To Be Or Not To Be - What Is The Rocky Mountain Showdown To Thee?

Kyle Ringo has a piece up on Buffzone, so it is now officially a Thing To Discuss. And discuss it we shall! First, there are well reasoned and thoughtful responses, such as this:

This. Maybe pee on it afterwards to make sure its out. RT @CUGoose: KILL IT WITH FIRE. http://t.co/Su9Rtdt6Vr

— SkyeSnow (@SkyeSnowBuff) July 25, 2013

Those are excellent points! But I have way more than 140 characters to fill, so away we go...

I used to be strongly in favor of the annual game against CSU, held in Mile High Stadium. It was full, raucous, and generally competitive. I remember my friends getting married on the day of the game (which is dumb- never ever do this) on one end of the 16th Street Mall, while the reception was on the other end. Half of the attendees hopped off the bus at a bar to catch as much of the game as possible (as well as beer) before proceeding on to the reception to inform the groom, via many swears, how disapproving we were about his choice of date for the exchange of nuptials. The other half were probably Nebraska fans or some crap.

Without the game, would we all hate Bradlee Van Pelt and his stupid trucker hats as much? Surely not, and he is so, so fun to hate, even now, long after he has ridden off into the sunset to wherever it is that jackasses like him go to die. Tampa, probably.

And just like replacing a coach or spouse, the question must be asked- is the replacement really going to be an improvement? George Karl's teams regularly spit the bit in the playoffs. Your wife regularly slept with your brother Gary. But it's not like you're particularly attractive anyway, and your personality can be described as "disagreeable at best," so you should just be happy any woman would be so kind as to glance in your direction and wait... never mind. Something about football. Point being, there reasons to play the game It's a game that we should be favored to win roughly 80% of the time, at least, if all is right with the world (seasons like last year do not count. Last year, it wouldn't have mattered if we were playing CSU, UNC, or Metro State. Do not ever speak of this again). There simply is no other opponent of that stature where we could attract a full Folsom Field and not have to pay a massive guarantee to Directional Tech or the Paul Mitchell Beauty School from the strip mall on Colfax.

But alas, the game as we know it now is not the game that once was. It's more like a Frankenstein's monster that's been constructed out of the rotting corpses of two struggling programs with the apathetic fan bases such programs breed, and electrified by the soulless, half empty corporate monstrosity of Whatever The Hell It's Called Now Field at Mile High and made for TV kickoff times around the time Corso puts on his stupid mascot head. This is all inarguable.

Various solutions have been offered to tame the monster, from a rotation with Wyoming, Air Force, and CSU, to moving it back to campus with a 2-1 model in favor of the Buffaloes, to just, you know killing it with fire. After all, the argument goes, CU has nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing. They are the little brother from the lesser conference with their dumb tin-eating goat mascot. Of course the same could be said of whatever game with which we replace it, be it Wyoming, Air Force, New Mexico, or UNC. We need to schedule winnable games before conference season; we aren't going to open with Ohio State/ Alabama/ Oklahoma. Nor should we. The bottom line is that CU fans are notoriously fickle when it comes to the football schedule. On the one hand, season ticket holders want high profile home games to increase the value of their ticket package, but at the same time would like to have winnable games to best position the team for a spot in the postseason. That's a pretty fine needle to thread. Which brings me to my preferred choice:

Keep the game, but move it back to campus on the day after Thanksgiving. Let's be honest- the Utah rivalry is not a thing, will probably never be a thing, and definitely should not be a thing. So move it to whenever, because who cares. Put the CSU game there, so that more players can be with their families that weekend and more alumni are likely to be back in state visiting their own respective families. I know I'd be more likely to spend Thanksgiving in Colorado than in my apartment, clutching a dwindling bottle of wine and eating a turkey pot pie if there was a CSU game to attend. Or leave it at Corporate Name Stadium at Mile High! Under my scenario, you're far more likely to fill that stadium on the day after Thanksgiving. Establish a new tradition: instead of waking up at the crack of 3AM in order to line up like freezing paupers outside of Wal-Mart so you can purchase cheap Chinese garbage that will break if it does not first give you cancer, bundle your loved ones up and tailgate with a hearty leftovers sandwich, and all of the beer you did not consume the day before (note: you will need to purchase some more beer on the way to the game, because there will be no leftover beer) and then watch Ralphie humiliate stupid Cam once again.

And no matter what, regardless of what happens with the series, remember that we will always have this:

And for this we are forever thankful amen.