When Sonny Lubick considered trading one of the best jobs in college football for one of the worst, his wife Carol Jo told him he was nuts.

As the defensive coordinator at Miami, Lubick had won two national championships. Colorado State, the school that was courting him to be its head coach, had been to just two bowl games in 100 years. Eight coaches had come and gone since 1942, and only one left with a winning record.

So Lubick's wife asked, "What the hell makes you think you're so smart that you can change things?" He didn't have an answer. The Rams had no tradition, poor facilities, mediocre alumni support and lacked affiliation with a major conference. But Lubick desperately wanted to be a head coach, so he took the job.

	“	Growing up, you didn't hear anything but Colorado, Colorado, Colorado. Even a few years ago, when CSU first starting getting big write-ups in the paper, everyone was asking, 'CSU Who?' But they don't wonder much anymore. ”
		— CSU lineman Broc Finlayson

Eight years, five bowl games and 67 wins later, Lubick has completely turned around the Colorado State program. It's an impressive rebuilding job that has surprised many, including Lubick.

"I wish I could say that I had all this planned, that I was going to do all these things, but I didn't expect this," he said. "I had figured that just like the previous eight coaches who had gotten fired, I'd coach my four years or so here and then leave. So I'm amazed."

In his eight years since leaving Miami, Lubick has won five conference titles and four conference Coach of the Year awards. His winning percentage of .698 is the best in school history. And since 1994, only 11 Division I teams have won more games than Colorado State.

On Saturday, the 24th-ranked Rams will open the season against 0-1 Colorado in Denver. They are currently the only ranked team not to come from one of the six major athletic conferences (Big Ten, Big East, Big 12, Pac-10, ACC and SEC).

They've done it by recruiting not the most talented athlete, but ones that are tough, blue collar athletes with great character. And on the field, Lubick has done his best to eliminate mistakes. Four years ago, Colorado State led the nation in turnover margin. Last year, they led the nation in fewest yards penalized.

"It's the only chance we have to win," he said. "If you compare us to most of the teams in the country, we're not that talented, so there is no margin for error."

It's worked. In a state where the Colorado Buffaloes were once undisputed kings, Colorado Sate has made its own claim for the crown. The Rams have beaten their instate rival each of the past two seasons and will go for three straight Saturday. It's a game that's proven monumental for not only instate bragging rights, but recruiting success as well.

"It's about as important as a game can be," said Matt Lubick, Sonny's son and the team's recruiting coordinator. "To beat them three times in a row would be huge in establishing that the tides are definitely shifting."

You don't have to go far to realize that already. In Denver, Sonny Lubick can't attend a Colorado Rockies baseball team without being harassed for autographs. Fort Collins, the city where Colorado State is located, has affectionately been nicknamed, "Sunnyville." In the campus bookstore, Sonny Lubick bobble-head dolls are sold. And in the Fort Collins Subway, there's a stool reserved solely for the head coach.

The added attention has been a bit of a surprise for Matt Lubick, who has returned to the Colorado State staff for the first time since 1994, when he was a graduate assistant.

"When I first got down here, I thought it was the twilight zone or something," he said. "I would go out to a bar, tell people who I am and they wouldn't believe me."

The real wonderment is how Lubick has managed to rebuild the Rams with all but both hands tied behind his back. Poor facilities, a lack of tradition and all but no media exposure were all major roadblocks to turning the program around.

So bad were the facilities that when Lubick first arrived in Fort Collins, the Rams didn't have a meeting room where the entire team could meet. The only time they could gather as a group was when volleyball and basketball practice were finished in the gymnasium.

In addition, Lubick's office was so small that if a visiting recruit brought more than just his mom or dad, the meeting would get bumped to the hallway.

"He was kind of embarrassed after awhile," Matt Lubick said. "So he would take the recruit to a fancy hotel room across the street and try to impress him with that."

Last May, the school completed construction on the $8.5 million McGraw Athletic Center. The building features new offices, meeting rooms, locker rooms, weight rooms, a sports medicine area and a 124-seat auditorium. But even with the addition, CSU's facilities remain among the Mountain West's worst.

"We're still behind everybody else," Sonny Lubick said. "But I try not to get too caught up in the arms race."

Interestingly enough, it's that race that could have a say in just how long the 64-year-old Lubick stays in Fort Collins. Each offseason brings new overtures and last year, Lubick came close to taking the head-coaching job at USC. He admits that he often wonders what he could do at a school with endless resources.

"Everyone has curiosity like that," he said. "If you didn't, you wouldn't think much of yourself. So yes, if the right job came along at the right place and it was the right fit, certainly I would give it some serious consideration."

Until then, Lubick will have to continue fighting the odds that even he never thought he could beat.

"Growing up, you didn't hear anything but Colorado, Colorado, Colorado," said senior offensive lineman Broc Finlayson, who grew up twenty miles from Fort Collins. "Even a few years ago, when CSU first starting getting big write-ups in the paper, everyone was asking, 'CSU Who?'

"But they don't wonder much anymore."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at wayne.drehs@espn.com.