Adventures in Colorado
Week 5 brought Bloody Saturday to the top 10 of college football and blood-shot eyes to this weary traveler. Three straight early mornings; rising at 4 a.m. Friday and Sunday to catch flights, rising at 6 a.m. in Westminster, Colo., to make it to Folsom Field for pregame radio duty. I survived better than Oklahoma, Florida, West Virginia, Texas and Rutgers, which were shot out of the saddle with one of the most stirring weekends college football has seen in decades. Let’s get started.
MOUNTAIN VACATIONS
Oklahomans love coming to Colorado. For the skiing in winter and cool weather in summer. For hunting in autumn and fishing in spring. And when you can mix in some football, all the better. As usual when the Sooners come to the Rocky Mountains, a horde of OU fans estimated at 8,000 made the trip to watch the Oklahoma-Colorado game. That’s about average for an OU game in Boulder; more than 15,000 went to Colorado Springs in 2001 to see the Sooners play Air Force. “It’s a good trip,” said Doug Roszell of Skiatook. “We like to come here every time they play in Colorado. We like the mountains, we like the weather. Like the outdoor activities.” Roszell also likes the breweries. He toured the Budweiser brewery in Fort Collins on Friday. Other OU fans watched elk, hiked, drove mountain trails, shopped at the Flatirons Crossing in Broomfield and took in the Rockies’ big baseball game at Coors Field.“Colorado’s always been a big seller,” said Bob Rollins, who runs University VIP Tours, which brought 120 OU fans to Colorado this week. “Colorado always works.”
Unfortunately, the Buffs can ruin a good trip. CU’s 27-24 victory was another in a long chapter of poor Sooner performances in Boulder. OU’s 34-20 victory in 2003 is the only Sooner win at
Colorado since 1988. Look at it this way; when OU goes back to Boulder in 2011, the Sooners will have had one win in 23 years at Colorado.
NEIGHBOR FROM HELL
A reader who will remain nameless, just in case he commits homicide and doesn’t need a newspaper blog helping convict him, wrote me last December about an obnoxious neighbor from Boise, Idaho. And when Boise State pulled the Fiesta Bowl stunner, the neighbor became insufferable.
Which brings us to last Saturday, and I’ll let our trusty correspondent pick up the tale.
“My phone rang at 8 o’clock this morning. I was in bed asleep. I groaned and reached for the receiver. I put the receiver to my ear and managed a weak ‘Hello.’ What I got in response was an explosion. It was my insane neighbor from Idaho, the Boise State maniac.
“WEEELLLLLL, IS THAT MY NEIGHBOR I HEAR? I DIDN’T MEAN TO WAKE YOU, BUT I JUST THOUGHT I MIGHT WARN YOU WHAT’S IN STORE FOR YOU TODAY!
“Huh? This is Satur — do you know what time it — all right, tell me…
“A LITTLE BRONCO MAGIC, BABY!
“Denver?
“NO! BOISE, BABY! COACH HAWKINS!
“Hawkins? You mean the Colorado coach?
“YEAH, BUT HE WAS AT BOISE BEFORE — SHOULD HAVE STAYED, BUT I CAN FORGIVE HIM! BUT, YOU KNOW, ONCE YOU’VE BEEN AT BOISE, YOU TAKE THE MAGIC WITH YOU!
“It’s 8 a.m. for crying out loud! What’s your point?
“MY POINT IS YOU’RE GOING DOWN TODAY, BABY! YOU’RE GONNA LOSE — NO DOUBT ABOUT IT! YOU’RE GETTING ANOTHER TASTE OF BOISE, BABY! ONLY INDIRECTWISE THIS TIME!
“Son of a b*#$% (slamming the phone down).”
Our poor fellow’s wife awoke. “Who was that?”
“The king of the Broncos, two doors down.”
“Oh, not him again! What time is it? What’d he want?”
“What else? To give me more crap about Boise. The Colorado coach used to coach for Boise.”
“He called this early about that?
“And actually I already had a bad feeling about this game today. He just made it worse.”
You know the rest. Colorado 27, OU 24.
Postscript: “Ten minutes after the game ended, the phone was ringing off the hook with calls from my neighbor. When no one answered, my neighbor showed up on my doorstep. When no one answered there either, my neighbor e-mailed me a picture of himself standing next to Coach Hawkins at a social event up in Idaho four or five years ago and grinning like a clown. He added a caption which read, ‘
Colorado Knew Where to Find Magic.’ I would have sent you the picture but I deleted it on the spot. I e-mailed my neighbor a one-line response: ‘Yes, and I know where to look to find a pain in the ass.’”
TEN BIG WINNERS FROM WEEK 5
10. Navy: The Midshipmen beat Air Force in what passes for the Commander-in-Chief Trophy’s title game. Coach Paul Johnson has Navy, 3-2, in position for another bowl trip. 9. Indiana: The Hoosiers haven’t won a Big Ten title since 1967, haven’t played in a bowl game since 1993 and haven’t been worth beans since firing Bill Mallory after the 1996 season. But under Bill Lynch, who was named head coach after Terry Hoeppner died of a brain cancer in August, Indiana beat Iowa 38-20 Saturday to go 4-1 and now hosts hapless Minnesota. Could be a bowl season for the Hoosiers.8. DeSean Jackson: Forget those nonsensical Heisman polls; the California flanker had the best game in America on Saturday, with 11 catches for 161 yards and two touchdowns in a 31-24 showdown victory at Oregon.
7. Bobby Bowden: A discouraging loss at Clemson opened Florida State’s season, but since then the Seminoles won at Colorado and beat Alabama on a neutral field. It’s a long climb to get back into ACC contention (BC is 3-0 in the Atlantic Division; FSU is 0-1), but Bowden has Florida State playing better.
6. Tommy Tuberville: Auburn opened the season by going 1-2 at home, but Tuberville showed one of the badges of good coaching by continuing to get his team to improve. Enough to win at Florida before September was gone.
5. Jon Tenuta: The former Howard Schnellenberger assistant at OU has resurfaced as one of the nation’s best defensive coordinators, at Georgia Tech. The YellowJackets shut down Clemson 13-3 and are in the running for the ACC title.
4. Ron Prince: The Kansas State coach is 2-0 vs. Mack Brown, twice knocking the Longhorns out of the top 10. Who knew following Bill Snyder would be so smooth?
3. Bret Bielema: It’s hard to follow the father of a football program, which Barry Alvarez was at
Wisconsin for all intents and purposes. But after a 37-35 survival of Michigan State, Bielema is 17-1 as Alvarez’s replacement.
2. Hawkins family: Colorado has seemed asleep for six years, even while winning Big 12 North Divisions in 2002, 2004 and 2005. But under second-year coach Dan and redshirt freshman quarterback Cody, the Buffs stunned OU and declared brighter days ahead for Colorado.
1. Big Ten: A mediocre conference just like the Big 12, ACC and Big East, except the Big Ten avoided catastrophic defeats. Ohio State, Wisconsin and Purdue remain unbeaten; the Buckeyes and Badgers are ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, and the winner of their Nov. 3 game at Columbus could make a run toward New Orleans.
ALTITUDE & ATTITUDE
I wrote about the altitude of Boulder — some 5,400 above sea level — and how some say the thin air makes it difficult for visiting athletes to acclimate unless they’ve been in Colorado for more than a day.
Nonsense, some say. Some ask why NFL teams don’t fly in early if the altitude really does affect football players. Two responses:1. Football coaches are slaves to routine. They don’t want anything disturbed in their schedules. Road games are road games, be it in Anchorage or Honolulu. That’s why the Sooners spend the night in Stillwater before a Bedlam game, or the Cowboys stay in Norman or the OKC metro. Coaches don’t like to admit that altitude can be a factor. But not preparing for altitude is like not preparing for the cold. Or not preparing for a certain surface, saying that any old shoes will do.
2. Some coaches do believe in trying to acclimate. The NFL’s Don Coryell once brought his team into Denver a full week before a game. And Bud Wilkinson routinely brought his Sooners to Colorado on Thursday; in 1958, Wilkinson began flying in on Wednesday and going through practices Thursday and Friday.
Craig Blankenship is the OU fan I quoted. He’s a mountain climber who suggested on the Sooners’ next trip to Colorado, Bob Stoops should also come in on Thursday and take the Sooners to higher altitude to quicken the acclimation. Blankenship emailed me over the weekend:
“I wanted to follow up and give you the results of a test I did for you and hopefully for the Sooner coaches should they still be coaching OU next time the team goes to Boulder.
“On Wednesday morning, I flew directly to Denver and drove immediately to my cabin, unpacked my gear and headed for Bear Lake, elevation 9,500 feet. I wanted to test the time it took me to hike to the top of Flattop Mountain, elevation 12,500 feet. The hike is 4.5 miles one-way, with an elevation gain of almost 3,000 feet. A fairly strenuous hike even if you are acclimated.
“I have hiked Flattop on several times over the years, but always only after I was acclimated. I was there for two weeks in late July and early August this year. I hiked to the top of Flattop in early August, after acclimating, in 1.5 hours. On this trip going straight to Flattop and hiking, it took me two hours. The benefit I gained from two weeks in early August is gone after about two weeks. I was pretty gassed by the time I got to the top. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even take the time to remove the warm capilene gear and gore-tex from my pack because I didn’t want to lose time. I only stopped for a drink of water once.
“I could barely believe it took me almost a half hour (extra) to hike up the same trail I have done many, many times in 1.5 hours. Boulder is several thousand feet lower than where I was hiking, but I think this proves my point. It took me 25 percent longer to hike something I am very familiar with. I would guess that down in Boulder, that disadvantage might be reduced to 10 percent. That is still a huge disadvantage.”
BEAUTIFUL BOULDER
The average housing price in Boulder, Colo., is $320 per square foot. That’s what, more than $200 more than the most expensive areas in Greater OKC? Boulder is something special. There’s nothing like it in the Big 12. Nothing even close. Boulder is Lawrence, Kan., and Berkeley, Calif., combined, set in the Rockies. A thriving college town of 84,000, with the eclectic kicker, set in a gorgeous mountain setting.
Downtown Boulder hasn’t lost its character or its commerce. Years ago, Boulder closed a couple of blocks of Pearl Street, which intersects with Broadway, its Main Street, and created a pedestrian mall. Restaurants and shops and clubs line the mall, with fountains and benches and kiosks in the middle.
You see all kinds of people on the Pearl Street Mall. A bum sat with a sign, saying he was being persecuted, that sleeping was not a crime but he had been arrested for such. And was taking donations. A couple of people in skirts sat holding what looked like some kind of guitar/banjo hybrid. Male or female, I couldn’t tell. College students and businessmen and cultured women, they all mingle on the mall. I recommend it.
FLYING ADVENTURES
I flew to Denver on Friday morning, flew to Dallas on Sunday morning for the Cowboys-Rams game, then flew home Sunday night. Here’s what I discovered in my flying adventures:
1. You never get used to how far out is Denver International Airport. I swear, you drive and drive and drive, and when you think you’ve finally arrived, you see it’s 10 more miles. Seems halfway to Kansas.
2. Flying west is always surreal. I had a 5:40 a.m. Friday flight, which means I landed before the sun rose. That made for one of the longest days of my life, but it also gave me a chance to see a Colorado sunrise. Very impressive. Denver is great because it literally is where the Plains meet the mountains, and the sun is even more spectacular coming up out of the Plains than disappearing behind the mountains.
3. Southwest Airlines is coming to Denver in November. I’m the most loyal Southwest customer you can find. I like their customer service, I like their frequent flier program, I like their attitude, I like their open-seating system, I like their flight attendants’ casual uniforms, I like their punctuality, I like their prices. Not much I don’t like. So this is very good news.
4. I flew Frontier to Denver, then to Dallas, and while Southwest will keep my business, Frontier impressed me. On the flight to Dallas, the seats had adjustable headrests. Sweet. I actually slept a little, which I rarely do in the air.
5. When we landed in Denver early Friday morning, the Frontier pilot welcomed us to town and said, “Go Buffs.” The guy was trying to be funny; he had to know his plane was full of OU fans. But it was a bad PR move; you never would catch a Southwest pilot pulling such a stunt.
6. If you’re flying out of Denver, give yourself plenty of time. For one thing, you always underestimate how far away is the airport. And DIA is a monster airport. Often a huge line for security, then a train ride to your terminal. Will Rogers it ain’t. After the 2003 OU-CU game, I missed my flight home. Wasn’t my fault; colleague George Schroeder drug his feet at the hotel, and we didn’t leave on time, and we ran late, and when we went through security George went through first, which means he got on the train first, and it left me. So he made it to the terminal before the door closed, and I didn’t.
You don’t want to try to fly stand-by in Denver the day after an OU-Colorado game. Every seat to Oklahoma City is booked by a Sooner fan. I waited on one stand-by flight, didn’t get on, and said screw this. So I talked United into flying me to Dallas. I hopped in a cab at DFW and went to Love Field, where Southwest got me home, somewhere around 10 p.m. I should have been home about noon.
7. I saw something over the weekend I never had seen before, and I saw it twice, on the trip from OKC to Denver and the trip from Dallas to OKC. On both trips, guys across the aisle were watching a video on their laptop, complete with nudity. That’s ridiculous. On Friday morning, it was some movie in which a couple started going at it hot and heavy. The guy folded his screen down a little, but I thought, geez, it’s 6:30 in the morning. Sunday night, some video across the aisle included a stripper scene. This passenger reduced his screen after realizing he could entertain half the plane. A girl, probably 12 years old, sat next to me on the plane, with her dad on the other side.
Southwest made national news because some flight attendant in California asked a passenger to cover up when she was dressed in a risqué manner. But better for airline employees to watchdog videos than wardrobe.
8. Baggage service is way better than it once was. I rarely check bags, but I had to this time because of radio equipment, and I barely waited at DFW or Will Rogers. And while I waited a few minutes at Denver, it was for good reason. The danged baggage claim is a half mile from the gate.
9. I assume you know cell phones don’t impede the flight process. It’s a question of passenger comfort. Do you know how many people leave on their cell phones during a flight? The FAA is considering allowing cell phone use on flights, but the problem is obnoxious passengers. You can’t get away from them on a plane.
10. I don’t mind not getting the exit aisle and the extra leg room that goes with it. But when I see a 5-foot-2 woman sitting in one of the six seats that adequately can hold a 6-foot-2 man, I’m not thrilled.
WALK-OFF FIELD GOALS
I made up a term Saturday night. Walk-off field goal. I’ve never heard the phrase; someone else probably has used it, but it’s new to me. A game-ending field goal. Not a field goal with 10 seconds left. Or five seconds left. Or two seconds left. No seconds left. That’s how Colorado beat OU 27-24; Kevin Eberhart’s 45-yard field goal on the game’s final play.
Bob Stoops allowed the walk-off field goal by not calling timeout with maybe 30 seconds left; he let the clock tick down, a thoroughly puzzling decision that Stoops didn’t really explain when asked. But it got me to thinking. How often have the Sooners been beaten on a walk-off field goal? Or a walk-off touchdown? Or a walk-off 2-point conversion? Not very often. Three times since World War II, counting Saturday in Colorado. The other two:
1. Kansas 1964: The Jayhawks threw a 26-yard touchdown pass on the game’s final play, then converted a two-point conversion to win 15-14. Gale Sayers opened the game with a kickoff return for a TD, so KU won by scoring on the game’s first and last plays.
2. Ole Miss 1999: The Rebels kicked a 39-yard field goal on the final snap to win the Independence Bowl 27-25.
Maybe you’re wondering about Texas Tech 2005, the infamous Replay Game, where Tech tailback Taurean Henderson was ruled to have scored with no time remaining, even though officials took forever to decide, then replays were inconclusive, giving Tech a 23-21 lead.
That wasn’t a walk-off. That was a walk-on victory. Recall that Stoops, playing that game out to the end, unlike at Colorado, ordered Tech back on the field to try an extra point, since two points theoretically remained possible, if the Sooners could return a conversion failure the length of the field. Tech coach Mike Leach had quarterback Cody Hodges take a knee, ending the game.
TEN BIG LOSERS FROM WEEK 5
10. Florida International: Lost to Middle Tennessee 47-6 in a battle of 0-4 teams. FIU could be facing its second straight winless season. But there is hope: season finale vs. North Texas.
9. Tom O’Brien: Left Boston College for theNorth Carolina State job. BC is in the top 10; 1-4 NC State is headed for last place in the ACC Atlantic Division.
8. Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights lost 34-24 to Maryland, the first foe that could fight back, and now the schedule gets tougher, starting with Cincinnati.
7. Sonny Lubick: Once hailed as one of the best coaches in college football, Lubick now has lost 11 straight at Colorado State.
6. Big boosters: The insider trading info supplied to the big dogs at Texas A&M has backfired on Dennis Franchione. Coaches now might be more reluctant to whisper to donors, for the right price.
5. Rich Rodriguez: The West Virginia coach lost his offensive touch in a 21-13 loss to South Florida, and his chance at the Big Bowl in New Orleans.
4. Florida: Gators had a rough road to an unbeaten season. They already had beaten Tennessee but still had road games at LSU, Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina, plus a home game against Florida State. But they fell 20-17 to an Auburn team that had shown no teeth. Welcome to the SEC.
3. South Florida: How could the Bulls be a loser after the biggest win in school history, a 21-13 conquest of fifth-ranked West Virginia? Easy. This means South Florida is sure to lose coach Jim Leavitt, architect of this upstart program.
2. Oklahoma: Sooners had the easiest road to an unbeaten season but blew a 17-point lead and lost 27-24 at Colorado.
1. Memphis: Horrible weekend for the Tigers. First they lose at Arkansas State, not far away in Jonesboro. Then football was put in perspective when defensive tackle Taylor Bradford was shot and killed Sunday night .
GRIPE OF THE WEEK
Let me get this straight. Oregon loses to sixth-ranked Cal 31-24 on a fumble into the end zone in the final minute, and drops from 11th to 14th in the AP poll, but Boston College beats UMass (UMass!) 24-14 and rises from 12th to seventh.
Look, I know the rankings are a mess after Bloody Saturday. But come on. BC seventh and
Kentucky eighth?
HOW ‘BOUT THEM STILLWATER QUARTERBACKS?
I just watched Matt Holliday lead the Colorado Rockies to a wild-card victory over San Diego. Holliday homered early in the game, then tripled in the tying run in the 13th inning and scored the winner in a 9-8 victory. In the process, Holliday sewed up the National League batting title.
If that doesn’t secure the MVP award for Holliday, I don’t know what will. I think we safely can say Holliday made the right decision in foregoing a scholarship to quarterback Oklahoma State. Holliday would have been a freshman in 1998, and who knows how he could have rewritten OSU history, had he been around to help Bob Simmons’ teams, especially the ’99 and 2000 teams, which were quarterback shy after Tony Lindsay’s injuries and ineffectiveness.
Speaking of that, another Stillwater High School quarterback, Josh Fields, didn’t have such a bad rookie year with the Chicago White Sox, hitting 23 home runs in 373 at-bats. Fields gave up his senior football year to enter the baseball draft. Another question, and a better question, is how the 2004 Cowboys would have fared with a senior Fields in command.
OSU went 7-5 in 2004 and won road games at UCLA, Colorado and Missouri. But Donovan Woods, while an effective leader, was not an effective throwing quarterback. Put a veteran, sharp quarterback on that team, and no telling how far that Les Miles team could have gone.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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