Colorado State Fires DC Tyson Summers, Jim Mora Explains Mid-Game Controversy After Loss vs. OSU

Colorado State head coach Jim Mora announced Saturday that defensive coordinator Tyson Summers is no longer with the team following the 56-26 loss against Oregon State.

Mora said that Summers "left the field" after he was demoted during the game and Kenny McClendon took over the defensive play-calling. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that Summers wasn't fired during the game, though Mora confirmed that Summers is no longer with the program:

After starting 2-0, the Rams have lost three straight, giving up an average of 52 points per game in defeats against BYU, UTSA and Oregon State.

Beavers' quarterback Braden Atkinson shredded the Colorado State defense on Saturday to the tune of 413 yards and five touchdowns through the air, completing 30 of 34 passes. That came one week after UTSA put up 542 yards of total offense and 59 points on the Rams' defense, and two weeks after BYU rushed for a staggering 332 yards against them.

Summers, 46, was in his second stint as the school's defensive coordinator, a role he first held for a season in 2015 before becoming the head coach at Georgia Southern. He returned to Fort Collins in 2025 as the defensive coordinator and also operated as the interim head coach for five games after Jay Norvell was fired.

Mora was then hired and kept Summers aboard to lead the defense. It was a short relationship, however, and there was plenty of foreshadowing that a divorce was inevitable—leading into this week's matchup against Oregon State, Mora made it abundantly clear that he was expecting Summers to simplify his defensive scheme.

"Players at any level, regardless of intelligence, can only comprehend so much in a football game. It's chaos," he told reporters . "When you get in situations where your players aren't playing fast because they're not certain, it's critically important that you shrink the package."

"That's why I say we have to do a better job. We can't wait to change things. It's too late and that's not fair to our players," he added. "You have to be ultra-demanding of your players but you have to be specific about what you're demanding of them. It's not easy. It's complicated, but we have to un-complicate it."

That apparently didn't happen to Mora's liking, to the point that Summers is no longer with the program.