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CSU Firing Defensive Coordinator Mid-Game
Confirmed
In Short: Colorado State defensive coordinator Tyson Summers was stripped of play-calling duties in the first quarter of Saturday’s 56-26 loss to Oregon State and was fired after the game, head coach Jim Mora announced.
Mora said Summers made the decision to leave the field on his own, but the separation was a permanent move made after the game.
Kenny McClendon, the co-defensive coordinator, took over play-calling duties after Summers left.
Summers' departure is a rare mid-game coaching change, with the Rams allowing 56 points, their first time since 1984 that they had allowed 50 or more points in consecutive games.
Mora praised McClendon's first call as a defensive coordinator, which resulted in a sack and forced fumble.
The Rams' defense has struggled this season, ranking 129th in the nation, allowing 34.3 points per game before the loss to Oregon State.
Summers had been interim head coach last season and was hired as defensive coordinator by Mora this year.
Mora emphasized the importance of certainty and simplicity in defensive play-calling, especially when players are not playing fast.
"This is awful right now. It’s been two awful games in a row. Well, three really. We’ve given up a gazillion points," Mora said.
"We’re going to get better. We’re going to get a lot better. He’s a good football coach," Mora added about Summers.
What this adds
This is a rare instance of a coordinator being removed mid-game and subsequently fired.
What's confirmed
- “Tyson was relieved of his play-calling duties, he made the decision on his own to leave the field, and he is no longer with this football program,” Mora said after the game.
- A USA Sports sideline report said McClendon had been calling the defense since about midway through the first quarter.
What's still developing
- “Players at any level, regardless of intelligence, can only comprehend so much in a football game. It’s chaos,” he said earlier in the week.
- Kentucky Sports Radio reported, citing a source close to the program, that coach Jeremy Pruitt fired defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh during the game and confirmed the dismissal afterward.
- The Associated Press reported the firing the next day, with Pruitt saying the fit “just didn’t work” philosophically and that he would coach the defensive line himself.
- Everything else in the modern game sits short of that line: a coordinator benched from play-calling and still on staff Monday, or a head coach fired Sunday morning after a Saturday blowout.
- Rams defensive coordinator Tyson Summers was replaced as playcaller in the first half by Kenny McClendon, who will take over as the Rams' new defensive coordinator, sources told CBS Sports' Matt Zenitz.
- "Tyson was relieved of his playcalling duties," Mora told reporters after the game.
- Summers then decided he wasn't going to stick around and left the sidelines, never to return.
- The defensive struggles for the Rams weren't isolated to just this game.
- Mora, who is in his first season as head coach after leaving UConn for Colorado State, decided he'd seen enough and would be making a change to get a new voice leading the defense and wasn't willing to wait until the end of the game to do so.
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- His interim tag wasn’t going to be removed as the program announced the hiring of Jim Mora before to the final game of the season, but when the veteran coach offered him the chance to stay on as defensive coordinator, he couldn’t pass up remaining in a community he’s come to love across two stints a decade apart.
- “I’m thrilled to be back and very appreciative of Coach Mora and the opportunity to be able to stay and be in a leadership position,” Summers said this month.