Travis Hunter of the CU Buffs has the last laugh against the CSU Rams in the Rocky Mountain Showdown
FORT COLLINS – Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi struck the wrong pose.
If the Rocky Mountain Showdown was the spark that ignited Travis Hunter’s march to the 2024 Heisman Trophy, then BFN ignited the counterpart with a small gesture. Trailing 14-3, Fowler-Nicolosi, the CSU Rams’ second-year quarterback, rolled to his right and shoved Hunter on the sideline as the pair tumbled off the field.
There was some verbal sparring, but the real kicker was when the Rams quarterback leaned over and taunted Hunter with a “too small” sneer. The same taunt that Patrick Beverley taunted LeBron James last year.
Two problems. First, BFN is nowhere near as good a quarterback – not yet – as Beverley is a trash talker. Second, Hunter could be to college football what Old Man Bron is to his basketball colleagues: A talent of a generation. The king.
“How stupid is that? That’s Travis Hunter,” CU Buffs coach Deion Sanders said of his two-way star, who caught 13 passes for 100 yards and grabbed an interception on defense in a 28-9 win over the Rams at Canvas Stadium. “Dude, that’s Travis Hunter. That’s Travis Hunter. So who does that? I wouldn’t let my kids do that. And you all know that.”
They should know better. BFN should know better. After their little chat, Hunter, who played 123 snaps in the Rocky Mountain Showdown, caught four balls for 31 yards and two touchdowns – and that was just on offense. On defense, No. 12 picked up an interception from Fowler-Nicolosi and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for celebrating that catch with his teammates.
Hunter picked off BFN with 18 seconds left in the third quarter, running the ball right up the right perimeter. After the game was over, the 2025 NFL first-round draft pick celebrated at the CSU 10, with Hunter spinning the ball like a top while a group of CU defenders held out their arms as if they were being warmed by a pigskin fire. Flags were flying, but the point was clear.
The Buffs (2-1) weren’t just here to win.
They were here to make a statement.
This is especially true after the humiliating 28-10 loss at Nebraska the previous weekend.
“It’s a little extra motivation when the opponent is talking crazy stuff,” Buffs QB Shedeur Sanders said after throwing four points. “We don’t really put other players down. We don’t try to do that on social media. So yeah, they just asked for it.”
Like Lincoln a week ago, Fort Fun brought some noise and heat early. But unlike Nebraska, the Rams were unable to use that momentum to knock the Buffs out of the game early.
CU, meanwhile, seemed to find answers to the questions raised by the Big Red’s loss. They found a new player in freshman Micah Welch (nine carries), who rushed for 65 of the team’s 109 yards on the night. They found a tweak to their offensive line by moving Tyler Brown to the left guard position and inserting Phillip Houston at right tackle.
Of CSU’s many sins, the cardinal sin was letting CU down. They allowed Shedeur Sanders to get comfortable in the pocket. They allowed Hunter and LaJohntay Wester (80 receiving yards, two TDs) to get comfortable between the hash marks. They allowed the Buffs to get comfortable enough to gain a foothold.
And when they did, the Rams were in trouble.
The Cornhuskers scored a touchdown the first time they had the ball, another touchdown the fourth time they had the ball, and fired off a quick pick-6 in between to build a 21-0 lead midway through the second quarter.
In the middle of the second stanza on Saturday, CSU managed a field goal and 61 yards of offense. Three points and three punts.
The Rams seemed content to play the field position game rather than open it up – a move that proved to be a disadvantage for them, especially after two adverse penalties gave a boost to two early CU drives. Sanders and offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur simply ducked and dodged until they could get a few shots of their own.
The headlines began 8:47 before halftime. On second-and-13 from the CU 44-yard line, with CSU still clinging to its 3-0 lead, the younger Sanders threw an incomplete pass to the right hash mark for wideout Jimmy Horn Jr. But instead of a third-and-forever attempt at the halfway line, a roughing the passer call against Rams defender Andrew Laurich gave the visitors a first down at the CU 47-yard line. Six plays later, the Buffs QB found Wester on a 4-yard slant for a touchdown, CU’s first touchdown of the night.
Sanders and Wester were just warming up. On the Buffs’ next drive, a series of CU penalties turned a second-and-one attempt at the visitors’ 41-yard line into a second-and-21 attempt at the CU 21-yard line. The Buffs went to Welch on the left again, and a big gain completely turned the game around when a 15-yard face-mask call on CSU defensive lineman James Mitchell gave the Buffs their first down at the home team’s 48-yard line.
Four plays after the flag, Wester got loose on a lateral route with 58 seconds left, Sanders found him, and Wester outran the CSU secondary for a 34-yard touchdown. The drive extended the Buffs’ lead to 13-3 and capped arguably the most complete half of the Deion Sanders era at CU.
“Nobody cares about balance until you get beat up,” the elder Sanders said after the game. “That’s the only time you really care about balance.”
While the home fans were begging for BFN to deviate from the safe approach, his aggressiveness backfired on the hosts’ first drive of the second half. On second-and-9 from the CSU 4, the Rams QB ran right into his own end zone and fired a ball across the middle of the field that was intercepted by CU’s Preston Hodge at the 20, with the latter’s 8-yard runback giving the Buffs the ball at the CSU 12.
The younger Sanders threw a 2-yard slant to Hunter, who scored a touchdown two plays later, extending CU’s lead to 20-3 and making the rest of the evening an academic affair.
But that didn’t stop Sanders and the Buffs, who led by 19 points with 2:55 left, from shooting five times in their last seven games.
“As long as the other team is trying to score a goal, we’re trying to score a goal,” said Coach Prime. “That’s my rule.”
Jay Norvell’s Rams, on the other hand, ran 31 times, threw 39 times and barely seemed to get out of second gear. Unlike his Buffs counterpart, Fowler-Nicolosi started hesitantly and stayed there, sometimes rolling intentionally and usually for a safety.
“We wanted to play aggressively and we did at times,” Norvell told reporters after the game. “We’ll watch the film and see. It’s hard to say. If you don’t win, you don’t like what you did. I’m not happy with it right now.”
The Rams were annoyed before the game and talkative during it. But the last word belonged to Hunter and the scoreboard. Not necessarily in that order.
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