San Francisco quickly approaching

With a week and a half remaining before the Rams are set to face

Boston College in the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl, the Rams

practiced for over two hours on Saturday in beautiful, 55-degree,

sunny weather.

“Practice went better today,” head coach Sonny Lubick said. “We

are going to do the same thing tomorrow. We will have a short

practice on Monday and go from there.”

Wednesday marked a very important step in the road to recovery

for senior quarterback Bradlee Van Pelt who briefly began throwing

a few passes. After breaking his right hand against UNLV on Nov.

22, Van Pelt has had surgery and had a 2.5-inch titanium rod

inserted, that will later be removed, to secure the break. His

improvement has moved along at a steady pace, as Van Pelt continued

throwing Friday and Saturday.

“It still hurts but I can move it and I have a lot of strength

in it,” Van Pelt said. “Throwing the ball is a lot of different

movements and it still hurts. I can’t just get back in there and

start winging the ball.”

Van Pelt has not dressed in full pads since the injury and does

not plan to until the team goes to San Francisco.

“He’s still got a week. If he can get three days in he’ll be

OK,” Lubick said.

CSU started preparing for Boston College in practice on

Wednesday with special focus on limiting the ground game lead by

senior Eagle running back Derek Knight.

“I think things are going well,” Lubick said. “The kids are

working hard and we did some live work today and that really livens

things up. (Knight) is a good running back and we’ll see how it

goes.”

Lubick has installed a few changes as sophomore Adam Hayward has

been playing wide receiver instead of safety and sophomore wide

receiver Joey Flores has moved to defensive back.

On a side note, sophomore defensive back Ben Stratton sat out

Saturday’s practice with a sore hamstring. Stratton said the injury

is minor and he plans on returning to practice Sunday or

Monday.

Off the field, graduation is in the air as senior linebacker

Eric Pauly, who missed the majority of the season with a knee

injury, gave the opening speech at his graduation ceremony of the

College of Business on Saturday.

At the conclusion of one graduation ceremony on Friday, some

fortunate CSU graduates exiting Moby Arena had the chance to get

autographs and take pictures with Lubick who had just finished

interviews.

As far as final preparations for the big game, the team will now

practice Sunday and Monday before taking three days off for the

holiday. The team then travels to San Francisco on Dec. 26 and

begin practices in the Bay City on Dec. 27.