TUCSON —
It’s 4 miles from the stadium, we’ve got a full tank of gas, and Johnny A is riding shotgun, wearing Mardi Gras beads that are green and gold. It’s dark.
We are on a mission from Cam the Ram.
“Hit it,” insisted Colorado State fan Bill Warren from the back seat, urging our intrepid driver to blast through the intersection as the traffic signal turned yellow.
The car lurched to a stop. All five of us love football. But not enough to run a red light.
Colorado State lost 28-23 to Nevada, when the Rams’ comeback fell 12 yards short of the goal line as time expired in the fourth quarter.
“We didn’t get it done,” coach Mike Bobo said Tuesday.
The rally attempted by the Rams was nothing compared with the travel adventure my new friends from Fort Collins and I had getting to the Arizona Bowl. There are college football programs with more trophies than the Rams. There’s no school, however, with better people than CSU.
We ran hard all day from Denver to catch this bowl game. And we were running late for kickoff between Colorado State and Nevada. Very late. But like the Rams, we adopted the motto: Never satisfied. We refused to quit.
“I’m the catalyst for this fun,” said Diane Warren, who sat between her husband and me in the back seat of the car speeding down South Kino Parkway in Tucson. The guy getting directions from the airport to the game on his phone was John Arnolfo, owner of the Silver Grill Cafe in Fort Collins.
“Better known as Johnny A,” he said.
They all are CSU alums. They are all crazy for the Rams. They are the people our parents warned us about. And they are exactly the kind of loyal boosters Colorado State needs to make its bold move to a new stadium on campus a big success.
“I came to school at CSU in 1969, shortly after they opened Hughes Stadium. And nobody in town could figure out why the stadium was 3 miles from campus,” Arnolfo said. “Now, I’m going to get a little hot here: But you went out to games in the middle of this field, where nobody even knew what a tailgate party was. Everybody hated Hughes. I think the new stadium is a great idea.”
This was the definition of bowl mania. It was the definition of love. If CSU star Rashard Higgins knew how much his fans really cared, it might be much tougher for him to declare for the NFL draft, rather than return for his senior year. After setting the school record with 3,649 yards receiving, Higgins was asked if a decision on his future has been made.
“No, sir,” he replied.
Yes, traditional pigskin powers Alabama and Oklahoma have way more supporters than Colorado State does. But Roll Tide and Boomer Sooner have nothing on the length these Rams fans went to support their alma mater.
At 5:01 p.m., United flight No. 1727 pulled back from Gate 36 at Denver International Airport. Outside the window of the airplane, dusk faded to black in the night sky of Colorado. The Warrens and Arnolfo sat anxiously on the edge of their seats, because the Rams were set to kick off against Nevada within 30 minutes — at a stadium in the Arizona desert, more than 600 nautical miles away.
The flight had been scheduled to leave Denver at 11:28 a.m., in plenty of time for CSU fans to arrive in Tucson, grab lunch and stroll to the game on the University of Arizona campus. But takeoff was delayed a half dozen times, for a total of 5 hours, 33 minutes. Every text update from United was a cranky call with a new excuse. Weather in Atlanta. Mechanical failure. Fly the friendly skies? My eye.
Nothing could stop us. We all arrived at halftime. Looking around a huge stadium that looked very empty with only 20,425 spectators inside, you would’ve thought bowl officials could hold kickoff until we showed up.
Nevada took the lead on a 4-yard touchdown run by James Butler with 1:06 remaining in the fourth quarter. CSU quarterback Nick Stevens, who completed 22-of-42 passes for 310 yards against the Wolf Pack, then staged a furious march down the field.
The Rams, however, never got a shot at the end zone, when Jordon Vaden caught a pass and struggled for an extra yard rather than stepping out of bounds at the Nevada 12-yard line, allowing the final seconds on the clock to expire.
“Colorado State has been playing football for a long time, but there haven’t been a lot of years of consistency. And right now there’s some consistent play of three straight winning seasons, three straight bowl games. It’s something to be proud of,” said Bobo, who finished 7-6 in his first year as coach.
“But by no means are we satisfied with where we’re at, or where we’re going to go. … I believe this program really has a high, high ceiling of what it can do.”
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or @markkiszla
