November 27, 2022 By: Mark Knudson

CU vs. CSU would make Rivalry Weekend matter in Colorado

It’s been a miserable football season along the front range. Few area college football fans are sad that it’s mercifully ended. Now onto the more important stuff like, will Deion Sanders be the next coach at CU???

But before we put the seasons for Colorado (1-11) and Colorado State (3-9) in the paper shredder, it’s worth asking what could be done to drastically improve things, on and off the field.

Jay Norvell’s track record says he will get CSU back to respectability sooner rather than later. And things can only get better for CU with a new coach, even if his nickname isn’t Prime Time.

Competitive teams will help, but that won’t be enough. The fact of the matter is, by this point in every season, unless either the Buffs or Rams – or heaven forbid, both – are in bowl contention and playing for a division or conference title, most fans have lost interest. Instead of building to a crescendo, nine times out of a decade, the CFB season in the Centennial State simply fades to black in November.

That was reflected in the sorry attendance at both Canvas Stadium and Folsom Field over the weekend.

“No one wants to play a home game over Thanksgiving,” noted a CSU administrator. “All the students are gone.”

That’s certainly true – and it hurt attendance for both the Rams 17-0 win over New Mexico and the Buffs miserable 63-21 drubbing at the hands of Utah. However, there were plenty of on campus stadiums across the country filled to capacity during the holiday weekend. Even a strong showing from the student section would not have made the atmosphere anything more than sleepy at Canvas Stadium on Friday. The attendance was generously announced at 20,000 (tickets sold) but if there were even half that many actually in the stands, a lot of them came dressed as empty seats. The opponent was no help. In Boulder the next day, the visiting Utes brought some red to town, but not enough to make the gathering at Folsom Field look like anything more than a spring scrimmage. The place was maybe half full.

But what if the 2-9 Rams were hosting the 1-10 Buffs on the day after Thanksgiving instead?

This is not a new idea. It’s been promoted before, but never gotten the traction it deserves. There’s no good reason to not have the state’s two major schools play on “Rivalry Weekend” every season. Seems to work out okay in other places.

There are a number of obstacles of course, including CU’s distaste for playing CSU at all. But that aside, chief among the roadblocks is conference scheduling and TV. The Pac 12 conference has always forbidden it’s teams – except for USC or Stanford playing Notre Dame – from playing out of conference games at the end of the year. It’s not exactly clear as to why…after all, it’s fine in the SEC and the ACC, where Florida and Florida State do it, so do Georgia and Georgia Tech, Clemson and South Carolina, among others. For the underdog programs, getting a shot at your true in-state rival at the end of the season is often time almost as good as going to a bowl. It’s not like it ruins anyone’s conference season.

“I always thought that’s when it should be played,” said former CU Head Coach turned radio broadcaster Gary Barnett. “We wanted more time to prepare for CSU. At the very beginning it was a game that was in their favor. If you lose it, and your standing in the conference doesn’t make any difference.

“I like rivalry games at the end of the year,” he continued, while acknowledging that the crowd at Folsom Field for a match up with CSU would be far better that the sparse attendance for the Utah game.

Playing a game that was for nothing more than bragging rights would still be a huge boost for CU and CSU. Even during a crummy season, if fans at least had that game to look forward to, they’d have something other than the naming of a new coach to look forward to.

Play it, and the fans will come.

Just imagine if the Pac 12 (and the Big 12) could think outside the box just a bit, and instead of force feeding CU – Utah, set up end of season games between BYU and Utah (the Holy War has been played a number of times on the last weekend of the regular season, even when it’s been a non-conference game) and Colorado v Colorado State. The interest in both games would be tenfold compared to what we saw around here Thanksgiving weekend. Good bet that a lot of students would return to campus a little early for those games.

And keep in mind that the Pac 12 isn’t exactly on firm footing these days. The conference is close to imploding, having already lost conference lynch pins USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, and still being in danger of losing Oregon, Washington and potentially Utah and Colorado as well. They’re reportedly about to admit San Diego State into the fold. The Pac 12 isn’t dealing from a position of maximum strength any longer.

With something like the possibility of the Pac 12 looking a lot more like the Mountain West in the future, why not start building interest in something other than the conference title game? Why not just go ahead and schedule games that fans would actually want to attend at the end of any season?