When Jay Norvell called, Barry Alvarez had one, pointed, bottom-line question.

“Look, you had a lot of success at Nevada,” the former Wisconsin football coach and athletic director told Norvell, his former protégé, when the latter said he was contemplating a jump from Reno to Fort Collins last December. “Why would you leave and go to (another school) in your same league?”

Norvell didn’t hesitate.

“People (here) want to win,” he told Alvarez at the time. “’People want to help. They’re anxious to get things going and they want to help with facilities and help with building a program.”

With that, the Big Ten icon offered up his blessing.

“That’s so important,” Alvarez told The Denver Post in a phone interview. “Some places are just strapped. They can’t do it.

“That was my question. He had the right answers.”

The 59-year-old Norvell is three weeks away from more questions being answered — this time on the field.

The new CSU coach debuts against one of the Big Ten’s marquee brands and an established college football blue blood in the Michigan Wolverines. The Rams kick off the Norvell Era on the morning of Sept. 3 at the Big House in Ann Arbor, Mich., before a national television audience on ABC.

Norvell was Alvarez’s wide receivers coach and special teams coach on Oct. 29, 1994, when the Badgers stunned the then-No. 10 Wolverines, 31-19, to notch the program’s first win at Michigan Stadium since 1962.

It was one of the crowning moments for a Wisconsin turnaround that Norvell was a part of when he joined Alvarez’s first Badgers staff as a young assistant in 1989.

And during a sitdown with The Denver Post this past week in Denver, the new CSU coach pointed out how much the opportunities in Fort Collins reminded him of the sleeping-giant potential at Madison that he’d helped Alvarez unlock more than three decades earlier.

“A lot of the qualities are the same,” said Norvell, who aided the Badgers’ transformation from 1-10 in 1990 to 10-1-1 and a Rose Bowl berth in 1993. “The same kind of city, the community’s close with the university, the support of athletics.

“I’ve always had high regard for CSU. I always felt like, from afar, that it was a great community and (they had) great support. They’ve had some really talented coaches and players over the years.

“But I kind of look at (CSU) sort of like Wisconsin. When I went to Wisconsin with Barry Alvarez in (1989), they had all the qualities to have a special program, but it (had) never quite fit together.”

The closest parallel in FoCo to Alvarez as a program- and culture-changer was former coach Sonny Lubick, who between 1993-2007 steered the Rams to nine bowl games and six conference championships, including three in the Mountain West.

But whereas the Badgers remained a relevant player nationally after Alvarez transitioned to an administrative role following the 2005 season, the Rams have mostly flailed since Lubick retired.

CSU has had just six winning seasons over the past 14 years and none since 2017. In the past four years, under former coaches Mike Bobo (2015-19) and Steve Addazio (2020-21), the Rams posted a combined record of 11-29.

“I’ve always wanted to build a program and be known for building it,” Norvell continued. “I’ve looked at the history of coaching here. I mean, coach Lubick had some success, but there hasn’t been sustained success here (since). To be able to go and do that and be known for it, is important.

“And I’d like to help this school get to the Big 12 or the Pac-12. I’d really like to be known for that. We’ve got to recruit elite athletes and get them to play at a high level to do that.”

Despite a 33-26 record in Reno, Norvell was the Mountain West’s lowest-paid coach with the Wolf Pack, earning a reported $619,250 in 2021. With a base pay starting at $1.6 million for 2022, he’s now tied for the top spot in the conference with Wyoming’s Craig Bohl ($1.6 million).

“You gotta go get players now,” Alvarez stressed.

“We all learned from (former Iowa) coach (Hayden) Fry,” said Norvell, a safety for the Hawkeyes’ 1986 Rose Bowl squad. “And, you know, we were a developmental program. We were a program that didn’t always recruit the best players, the most talented players, the guys that were going to go to Michigan, Ohio State. But we had special qualities. And coach Fry could see a special quality in you and you believed him. You know, if he thought you had something special, you’d think, ‘Maybe I got something special (in) me.’

“I showed our kids some clips of my team in ’85-86 … showed them some clips when we played Michigan and Ohio State. And I told them, ‘You know, when you get done playing, you’re gonna look back at your career, and there’s going to be special games.’ And what you’re going to ask yourself is, ‘What did I do when I played those games?’”

After all, it takes a village to wake up a sleeping giant. A village and getting key cogs within the administration, alumni and support staff all pulling in the same direction.

“I think anytime you go through that (rebuild), that gives you a history and a foundation,” Alvarez said of Norvell’s history with football turnarounds. “Everybody he talked to or contacted him (from CSU), whether it was from the university or alums, (it was), ‘What can we do? What can we do for you? We all want to win.’

“That’s a good starting point, if you’ve got a lot of people that want to be successful. Hopefully, the administration sees it that way and (it) gets everybody on the same page.

“I know it’s a great town, a great university … he’s been in good programs. He’s been trained well. He’ll be fine.”