The records say Air Force, 8-0 and off to one of the best starts in program history, should clean Army’s clock by three scores.
Sean Pavlich says you can toss those records into the wild blue yonder.
“It does not matter when two academy teams get together,” the Denverite and former Falcons kicker told The Post in advance of the Air Force-Army football game Saturday at Empower Field, one of three huge college trophy games along the Front Range this weekend. “It is on. And anything can happen.”
Oddsmakers have pegged the unbeaten Falcons as 18-point favorites on a neutral field against the Black Knights of the Hudson, who come to the Front Range with a 2-6 record and riding a five-game losing streak that includes a 62-0 walloping at LSU.
But here’s the catch. Army has covered the pregame point spread in each of the last four meetings with Air Force and five of the last six. The last time the Black Knights were an underdog by more than two touchdowns, when Air Force was a 17-point favorite at the Academy in 2019, the Zoomies had to scrap for a 17-13 victory.
When the Commander-In-Chief trophy is on the line, Vegas goes out the window.
“In 1980, we go to Army and lay an egg, we lose at West Point,” recalled former Broncos GM Ted Sundquist, an Air Force fullback from 1980-83 and one of Pavlich’s teammates. “I go into that locker room and I look around and see the faces of those seniors … as a freshman fullback, I’d had a pretty good day, but fumbled twice and one of the fumbles led to an Army score. I saw the disappointment and heartache on their faces and I said, ‘Never again.’”
Sure enough, Sundquist and Pavlich went 3-0 against the Knights during the rest of the eligibility at Air Force. That’s the meaning of a rivalry, the emotional pull of a collegiate trophy game.
For only the second time ever, three of those storied trophy showdowns — CSU vs. Wyoming for the Bronze Boot in football, DU vs. Colorado College for the Gold Pan in hockey, and Air Force vs. Army for the CIC trophy in football — are taking place on the same weekend. And they’re all happening in one wild, 24-hour stretch across the Front Range, starting with the Boot game at 6 p.m. Friday inside War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyo., between the Rams and Cowboys.
“It’s a different kind of hate,” explained former Wyoming wideout John Griffin, one of the famed “Black 14” who excelled for the Cowboys in the late 1960s, only to be kicked off the team by then-coach Lloyd Eaton.
“I guess you could say it’s one of those legacy games, a bragging-rights game that still resonates today. We don’t like them and they don’t like us.”
The Broncos are off and Avalanche are out of town, but the bad blood will still be bubbling to the surface. Welcome to Rivalry Weekend in Denver, kids. Throw out the records. And get ready to roll up your sleeves.
“It’s a gritty trophy”
In the history of three storied rivalries, the Boot, the Pan and Air Force-Army have been up for grabs on the same weekend just one other time before this one: Nov. 6-7, 2015.
Things worked out pretty well eight years ago — unless you rooted for the Cowboys or Tigers hockey, of course. CSU won big in Laramie, 26-7. Air Force rolled Army, 20-3. And the Pioneers swept the first of two home-and-homes with their longtime rivals, winning 5-3 at Denver and 3-1 in Colorado Springs. (DU went on to win the remaining two games as well the next February, including the series-capper at Coors Field on Feb. 20, 2016.)
“What really comes to mind is those games being so hard-fought,” said former DU forward Gabe Levin, who registered two assists in the first Pios victory in that November 2015 series.
“They were (winless) and we were a team that was a pretty serious (national title) contender going into that game. But we still had a (mindset) that it wasn’t going to be an easy weekend.
“I remember, I was an assistant captain and Grant Arnold was a captain that (November series). Just talking to the guys, just basically (Arnold telling us) these games are gonna be as hard-fought as any that season — even though knowing, on paper, it wasn’t a close matchup, that’s how it was going to be.”
Like the man said, you’re dealing with a different kind of hate. A Pios team that eventually reached the Frozen Four, split its four regular-season meetings with national-champion North Dakota (2-2) and went 6-0 vs. Michigan State (2-0) and Western Michigan (4-0) got all it could ask for from a scrappy Tigers bunch that went 6-29-1.
“There were parts of (the CC) game where … they would take control of the game, then we would take control of the game, back and forth,” Levin recalled. “We were beating really good teams handily. I think we swept North Dakota (at home) that season. Trying to sweep Colorado College was just as difficult as any of those Michigan sweeps.”
The DU-CC series dates back to January 1950, although the Gold Pan wasn’t introduced as a traveling trophy until 43 years later.
The original pan that debuted in 1993 — once used for prospecting in Cripple Creek, so the legend goes — reportedly went missing a decade later under mysterious circumstances. A new pan, which weighs roughly 20 pounds, was introduced in 2007. And while not as storied as the Stanley Cup, it’s got some tales of its own to tell, Levin said.
“The Crimson & Gold Tavern? You can say it’s been there,” Levin laughed. “I think you’d be surprised at the lack of regulations or procedures about who actually has the Gold Pan.
“Lots of times, it would be, ‘Oh, yeah, that guy has it. Player X, he has the Gold Pan, it’s his responsibility right now.’ It wasn’t (left with) a freshman, but probably someone’s house, he’d take it home with him and then take it back to the rink the next day. It’s a gritty trophy.”
Austin Humphreys (Special to The Denver Post
The Bronze Boot trophy is passed around by the Cowboys after Wyoming defeated CSU 31-17 in the Border War rivalry football game at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyo. on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021. (Photo by Austin Humphreys/Special to The Denver Post)
“It’s very cool”
While the Bronze Boot will be deliriously and almost immediately snatched up by the winners of CSU-Wyoming late Friday night, the CIC protocol is a little more nuanced.
For one, it’s heavy as sin. While the Boot checks in around 20 pounds, including the base, the CIC weighs about 170 pounds.
“I don’t think there’s a bigger trophy in college football than the CIC Trophy,” chuckled former AFA football coach Fisher DeBerry, who won it 14 times over 23 seasons. “I’ve always wanted to pick it up, but I never was strong enough to pick it up.”
The CIC is one of only two trophies in FBS — the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision — that are competed for every year on a triangular basis, by comparing the head-to-head records of the three schools involved. (In the case of a tie, the previous season’s trophy-holder gets to keep the CIC.)
The winners are typically presented the trophy formally by the President of the United States, either on-site — in the case of the Army-Navy game, if that determines the overall winner — or at the White House.
When former President Ronald Reagan spoke at AFA’s graduation in May 1984, he also presented the CIC trophy to some of the Falcons’ seniors. Sundquist still has a picture of himself with The Gipper in his office, resting right next to a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol on the day of his graduation ceremony.
Trophy games are rooted in tradition, and no tradition is more treasured among service academies than the honor of singing their respective alma mater last following a historic victory.
“If the (Falcons) do win, if they do (clinch),” Sundquist said, “the big thing about after the game is singing the alma mater second.”
And the biggest thing about Rivalry Weekend? Pride.
If not for your alma mater, then for college sports in the Centennial State.
“(This weekend) is very cool, and here’s the reason why,” Sundquist continued. “I think college sports in general (here) … tend to get overlooked.
“It’s (coming) back at CU, I understand that, and that’s great for CU, it brings excitement and what not, but that’s a single guy (football coach Deion Sanders). And hopefully the program catches up with the guy.
“By and large, Sonny Lubick (at CSU) and DeBerry (at AFA) had a lot of success from a football perspective. You look at DU hockey and what they’ve done from a national perspective. We’re a little bit labeled as a ‘flyover state’ and I don’t think it’s fair for the players and the coaches and the alums and the fans and the schools and their programs. They play pretty darned good sports out there, and when they do, to have a weekend like this and to have three (trophy) games such as this, I think, is befitting of the caliber of sports that we play in the state of Colorado.”