Turns out isn’t a fan of Pac-12 refs, either.
“I don’t understand how a big game this is, that you don’t have neutral refs,” the fifth-year Colorado State football coach said, angrily, as he greeted reporters early Saturday morning at Broncos Stadium following the Rams’ 52-31 loss to the rival in the Rocky Mountain Showdown.
“I don’t understand it. (Itap) too big a game not to have neutral refs. Thatap all I’m gonna say about that.”
Only it wasn’t.
By contract, the home team in the Showdown provides the officiating crew for the contest, and CU was the host for the 2019 installment. Bobo had been irked by a Pac-12 crew before, at the 2017 Showdown that saw the Rams flagged 10 times in a 17-3 loss to the Buffs, but backpedaled during his postgame news conference.
Not this time.
Early Saturday morning, long after most of the 66,997 at Broncos Stadium had left the premises, Bobo — now 0-5 against CU — let those frustrations fly, assailing the refs during his opening statement to the media for their ruling on a fumble by Rams tailback Marvin Kinsey Jr. at the Rams’ 27-yard line 19 seconds into the second half with CSU trailing 24-21.
After a replay review, officials upheld a call that Kinsey Jr. had been stripped by Buffs safety Aaron Maddox before hitting the ground, a fumble recovered by CU nose tackle Jalen Sami. The Buffs scored three plays later to take a double-digit lead for the first time all evening.
“The dang umpire (is) saying, ‘Ease up, ease up’ to everybody, all right?” Bobo recalled. “Then they allowed it to be a fumble. Itap not right. But we got our (expletive) beat. Questions!”
A few minutes later, Bobo got one about the officiating. And again, the Rams coach let fly.
“I mean, itap bull crap. Itap bullcrap,” Bobo snarled. “Itap big, too big … you tell a team to ease up and running back to stop, and a play’s going and then they reward (him) with a fumble is bullcrap.”
Say this for Mel Tucker’s debut as the Buffs’ football coach: It sure as heck wasn’t boring.
For one, the 83 points scored between CU and CSU were the most in the history of the rivalry, which dates back to 1893. The game was wild; the postgame, wilder; and the pregame, surreal. An already late kickoff was delayed twice by lightning in the area, pushing a scheduled 8:10 p.m. start at Broncos Stadium to 8:47.
When he wasn’t slagging the Pac-12 crew, Bobo — the first CSU coach since 1954 to lose five in a row to the Buffs over five consecutive seasons — praised the effort of his Rams, who came in as two-touchdown underdogs.
For most of the evening CSU played as if its lunch money — and Bobo’s job security — depended on it, bringing a hunger and desperation that almost bridged the strength and talent gap between the two rosters.
Neither defense particularly impressed, although it was Tyson Summers’ Buffs unit that made the play of the evening. CU’s D often looked slow, at best, and charitable, at worst, for most of the contest. But despite surrendering 505 total yards, the Buffs avoided further damage by forcing four turnovers that turned into 17 CU points.
No takeaway was bigger than the one that ended the first snap of the second half, the giveaway that rankled Bobo the most, giving the CU the ball at the CSU 27 before many fans had returned to their seats.
The Buffs scored three plays later on ’s 7-yard plunge, the first of the sophomore tailback’s three rushing scores on the night in his first CU start. Fontenotap three touchdowns were the most for a Buffs tailback in his debut start since ’ four scores in 2013.
“There (are) always a couple plays in a game that go like that,” said Tucker, who became just the third CU coach since 1932 to win his first contest at the helm. “‘Was he down? Was it a fumble? Was it a sack?’ In football, it can be a very unforgiving game.”
The first half featured four lead changes in the second quarter alone, with three of them coming over a final 5:37, with each punch being countered — and with each defense struggling mightily to keep up.
With the underdog Rams nursing a 14-10 cushion, CU faithful presumed order had been restored on a 6-play, 75-yard Buffs scoring drive, capped by freshman Jaren Mangham’s first touchdown run in a CU uniform.
But CSU had other ideas, and no qualms about sharing them. The play that might’ve most summed up the opening 30 minutes was the Rams’ 4th-and-1 call at the CU 41, down four with 95 seconds to go in the first half. Rather than punt or pound it up the gut, Bobo put the ball in the hands of speedy freshman wideout Dante Wright, who found a seam to his right and outran everyone in black and gold for his second score of the evening and CSU’s second lead of the contest.
CU responded quickly with a crisp 2-minute drive behind senior quarterback Steven Montez, who found tight end Brady Russel for gains of 27 and 17 yards and hit Laviska Shenault, the hero of 2018’s Rocky Mountain Showdown, for a 25-yard score in the corner of the end zone with 25 seconds left in the second period.
“Just another day at the office,” quipped Montez, who posted 271 yards of total offense and threw for two touchdowns, moving to 3-0 in three career starts against Bobo and the Rams. “Just another day at the office for us.”