Verbal agreement in place for Rocky Mountain Showdown to return to campus

According to Brian Howell of the Daily Camera, Colorado and Colorado State have a verbal agreement in place to continue the Rocky Mountain Showdown in 2023 and 2024.

CSU athletic director Joe Parker said that he and CU athletic director Rick George have talked very seriously about a home-and-home, even going as far to say a “strong verbal commitment.”

Right now the now annual game will not be played in 2021 or 2022 because the Buffaloes already have those years filled up for their non-conference schedule.

George and Parker have talked about moving the game out of Denver away from the home of the Broncos and back to campus. The only thing holding the two back is signing the actual papers.

More from Joe Parker to the Daily Camera:

“I’m confident it’s going to happen (at some point),” he said. “I don’t have any doubt in my mind that it will. I’m patient. We’ve talked about it. I would expect that we’ll get something done pretty soon and have it on paper and be able to formally announce it.”

That’s advantageous for both of us,” Parker said of playing on campus sites, as he watched his Rams open their brand new stadium Saturday against Oregon State. “We’ve got this wonderful, beautiful, amazing resource embedded on campus. It gives us an opportunity to show people in the state of Colorado what Colorado State is all about.”

George recently said that CU does not want to play any more games in Denver, Parker has obliged. CU has gone as far to giving their season ticket holders opt-outs for the game because the fans do not like Denver for counting as a home game in ‘Boulder.’ The 2019 game, currently the last slated, will be the 10th in a row (19th overall) in the Mile High City.

Colorado already has two opponents scheduled for 2022 and 2023 so the games may not be on “week one” as they have been mostly in the past.

Of course, the opening of Colorado State’s new on-campus stadium makes it more viable for this game to be in Fort Collins despite it holding less than 40,000 capacity.

The Buffs have a 64–22–2 edge over the Rams in 88 all-time meetings between the Centennial State’s two biggest schools.