BOULDER, Colo. — Excitement was roaming at the University of Colorado Boulder as the Buffs took on Brigham Young University (BYU) Saturday night at Folsom Field.
Fans of all ages were decked out in black and gold, feeling both confident and committed that their Buffs had a chance of beating BYU, though the night ended in heartbreak for the Buffs. The final score of the game was 24 to 21.
Buffs superfan Phil Caragol, also known as Buffalo Phil, has been dressing up in Buffs gear since 2010. He said it all started because they weren’t a ‘very good team’ and there were ‘so many sad faces in the stadium.’ Now, 15 years later, he explained what the energy is like during these late-night games and his role in keeping fans going.
Caleb Foreman
“These late-night games are killer, starts at 8:15 p.m., so we’re not out of there till like 12:30 a.m. Everbody’s great energized in the first quarter, second quarter, and then halftime comes and the energy level starts sinking. It gets cold and old people leave, so it’s rough. Afternoon game, it’s just much more everybody’s much more engaged,” Caragol said.
Before the game started, fans gathered for the Buff walk to cheer on the players and hear from the band. Becky Gamble could easily be spotted standing on top of a cooler to get a good view ahead of the game. She explained just how special Folsom Field is and the energy inside of it.
“This stadium is one of the best in the country, just because it’s small and it’s intimate and you got the flat irons in the backdrop,” said Gamble. “This is a pretty special place.”
Caleb Foreman
Tailgating was in full force before the kickoff, with kids throwing footballs and fans enjoying their favorite bites to eat. At the BYU Alumni tailgate, booths were set up for attendees to pick up free swag or take pictures in gear.
Jennifer Wise, chapter chair for the BYU alumni association in Denver, shared her favorite table is the CougsCare project as they were collecting donations for books and phonics games for the Family Learning Center in Boulder.
“People are donating books and phonics games and toys, things to the center that will help them sort of bridge that gap between Spanish and English and be able to, sort of take advantage of all of the amazing cognitive benefits that bilingualism gives them,” Wise said.
Caleb Foreman
When interviewing Wise, she said there were 300 items on their Amazon wishlist, and at last check, there were 253 donations. While the CougsCare project started back in 2019, Wise explained this was the first time for this tailgating tradition here in Colorado.
“It is definitely a distinctively BYU thing to do, so yeah, I love it. It’s fun to be a part of,” Wise said.
Next up, the Buffs will play Texas Christian University away in Fort Worth, and BYU will play at home against West Virginia.
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BOULDER, Colo. — It’s a bad week to be a stationary bike in Boulder.
Specifically, the stationary bike that will be outside of the University Memorial Center (UMC) Fountain on the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) campus from November 2 to November 8.
Members of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, also known as Pike, will ride that stationary bike for 8,423 minutes straight in honor of cyclists and pedestrians who have been killed on the road nationwide. The philanthropic event is called Pike on a Bike, and the goal is to raise $100,000 for The White Line Foundation.
“We were talking in our basement. Every single year, we do a philanthropy event; one way or another, we’re raising money for something. And what better way to give back to our community and to our dear friend, Magnus?” Graydon Abel, a member of Pike, explained. “By supporting The White Line, it’s supporting an issue bigger than just Magnus.”
The White Line Foundation is a nonprofit organization started by Jill and Michael White, Magnus White’s parents.
Submitted to Denver7
Magnus was 17 years old when he was hit and killed by a driver while riding his bicycle in the summer of 2023. He was killed while on a training ride for the Junior Mountain Bike World Championships in Scotland. He was proudly wearing his Team USA jersey when a car rammed into him from behind.
Graydon and Gavin Abel, who are twins, knew Magnus from Boulder Junior Cycling.
“There was never a lack of fun. It was always a good time with him. Lots of adventures. He’s a very funny person, and at the same time, he had a very caring side to him,” Graydon said. “He was always the fastest guy in the course. He wouldn’t accept second place.”
“What happened last summer was truly tragic. It should never happen to anyone, and his life really did get stolen that day,” Gavin said.
Another member of the fraternity, Sebastian Edwards, knew Magnus from a young age.
“I’m actually from Boulder, and I’ve known Magnus since I was… we went to the same elementary school, middle school, and high school,” Edwards said. “It’s just truly a feeling that you just never expect. I mean, such a tragic loss in the community, especially somebody like Magnus, who is really just such a powerful figure.”
Boulder
Thousands ride for Magnus White, a teen cyclist killed last summer in Boulder
The brothers will ride 8,423 minutes on the bike, representing the number of cyclists killed nationwide in 2022 combined with the number of pedestrians killed around the country in 2023.
“Heartbreaking, really. It’s kind of insane because a minute’s not a very long time at all, but when you put together all of the lives lost just within one year, you come up to almost an entire week,” Edwards said.
The Pike members all signed up for different shifts on the bike, and some will be riding during the late hours of the night. The fundraiser will begin on November 2 at 5:05 p.m.
“The reason we think that this project is so special is, not only will we be remembering Magnus and all of those other 8,423 deaths in America, we’re also sending a good message for young people as a whole, remembering that driving is something that is super dangerous, just within itself,” Edwards said. “Nobody wants to be killed by a driver. Nobody wants to kill somebody while driving. So, it’s beyond just raising this money. It’s the brothers actually vowing to be safe drivers.”
It will end November 8 at 12:28 p.m. — the exact time of day when Magnus was hit by a driver along Highway 119.
“The bike is going to be ridden entirely by our brothers, except for two spots, which are going to be ridden by Jill White and Michael White towards the end of the event,” Edwards said.
Family of Magnus White
Jill and Michael White are also the co-founders of The White Line Foundation, which they started following their oldest son’s death.
“We didn’t want it named after Magnus. We wanted it to have a larger meaning so people can get behind and start a movement, respecting the white line and respecting those people on the road,” said Michael.
The Whites said Pike approached them about the fundraiser.
“They wanted to ride for like 10,000 minutes straight. And I thought in my head, I think there’s roughly about 10,000 minutes in a week. Let’s put a meaning behind that number, not just a week straight,” Michael said. “They came to us with the idea, but they’re the ones actually executing everything from the ride logo to the name of the event to setting up the website and the pledge site, securing the location with CU, and arranging all that. It’s all on them.”
Magnus would have been turning 19 in a couple of weeks, his parents said.
“He would be a freshman [in college] this year, or he would be cycling, cycling professionally in Europe,” the two said, finishing each other’s sentence.
Jill said she found it touching, inspiring, and meaningful that the Pike brothers had this idea for a fundraiser.
“It gives us hope for the future, even though our future and Magnus’ future was stolen. But to see that spark change in these young men, it’s inspiring,” Jill said. “It keeps Magnus’ legacy alive.”hope for the future, even though our future and Magnus’ future was stolen. But to see that spark change in these young men, it’s inspiring,” Jill said. “It keeps Magnus’ legacy alive.”
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Magnus White’s parents on grief, their son’s memory after driver arrested
Jacqueline Claudia is the new executive director of The White Line Foundation.
“The White Line is the manifestation of how we take a horrible tragedy that happens thousands of times across the country every day and turn it into action and change,” said Claudia. “We’ve actually spent quite a bit of time talking about what do we want to achieve. What does success look like for us? And we came up with three main areas that we’re going to be focusing on.”
Those three areas are raising awareness, creating proof that demands action, and creating a national grassroots network focused primarily on young people who are impacted by these kinds of tragedies.
“There’s a lot of ways that we are planning to or currently leveraging AI,” Claudia said, who has a background in artificial intelligence. “This is a nonprofit. It’s driven by donations.”
Aggregating data is another huge area where AI can help, Claudia said.
“We can have dynamically updated dashboards. We can start to drive correlations between actions that are happening and results that are happening in other places. Our ability to analyze data at scale quickly — the opportunity for that’s never been there like it is today,” said Claudia. “Even to try to source the names [of cyclists or pedestrians who died] in the State of Colorado is incredibly hard. You need to go to the coroner’s office by the coroner’s office to get them because the aggregating agencies either aren’t able to or don’t have a process to release that information in a way that allows people to actually understand the impact of what’s happening. It’s a very disparate system, and we have the opportunity to really shine a lens on that and see if we can pull it together in a way that we can create change.”
CU students plan week-long stationary bike marathon for a worthy cause
The $100,000 goal will allow The White Line to magnify and amplify the scale of the change they hope to make, according to Claudia.
“This is a huge problem. It’s been a huge problem for a long time. It’s only growing. It’s kind of paralyzing. ‘What can I do to change it? What can I do?’ It’s really easy. You can change your own behavior, and you can donate to organizations that are trying to put together the tools and the awareness to be able to create bigger change in other people. So support the people who want to make change,” said Claudia.
Those interested in donating to the fundraiser can do so by following this link. As of Wednesday evening, Pike has raised more than $12,000 for The White Line Foundation.
The trial for Yeva Smilianska, the woman accused of killing Magnus, is currently scheduled to begin in December. However, the White family has been told the defense plans to file a motion to delay the case. They believe it will be pushed to early next year.
“It’s difficult to move forward in grief when you know all that’s going to come back on that one week of the trial, and the things that we are going to hear and see that we may not have known yet, it’s going to be traumatic,” said Jill.
Denver7 reached out to the 20th Judicial District, which said a motion will likely be filed to delay the case this week by the defense. The spokesperson added that prosecutors are communicating with the defense to select a new trial date.
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“Theirs prevented them from losing the game. Ours won the game.”
With that, he laughed.
“You’ve got to remember who you’re talking to. I’m still Michael Westbrook. I’m still going to talk smack. Even though those are my Buffs.”
He’s loving those 3-1 Buffs, by the way. And he loves wideout LaJohntay Wester’s sliding catch in the rain, the grab that brought Folsom Field to its feet and sent fans outside scurrying back to their seats as time expired.
“Kordell (Stewart) had all the time in the world (in 1994),” Westbrook continued. “Shedeur running was the complete opposite. He’s getting tackled while he releases the ball. It was a stark contrast.
“And (Stewart) is back there waiting for a tip with my 43-inch vertical, just sitting back there waiting. Theirs was a far more difficult play. Ours was very easy. We literally practiced that play every week. Every Friday we practiced that Hail Mary. (Shedeur’s) was a more skilled play, from their perspective.”
Still: Two similar touchdowns, the last one happening three days from the 30th anniversary of the first? Who says the football gods don’t have a sense of humor?
“It’s a huge blessing to have been a part of something like that,” Westbrook continued. “And then (30 years) later, to have something similar transpire … No. 10 throwing the ball in 1994 to No. 10 (Wester) actually catching it in 2024. My last name is Westbrook, his last name is Wester … it’s almost surreal.”
It’s almost poetry. While Shedeur Sanders swung for the fences, Stewart was watching at home, clutching a pitching wedge nervously.
“It’s one of those ‘moments,’ right?” the ex-Buffs QB told me Monday. “I’m like, ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ Mind you, the (FOX Sports) broadcast had just shown my Hail Mary pass from 1994, right before Shedeur threw that pass.
“I don’t know if you call it fate. But history has a chance to repeat itself sometimes, in the same way, in the same capacity. I didn’t jump up. I was just like, ‘Wow, are you freaking kidding me?’ … I had a moment. I just remembered how it was for us.”
It was pandemonium. It was chaos. It was glorious.
Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver LaJohntay Wester (10) and teammate Travis Hunter (12) celebrate Wester’s touchdown to force overtime against the Baylor Bears in the fourth quarter at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. Baylor Bears safety Devyn Bobby (3) walks toward the sideline. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
On Sept. 24, 1994, the unbeaten and seventh-ranked Buffs trailed 26-14 to start the fourth quarter at fellow unbeaten and No. 4 Michigan. Staring at a 26-21 deficit with six seconds left, Stewart, the Buffs QB, had driven CU to its own 36. After a spike stopped the clock, then-Buffs coach Bill McCartney called for “Rocket Left,” in which Westbrook, Blake Anderson and Rae Carruth lined up on the left side of the formation and James Kidd lined up wide right.
The rest is college football history, still regarded as one of the wildest endings of any NCAA contest played over the last 50 years. Stewart dropped back to about his own 27 and fired a deep ball as time expired. The lob had enough juice to carry it past the Michigan 1-yard line, where a mass jump-ball situation ensued.
Anderson tipped the rock high and behind him, where the 6-foot-3 Westbrook, tracking the ball with his eyes, leaped up and cradled it as he rolled to the turf, stunning more than 100,000 Wolverines faithful in the process. Ralphie 27, Big Blue 26.
“There are no flags on the field,” the legendary Keith Jackson said on the broadcast. “Only despair for the Maize and Blue.”
Westbrook’s No. 1 Hail Mary was always going to be a beast to beat. Especially given the context. And the opponent. And the beatified building it silenced.
“The one thing I was jealous of, was when (Wester) caught the ball, the reaction was a complete, stark contrast (to mine),” Westbrook reflected. “It was complete and total, utter silence, versus the decibels being high enough (at Folsom) to pop your eardrums. And it was so awesome to see that.
“I was jealous and I was very proud of them. And very happy.”
“(The Miracle at Michigan) was on the road, we overcame the adversity of 100,000 fans, we just overcame 10 penalties. We came back and won,” Westbrook continued. “(The ’24 Buffs) came back and won, too …
“It was a great play. I’m not going to take that away from them. To put that ball where (Sanders) put it and for (Wester) to catch it like he caught it, that was a better play. That play was better than our play.”
Another laugh.
“But that play, in the grand scheme of things, was not a better play.”
Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver LaJohntay Wester (10) makes a catch in the end zone for a touchdown against Baylor Bears safety Corey Gordon Jr. (24) to force overtime, after the extra point, in the fourth quarter at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. The Buffs went on to win 38-31. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
“I have slowed the game down on offense a little bit,” Rams football coach Jay Norvell explained Monday at Canvas Stadium, “because we were playing some really talented people these first three weeks and I felt like, to give our defense a chance, I needed to slow down the game a little bit and run it a little bit more.”
Air Raid? Smash-mouth? None of the above? Hey, it’s good to be multiple. But over the last 11 months or so, the Rams offense has often looked downright schizophrenic.
Consider: In the first four series of a bonkers 2023 Rocky Mountain Showdown last September, CSU threw it 11 times. In the first four series of a boring first half this past weekend in the ’24 Showdown, a 28-9 CU victory, the Rams aired it out just five times, officially.
At home. Against one of the two schools your alums want desperately to beat most. In front of a rocking, ravenous and rare sellout at Canvas Stadium.
And yeah, we know — personnel played a factor. Last year’s Rams took on CU and the Sanders family with Dallin Holker at tight end, wideout Louis Brown IV and a healthy Tory Horton. CSU this past weekend had no Holker, no Brown and Horton (groin) toughing it out on basically one good leg.
But when you’ve been touting your QB1 as a Power 4-level signal-caller, and then can’t trust him to air it out against a Power 4 defense, red flags start popping up everywhere. Everybody’s credibility suffers.
“(We) need to get our playmakers involved, we need to get it going offensively,” Norvell continued. “And we’ve got talent. We can score. And we need to respond to that.”
“Are you saying you’re going to take a more aggressive approach from here on out with how you attack teams?” the coach was asked.
“No, I’m telling you that I think we had hard matchups, and I don’t think we matched up very well,” Norvell replied. “And I was trying to minimize that — and that’s what head coaches do.”
Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) and CU cornerback DJ McKinney (8) bring down Colorado State Rams running back Justin Marshall (29) in the first quarter at Canvas Stadium in Ft. Collins, Colorado Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Fortunately, there’s all kinds of time left, nine games, with which to hammer out a new narrative. The Mountain West looks top-heavy, and CSU won’t play two of the three programs — UNLV and Boise State, Fresno State being the other — expected to vie for the league crown.
More hope: The Rams have already faced the two most talented two rosters they’ll see all year in No. 1 Texas and CU. Although if the point was to save some arrows in the quiver for league play, after last Saturday, it might be good for Norvell to start firing off a few.
“We’ve got a lot of season left,” the coach said, “and we’ve got all of our goals in front of us that we want to accomplish in our conference and in the remaining nine games.”
All true. But assuming this weekend’s visit from 0-3 UTEP gets the Rams (1-2) back to .500, it’s also not crazy to wonder if a visit to future league rival Oregon State (Oct. 5) and a home test with San Jose State (Oct. 12) leaves CSU at 2-4 heading into a tussle at rebuilding Air Force (1-2). It’s not unreasonable to wonder whether the CSU administration, after that CU stinker, will have everybody’s back if — if — the Rams are somehow 2-5 with three winnable home games (New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah State) left on the docket.
Norvell knows the score. He’s got a president and athletic director who didn’t hire him, and the former isn’t messing around.
“I’ve felt pressure since the day I started being a coach,” Norvell said. “I mean, that’s just part of it.”
He’s also his own offensive coordinator, his own play-caller, so everybody knows where the buck stops. Norvell’s never shied away from blame after tough losses. He’s rarely pointed fingers. But CSU fans I’ve talked to would prefer to lose more news conferences and win more football games, thanks all the same.
“You don’t want to get me on a soapbox about all that,” Norvell said. “We hadn’t talked about (CU) for months, OK? And so all that stuff that was brought up (as trash talk) was a long time ago.
“So I don’t really have any issue with Brayden or any of our guys. Our guys are focused on what can we improve to get better. And that’s about all I’ve got to say about that.”
If the Rams have an offensive identity right now, it’s that their players, including BFN, keep writing checks their program can’t cash. Nobody cheering on the green and gold right now knows what they’re going to get on game day. Besides heartbreak.
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Deion Sanders is adamant about keeping negativity out of his life and his football program at Colorado.
He even had a newspaper columnist barred from asking questions at football-related events over what he deemed as pessimistic coverage.
Sanders spent his summer integrating a new offensive line and two new coordinators — and squabbling with the media.
As he prepared for the Buffaloes’ season opener against FCS powerhouse North Dakota State, the second-year Colorado coach was asked Saturday if he ever felt persecuted “by outside noise.”
He said, “This is a way of life for me.”
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DAYTON, Ohio — The iron was unkind to CU almost all night long. But in March, an ugly win with a ticket to the next round of the Big Dance beats a pretty flight home to Boulder any day of the week.
Thanks to a double-double from guard KJ Simpson and clutch buckets by forward Tristan da Silva, the Buffs advanced out of the NCAA Tournament’s First Four with a 60-53 win over Boise State at UD Arena.
CU (25-10) will meet Florida (24-11) on Friday in a first-round matchup in Indianapolis.
It was the third NCAA tourney win for the Buffs under Tad Boyle since 2012 and the program’s second since 2021.
With CU trailing 49-45, the Buffs’ Big Two of Simpson and da Silva brought their squad up off the mat, and extended a wild, roller-coaster season in the process.
The latter’s trey from the corner made it a 49-48 game, and Simpson scored the next four points — via two free throws and a runner in the lane — to put CU up three. Center Eddie Lampkin Jr.’s soft follow with 32.8 seconds left, released just before the shot clock expired, gave the Buffs a 54-49 cushion.
Wednesday was CU’s fourth game in seven days, and late in the tilt, the Buffs’ legs appeared to show some wear. Jumpers off the fingers of Simpson that he normally swishes trended short, and 50-50 rebounds near the rim on Boise misses were more often snagged by the scrappier Broncos in the second half.
The Buffs opened the second stanza on a 9-4 run that also served as one of their best stretches of play to that point. Simpson accounted for four of those points, and the point guard’s layup with 15:58 left in the game elevated the CU lead to 35-28.
But for much of the evening, anytime the Buffs started to build up breathing room, Boise found a way to claw right back into the fight. Broncos forward Cam Martin’s layup with 12:58 left capped a 9-3 Boise run.
Martin’s putback with 9:11 to go, the culmination of a da Silva turnover and a mad scramble the other way, knotted the score at 43-all.
While the Buffs’ offense stalled, O’Mar Stanley’s layup with 7:11 left put the Broncos up 45-43. Roddie Anderson III missed an open bunny on a backdoor cut, but Tyson Degenhart’s high-arcing follow was true, extending that Boise cushion to 47-43 and forcing Boyle to call a timeout.
If you liked your basketball games to resemble a rock fight, the first half of Buffs-Broncos was for you.
In a contest begging for someone who could create their own shot off the dribble, only CU’s da Silva obliged early. The senior forward led all scorers at the break with 11 points, and the Buffs upperclassman’s 3-point play gave CU an early 9-6 lead about six minutes into the tilt.
But Boise countered with a 7-0 run of its own, and a Chibuzo Agbo layup put the Broncos ahead 13-9 with 11:54 to go until halftime.
Both sides retrenched after a television timeout. On the first possession coming out of it, however, CU incurred a shot-clock violation. It wasn’t Virginia cold, but Boyle’s Buffs weathered a scoring drought of 2:16 midway through the opening stanza.
Luke O’Brien’s 3-point play with 2:42 until the break pushed CU’s cushion to 24-18. But the Buffs managed only one more field goal for the rest of the first half, and clung to a 26-24 edge at the break. The Pac-12 reps misfired on seven of their first eight 3-point attempts, while the Broncos of the Mountain West opened 1 for 10 from beyond the arc.
