family, as a team.

OK, so it wasn’t Descartes, but it worked. The Rams started to believe in themselves and also began winning games.

“We always used to fight on the practice field,” said Moran, who was there during the 3-8 season. “Actual fights with players on the team. There hasn’t been one this year that I can remember. We’re all one big family out there.”

Free safety Greg Myers didn’t have a clue who Lubick was when Colorado State announced the hiring.

“But a lot of people do now,” Myers said.

Thanks to Lubick, there was a pep rally last week that drew more than 1,000 fans. And how does that compare to the past?

“Uh, we haven’t really had a pep rally before,” said junior defensive end Brady Smith. “We would have them, but only a few boosters and alumni would come. And the band too--but they had to.”

Now everyone in Ft. Collins wants to be part of Ram mania. Watching with a satisfied smile is Lubick.

“Everything is just going so good,” he said. “I just know deep inside me that this cannot last forever. But our players are playing with so much feeling for each other. They’re playing for something beyond. They’re certainly not playing for themselves.”

Here’s a thought: Maybe they’re playing for Lubick. He deserves it.