The 1997 Colorado State Rams football team represented

Colorado State University Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...

in the

1997 NCAA Division I-A football season The 1997 NCAA Division I-A football season, play of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I-A level, began in late summer 1997 and culminated with the major bowl games in ea ...

. The Rams were led by fifth-year head coach

Sonny Lubick Louis Matthew "Sonny" Lubick (born March 12, 1937) is a retired American football coach. He was the 15th head football coach at Colorado State University from 1993 to 2007. Lubick won or shared six Western Athletic Conference or Mountain West Con ...

and played their home games at Hughes Stadium in

Fort Collins, Colorado Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado Larimer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 359 ...

. Colorado State competed as a member of the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington (state), Washington, and Texa ...

in the Pacific Division. They won that division with a 7–1 conference record, earning them a spot in the 1997

WAC Championship Game The Western Athletic Conference football championship game was a short-lived annual postseason college football game played to determine the champion of the Western Athletic Conference (MW). History The Western Athletic Conference staged a confer ...

, where they defeated

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

to earn their third WAC title in four years. They were invited to the 1997 Holiday Bowl, where they defeated

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, and were ranked 17th in the final

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

of the season, the second ranked finish in school history and first since

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

Schedule

Roster

References

{{Western Athletic Conference football champions

Colorado State Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...

Colorado State Rams football seasons Western Athletic Conference football champion seasons Holiday Bowl champion seasons

Colorado State Rams football The Colorado State Rams football program (established 1893) represents Colorado State University and is a member of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and the Mountain West Conference. Since joining the Mountain West, the Rams have be ...