Colorado State and Colorado football coaches and players will participate in their leagues’ media days this week — the Rams in Las Vegas with the Mountain West and the Buffaloes in Los Angeles with the Pac- 12.
That heralds the beginning of preseason practices in early August, and they’ll eventually get together for the Rocky Mountain Showdown on Sept. 19 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
In all my years in Colorado, in the wake of graduating from the school in Boulder and covering both programs, this is the part I “get” but don’t understand: Especially because the state schools are in different leagues, CU fans enthusiastically should be rooting for CSU, and CSU fans enthusiastically should be rooting for CU. Except in one game, of course. But they don’t.
Having both programs doing well is good for college football in the state, and thus good for both. When an elite, deservedly much-coveted Colorado prep prospect knows he can pick between two winning programs in a state increasingly paying attention to the college game, that’s progress. For both.
That cuts back against both history and recent trends.
For CSU fans, who of any age tend to be more deep-rooted and loyal, the rivalry more genuinely has the feel of dating back to the schools being in the same league. Many of them know the words to “Fum’s Song” — memo to the new CSU athletic administration: Bring it back — and most of all resent the mystifying and unjustified condescension coming from Boulder.
But … really … the Buffs doing well would be good for the Rams.
For CU fans, the denigration of CSU’s success in the Mountain West, outside the “power five” conferences, is both silly and tiresome. Some CU fans will argue that they do root for CSU, but the pat-on-the-head condescension that comes with it ruins the effect. It’s especially absurd in a year when that “little brother” program that goes on to do well in league play can counter with “Scoreboard.” Last Aug. 29, it was right there on the big screens at Sports Authority Field at Mile High: CSU 31, CU 17.
In a year when no CU players were drafted, the Broncos tentatively are planning to start a rookie from CSU at left tackle, and one of the subplots is that Ty Sambrailo’s father is a former CU track athlete.
The NCAA last year approved “autonomy” for the power five conferences, and that led to the institution this year of cost-of-attendance stipends for scholarship athletes in those leagues, including at CU. It would have changed the dynamic of the rivalry and comparisons if CSU and the Mountain West had failed to follow the “power five” lead. But they did. The widening of the gap between the power five and the nonpower conferences might be in- evitable, but at least with matching stipends, the best teams in the Mountain West will continue to have a chance to beat power-five teams on the field.
Including in Denver.
On the field, the future of the rivalry is iffy at best beyond the final meeting in the current contract, CSU’s home game against the Buffaloes in the new on-campus stadium in 2020.
CU’s recent announcement of a 2020 and 2022 home-and-home series against Air Force added to the intrigue. That pivots on adding a CU home game in 2020, when the Buffs already are playing in Fort Collins, so it doesn’t necessarily involve rejecting the concept of playing CSU in the future, but it still at least raises eyebrows.
What also seems farcical at times is the debate over future scheduling tied to games played by athletes now in seventh grade and involving coaching staffs and athletic department administrations that — at least through coldly projecting the historical trends — either might not or probably won’t be in the same positions by then.
Regardless, for selfish reasons, the two programs should be rooting for each other.
Terry Frei: tfrei@ or TFrei
