A CU fan kisses the grass after Saturday's 29-27 win over Georgia. (CU Independent/Phil McMichael)
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It’s a ritual as old as the forward pass, if not the sport of football itself. The home team wins a big, important game and the fans rush the field in jubilation to celebrate with the players following the victory.
Storming the field is one of the many traditions that make college football so much more special and entertaining than the homogenized and sterile National Football League. However, the act is easily cheapened and embarrassing when overused and abused, and for the past two seasons CU students have done exactly that.
There are only a few acceptable scenarios when a rush of the field is justified and encouraged. For instance, beating a team ranked in the top five of the polls is enough to get your fans flooding onto the turf. Beating a rival who has had the better of your team in recent years can also be a storm-worthy circumstance. Clinching a division or conference title is cause for mass celebration as well.
In my time as a student here at dear old CU, I have witnessed six games that resulted in a mobbing of Folsom Field. On only three of these occasions was said mobbing genuinely special and acceptable.
The Buffs’ last second 27-24 victory over the then third-ranked Oklahoma Sooners in 2007 was tremendous, and kissing the grass of Folsom will always be one of my best college memories.
Laying 65 points on the hated Nebraska Cornhuskers that same season to become bowl eligible, and simultaneously keep them home for the holidays, was also a fun and worthy win to celebrate with the team on the field. I’ll throw in the win over West Virginia in 2008 as well since they were ranked and a last-second field goal in overtime gave the Buffs a victory.
The other three occasions were an embarrassment to CU’s football tradition as well as the intelligence of our student body.
The most abysmal of these was last season’s 35-34 win over a mediocre Texas A&M team. Sure, it was an exciting win in a season where victories were few and far between but never under any circumstance should a rushing occur here.
To make matters worse, this same day fans in the stands wore powder blue shirts to protest the poor performance of the team under head coach Dan Hawkins. Of course, students clad in light blue could be seen running onto the turf, representing the height of hypocrisy.
Most recently, the majority of our student section ended up on the field following the dramatic 29-27 win over traditional Southeastern Conference powerhouse Georgia. While it isn’t everyday you beat a team from the SEC, this Bulldog team was sporting a sub-par 1-3 record coming into this contest. After a game that featured a halftime ceremony honoring the 20th anniversary of CU’s 1990 National Championship, the storming stood in stark contrast to our school’s rich history.
These events cast our football program in an embarrassing light and raise questions about CU’s football standards. Expectations in Boulder are considerably higher than these unwarranted rushes would lead the rest of the nation to believe.
If we truly want our football program to return to the level it was at even a decade ago when the Buffs were Big XII champions, storming after every exciting win needs to stop.
We all need to act like we’ve been there before so that when we do eventually get back there it will be that much more special, and you can tell your grandchildren about the time you rushed Folsom Field as the Buffs clinched a Rose Bowl berth.
I can dream can’t I?
Contact CU Independent Assistant Photo Editor Patrick Ghidossi at [email protected].
“If we truly want our football program to return to the level it was at even a decade ago when the Buffs were Big XII champions, storming after every exciting win needs to stop.”
I’m not sure that storming the field or not after the game has any influence on the success of our football team. In fact, I would say it’s inverse; the success of the football team would have more of an influence on the frequency of rushing the field by the win-starved Buff Nation. More frequent wins makes success less of an anomaly. Just sayin….
Thank you!!!! I have been so frustrated with the actions Buff fans have been taking since my time at CU. It is such a hypocrisy for fans to boo the players and Coach Hawkins then five minutes later rush the field for a flimsy win such as A&M. We need pride in our program not acting surprised when we win over beatable teams. Seriously, get the fair weather fans out of the first rows and cease the rushing!!
I will admit the storming the field was an excessive celebration given the relative weaknesses of the teams involved in the game, which is why i stayed in the stands. But if several thousand (most likely freshmen) fans can get pumped about their team winning, why not? A hard-fought victory that ended on a clutch defensive stand is among one of the most exciting things that can happen in football. On paper, the game wasn’t really anything special, but between the blackout, the 1990 team ceremony, and the unusually electric atmosphere in Folsom, the storm didn’t seem out of place at all.
If you are going to include West Virginia then you need to include the ’09 Kansas victory as a win that was “genuinely special and acceptable”. After all they were ranked 15th in the country at the time and the game came down to a final defensive stand…I agree with what you are saying, however it’s not that big of a deal in my opinion. It only happened twice for undeserving victories- ’09 Texas A&M and ’10 Georgia……its not like we are rushing the field every time we win a game
Gotta be honest, rush or don’t rush, w/e. But I think its a lot to ask from fans who don’t understand common football rules of etiquette and maybe thats where we should start. It seems like the fans get about as loud as they can when we have the ball, and people don’t seem to get why it’s detrimental to our own team to do so. Oh yeah, its because our fans don’t know $hit about F#uck when it comes to football. Baby steps, baby steps.
Very well put. I admit, I rushed the field in ’06 after the win over Iowa State. Super embarrassing, looking back.