I don’t know if this is simply leverage to get the game moved from a neutral site in Denver to a home-and-home basis, but Colorado’s athletic director says he’s had enough of the rivalry series with Colorado State (h/t Doc Saturday).
Colorado athletic director Rick George said Wednesday that it is in the “best interests” of CU to not renew its annual football series with intrastate rival Colorado State after the current contract concludes with the 2020 game...
“After the current contract, playing the game in Denver is dead,” George said. “And I’m not sure where our series with CSU goes after that either. Today, we would not extend our agreement (for CU to play CSU in football) past 2020.”
Officially, it’s a matter of priorities. Having a sixth home game trumps playing your in state rival.
Every other year, Colorado will play only four home conference games, so it can be difficult to schedule six home games and still play a representative schedule if one of the nonconference games is played in Denver against CSU.
“My job is to do what’s best for CU, the athletic department, our teams, our student-athletes,” George said. “I think our best interest is to move games under the contract to campus sites and then, after 2020, I’m not sure (the series) is in our best interest, and that’s why at this point I wouldn’t extend it.”
Except that’s only a problem every other season, and… hmmm, you only play a road game against CSU every other season.
George sounds like he’s a masterful negotiator. Asking Colorado State to move the series away from Denver while at the same time marking the end of the rivalry is kind of screwy. Then again, complaining about the size of the crowds in Denver while offering your season-ticket holders the option of declining the CSU game and using that dollar credit to buy more single-game seats for CU games played in Boulder seems a bit counter-intuitive, as well.
Unless you really, really want out.
Rivalries ain’t what they used to be.
