GOLDEN — Aaron Abel is The Young Man With The Golden Leg and the Brilliant Brain.
The bright, gifted, willing and able Abel outscored Western State on Saturday afternoon, 13-7.
Here’s a couple of Aaron’s numbers Barry Bonds never, ever will reach:
257.
3.40.
Abel – No. 2 in your program, No. 1 in Golden hearts – has become the leading scorer in the 119-year history of Colorado School of Mines football with 257 points.
And he has been named to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference’s All-Academic team with a 3.40 grade-point average and a major in mining engineering.
The 6-footer who weighs 185 pounds (only in his dreams), who turned 21 a month ago and who has a determined Cheyenne frontier daze, will be rich in a few years, and not because he can kick a football. He’ll be a first-round draft choice as a real oredigger.
Abel raised some Cain at Brooks Field on Senior Day. He whip-lashed four field goals – actually five, because one was nullified by a penalty – and an extra point in Mines’ 21-7 victory over Western State in the season and the kicker’s finale.
Or was it?
The Orediggers, with a 7-4 record, are prime candidates to play in a postseason bowl.
It’s not exactly a bowl of oranges or roses.
But the St. George Rotary Bowl on Dec. 1 beats the dragon, especially for a preseason seventh-place pick. The Utah town’s Rotary Club started a bowl years ago to pair the local college – Dixie State (yes, Dixie State) – with the best RMAC team not competing in the Division II playoffs. That team probably will be Mines after Saturday’s solid effort.
Outside the stadium at halftime on Saturday afternoon, I spied a car with Utah plates. “Are you a scout from the St. George Rotary Bowl?” I asked the driver.
“Are you an idiot?” he replied.
(The official bowl announcement will come early this week.)
Mines coach Bob Stitt and his staff have accomplished a serious feat after the Orediggers lost three of their first four this year. They’ve lost only one of the last seven.
And Abel has kicked two game-winning field goals in the fourth quarter, one on the last play. Move over, Jason Elam.
The good kicker is one of 12 Orediggers on the conference’s all-academic team, and there’s not a basket weaver among the civil, petroleum, mechanical, environmental and biochemical engineers. The Colorado School of Mines team still is as pure and as fun as it was when football was originated there in 1888 – back in the day when Mines beat the University of Colorado six straight years (once by 103-0) and the University of Denver in 12 of 13 games.
On Saturday, some fans and I watched Abel & Co. from the luxury box – the back of a pickup parked by the end zone.
Abel – a former soccer, track and football standout at Cheyenne East High School – almost was a one-man-hard-hat-and-checked-flannel-shirt band on the golden day – that should have been painted on a canvas – in the foothills. He was a foothill, in fact.
After Mines dented the scoreboard with a safety, Abel kicked a crisp 40-yard field goal.
The old state rivals (this was the 83rd meeting since 1925) traded punts and pushes (125 players at the two schools are from Colorado) before Abel successfully kicked a 26-yarder. But the Mountaineers were offside. Mines tried four more plays, and Abel kicked another 26-yard field goal that stayed.
It was 8-0 at halftime.
Stitt had brought in Abel as a potential defensive back, but realized he was too valuable as a kicker.
Mr. AA kicked 64 extra points and five field goals as a freshman, when the Orediggers won all 12 regular-season games and the RMAC championship. Abel kicked 13 field goals as a sophomore and 13 more as a junior. He was all-RMAC on the field and in the classroom. And he connected on a career-best 50-yarder. He has converted 143 extra points and 38 field goals.
Without Abel, Colorado School of Mines wouldn’t have been a .500 team this year. His field goals beat Adams State (10-7) and Fort Lewis (25-22).
He got no points in Mines’ 18-0 loss on Nov. 3 to Mesa State, but his two field goals in the third quarter against Western, coupled with an interception return for a touchdown, gave the Orediggers its own 18-0 lead.
The Big “M” on the side of the mountain seemed to swell, and it was time for
Coors beer for everybody.
Abel had come through again.
He had been apprehensive about leaving Wyoming to attend school in Colorado, but the past four years have been an adventure.
Mines has not been a terrible thing to waste for Aaron Abel. It’s been a golden thing.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
