Back when BYU bolted the Mountain West Conference after the 2010-11 academic year and went independent in football, one of its former conference rivals most upset after the departure was Colorado State.
The Rams, who had been pummeled 49-10 by BYU in 2010, were among the schools who publicly questioned whether they would ever play BYU again, in any sport.
“It’s unfortunate,” then-CSU athletic director Paul Kowalczyk told the Denver Post on Aug. 31, 2010. “I hate to see BYU go, on one hand. But, on the other hand, the Mountain West is a strong conference with the recent additions of Nevada, Fresno State and Boise State. It puts us in a position as a conference to get better and have a BCS (Bowl Championship Series) shot.”
It was somewhat surprising, then, when BYU and Colorado State agreed to a two-game football series on Sept. 25, 2024, with the first game to take place next month in Fort Collins and the second game to take place in 2029 in Provo.
Time heals all wounds, apparently.
However, rest assured that many in Fort Collins haven’t forgotten the beatdowns or the way the Cougars left their longtime conference rivals. BYU leads the all-time series 39-27-3, with the first matchup having been played in 1922, a 33-0 CSU win.
In fact, one Colorado newspaper, the Fort Collins-based Coloradoan, published an article Tuesday hyping the Sept. 19 game at CSU’s Canvas Stadium, which opened in 2017 and is celebrating its 10th year of existence.
“Will BYU be best team to ever play at Colorado State’s Canvas Stadium?” read the headline over a story written by CSU beat writer Kevin Lytle and published shortly after the Cougars were slotted at No. 15 in the College Football Preseason Coaches Poll released by USA Today on Tuesday morning.
The Coloradoan called the mid-September matchup, which comes after CSU hosts rival Wyoming on Sept. 5 and Utah Tech on Sept. 12, a “showdown with former league rival and big national brand BYU.”
BYU opens against Utah Tech on Sept. 5 and then hosts predicted Big 12 title contender Arizona on Sept. 12, so it is not a given that the Cougars will be 2-0 and in the top 15 when they arrive at the foot of the Front Range.
Coincidentally, the highest-ranked team to play against CSU in Canvas Stadium, which opened in 2017, was No. 14 Utah State in 2018. The Aggies edged CSU 29-24 on what the Coloradoan called “a controversial call to wipe off a Hail Mary touchdown on the final play.”
The news outlet listed the “best team” to play in Canvas Stadium in each of the last nine seasons, with the caveat that the “‘best’ moniker is debatable” for many.
Last year, the best team was UNLV, which downed CSU 42-10 en route to a 10-4 season. In 2024, Colorado thumped CSU 28-9 at Canvas — which is a credit union — en route to a 9-4 season and two-way player Travis Hunter winning the Heisman Trophy.
Colorado’s fourth and final loss that year was to BYU, a 36-14 loss to the Cougars in the Alamo Bowl.
