Through rain, floods, and closed roads

Running thoughts on the Cal Poly – Colorado State game

Saturday – 5:05 PM

So I didn’t really post too much on this one throughout today, so here’s the last thought from the game before I write a few other posts (with pictures too).

Each of the past two games have been pretty stereotypical ones for FCS vs. FBS matchups. The FBS school (Fresno State and Colorado State got out to decent leads, Cal Poly eventually fought back and earned some moral currency to take forward.

The problem is that the next game is a Big Sky contest at Portland State. It matters a lot more for Cal Poly. If they come out flat like they have the past two weeks, playoff implications that weren’t there the past two weeks will rear their ugly heads.

As for Colorado State and Fort Collins, they’ve been great. Fort Collins is a BEAUTIFUL setting for a game and the CSU fans had a decent showing (over 14,000 fans) considering the weather disaster nearby. Planning to have a few more posts and lots of pictures throughout the next twelve hours or so.

Saturday – 12:10

80 Minutes to Kickoff. The tailgaters at CSU know what they’re doing. There just aren’t very many people here yet. One guy said he thought this might be a record for least attendance since the 60’s…

Here are some interviews with CSU Tailgaters and pregame stuff. More will be posted as Youtube Accepts them.

This game may approach the lowest home opener crowd ever at this stadium. It’s around 12,000.

Saturday morning – 10:40 Mountain Time —

At 9:45 last night, Tom Barket and I made a decision. We were going to try to make it.

Fort Collins, CO was virtually shut-down. The city was basically on an island. The weather channel was making look like all of Colorado was in the middle of some kind of Armageddon.

All the roads in and out were shut-down and it was questionable whether we would even be able to get into town today (Saturday). Visions of driving my rental car into a lake or rushing river danced through my head.

It turned out, the last 30 miles of our wide-open drive into town included no puddles and not even a drop of rain. Surely, Boulder is in much worse shape than Fort Collins — the Fresno State at Colorado game today was canceled — but aside from the ground being a little wet there isn’t any sign of all the flooding craziness you might find with Jim Cantori and others across cable TV news.

Phew.

It will be interesting to see how the weather affects both teams — or whether it affects them. Since school hasn’t started yet, Cal Poly has been here since Thursday. I’ll have more updates on how many people are actually here, etc… as the day goes on.

I’m here now at Hughes Stadium. It is an artificial turf field, so drainage shouldn’t be an issue. Going to check the tailgates and find out how many fewer fans they are expecting here today than usual.

View from Hughes stadium. #csuband #bigskyfb pic.twitter.com/dWiT0Fr2Xy

— fansmanship.com (@fansmanship) September 14, 2013