Thursday, September 7 Toughness, perseverance defined McDougal's career By Ed Graney Special to ESPN.com

It is all relative, of course, degrees of toughness. It's like going for a run at the local park and then choosing whether or not to grind out that final mile.

Legs aching, chest exploding, sweat dripping ...

Some slow to a walk and limp to their car. Others barely finish. The tough ones -- mentally and physically -- finish strong.

	Injuries have slowed Kevin McDougal this season.

Kevin McDougal would finish strong.

And then run an extra mile.

"He is the epitome of toughness," said Colorado State football coach Sonny Lubick. "He plays harder than anyone I've ever coached."

Football at most levels is a mere exercise in barbaric propulsion, a series of jolting contacts the human body (no matter the amount of protective padding) was never meant to endure.

But it does. It breaks and then heals. Sometimes, though, the healing part makes like a teenager and his list of chores. It takes its sweet time. Ask young McDougal.

He is the senior running back (or is that bruising back?) for CSU, one of three Mountain West Conference champions and the team preparing to play Southern Mississippi in a Dec. 31 Liberty Bowl on ESPN.

He really wasn't 100 percent for a snap this season. He really hasn't been 100 percent for nearly 18 months. He has more strains and sprains than one finds in an Over-40 softball league. His body has betrayed him more than a cheating spouse.

It's the way he plays, the way he runs. It's the heart inside him. A warrior in cleats.

All of this makes his numbers -- 207 carries, 1,164 yards and eight touchdowns in 10 games -- even more impressive. McDougal edged BYU quarterback Kevin Feterik for the league's offensive player of the year award, and you can assume coaches allowed the CSU standout an advantage in the competitive department.

You can't help but like McDougal. He is 6-foot, 205 pounds and as genuine as college football gets, humble to a fault and always quick to compliment an opponent.

In other words, he gets it. Still, you wonder how good he could be if not for hobbling through another season, dealing with the shoulder and knee and hamstring and, get this, adductor muscle.

The what?

In plain English: It rests above the hamstring in the buttocks area.

It isn't as if McDougal lacks strength. He's a horse. It isn't as if he doesn't stay fit or forgets to stretch. Does both religiously. But luck hasn't graced his uniform much these final two seasons. He takes a handoff, sticks his head down, attacks the middle of a pile, twists, turns, slides, glides and emerges with another big gain.

And usually another pulled muscle, another adductor that needs defining.

Extraordinary then, his role in CSU winning its final five games and emerging the league's best and hottest team entering the bowl season. One helmet does not make a team, but McDougal's this past month has certainly defined CSU.

He is, has been and always will be, Ram tough.

This and that
BYU, in playing Marshall at the Motor City Bowl, will encounter an undefeated post-season opponent for the second straight year. The Cougars last season fell to Tulane 41-27 in the Liberty Bowl.

Know this: For all the jealousy that exists about BYU from the other seven Mountain West Conference schools, the league earned a third bowl spot because the Cougars were available. They are the only MWC side that enjoys a national reputation and any semblance of respect from the idiocy that is the bowl system.

Do you think Motor City officials would have picked CSU or Utah for its game? Yes, right about the time Ford concedes the Explorer can't hold a tailpipe to the Passport.

As it is, BYU coach LaVell Edwards in taking his team to the Silverdome on Dec. 27 will coach indoors for the first time. Which begs the question: Who will see better, Edwards or his 25-year-old linemen? ...