I spent much of the week leading up to the Washington State reminiscing about the 1980 season.
It wasn’t by choice that I was thinking back to my freshman year in Boulder. Rather, the Buffs actions on the field had taken me, involuntarily, back to one of the darkest periods in CU history.
The 69-14 beat down by Fresno State broke some records which had lasted over three decades. In the 1980 opener – my first game as a black-and-gold clad Buff fan – Colorado fell behind UCLA 56-0 … at halftime. That the Bruins failed to score the remainder of the game was on little consolation, as the tone had been set for the 1-10 season.
In the 1980 home opener, CU lost to Indiana (coached by – Heaven help us – Lee Corso), 49-7 … and then things got even worse. A scathing Sports Illustrated article about Chuck Fairbanks’ excesses in the wake of Colorado shutting down “minor sports” was followed up by another record-setting loss, this time in the epic 82-42 loss to Oklahoma. Then the Buffs lost to Drake for the second year in a row!
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