Colorado State takes a page out of Pittsburgh Steelers playbook with this huge hiring

I cannot emphasize how big of a deal this is for the Colorado State Rams. While Colorado State projects to be one of the better teams in the Mountain West and the Group of Five again next year, the front-office move of bringing Kevin Colbert into the fold allows Jay Norvell and his team to reap the benefits of such a transaction for years to come. This is how Colorado State can finally level up.

On Thursday afternoon, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported "Colorado State is bringing on former Pittsburgh Steelers GM Kevin Colbert as a consultant, part of the school's push to stay at the forefront for the new era of college football." The plan is for Colbert to help Norvell and the program's player personnel department take Colorado State football to a level we have never seen it get to.

For years, Colorado State has been a mid-major program of great intrigue in the Rocky Mountains. They share a fierce rivalry in-state with the Colorado Buffaloes, as well as several others in the Mountain West. There is a some thought that the State of Colorado could potentially manage having two Power Four teams, with the Air Force Academy being as well-respected as Army and Navy are.

Colbert had been with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the better part of my adult life building their roster.

We are talking about a hall-of-fame-level NFL front office executive coming to Fort Collins, Colorado!

Colorado State brings in Kevin Colbert as a player personnel consultant

Throughout my college football fandom and professional writing career, Colorado State has always intrigued me as a program. The Rams regularly send players the NFL wants to the league and wins more games than it does not in the Mountain West. Truth be told, Colorado State should probably win more than it does. There are resource limitations in state, as well as not being a Power Four program.

But you know what? I think that is really starting to change of late. When Norvell left a pretty good gig at the Group of Five level at Nevada for Colorado State, that grabbed my attention. Colorado State was in disarray in the wake of the Steve Addazio and Mike Bobo eras. Nevada fell on hard times as soon as Norvell left Reno for Fort Collins. There had to be a reason for leaving one job for another.

In a way, I think Norvell saw what a lot of us thought could be had at Colorado State, but never fully realized. Fort Collins is a cool college town in the Rockies. The football is usually good, but what if it was great? By bringing in a savvy football mind like Colbert, this will help the Rams get the most out of their resources, possibly making the College Football Playoff sooner than we ever even expected.

Colbert will be enshrined in Canton one day for being the architect of the Steelers' two most recent Super Bowls. He helped oversee a head-coaching change from Bill Cowher to Mike Tomlin. His time in Pittsburgh overlapped entirely with Ben Roethlisberger's incredible career under center for them. Pittsburgh did not always have the best picks in those NFL Drafts, but Colbert always found a way.

Overall, Colorado State is going to have to continue to put in the work under Norvell if the Rams ever want to eclipse the big bad bullies in Mountain West play such as Boise State and Fresno State. The good news is Colorado State is really trending up and the league is expected to be down before the Rams and others eventually meander their way over to the second coming of the revamped Pac-12.

Ultimately, I cannot say for certain how much of an impact one man will have on a program, but you have to appreciate Colorado State's efforts to get Colbert to Fort Collins. Colbert is every bit an East Coast guy, steeped in NFL tradition. Now he is coming to the college game to a place where there is so much to be discovered. What he and Norvell can uncover together could reveal something special.

The college game is becoming more like the pro one, so it serves teams like the Rams to follow suit.