The Buffs are doing a heck of a job keeping Mark Fesler’s red out, although it’s got nothing to do with CU’s athletic department. Or ticketing campaigns. Or threats. Or whatever orange cones the university plops in front of Nebraska football fans smelling blood and a good time, not necessarily in that order.

Fesler just wants to keep his car from turning into a latrine.

“They would (urinate) on our car and the students would throw urine on you,” Fesler, treasurer of Coloradoans for Nebraska, the local Big Red booster club, says of Folsom Field, where the Cornhuskers take on the Buffaloes Sept. 7 in CU’s home opener.

“We came back to the parking lot and some of the windshields were damaged. It was the worst stadium to go to. (Bill) McCartney did a good job making the rivalry heated.”

Fesler will still be there, loudly, in spirit. He’s auctioning off his four seats for CU-Nebraska to raise scholarship money for Colorado high schoolers to attend the University of Nebraska — and he expects those tickets to get snapped up by another Huskers loyalist.

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Keep the Big Red out of Boulder?

When pigs fly.

“It’s not possible,” laughs Kevin McKinney, Wyoming’s senior associate athletic director for external operations. “It’s not.”

Nebraska hasn’t graced the Flatirons since 2009, when the Huskers and Buffs were both members of a fracturing Big 12. The Big Red last suited up along the front range in September 2011, during a rare visit to War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyo., for a nonconference clash with the Cowboys.

“We just had to have a priority system for our groups and fans to try and sell as many (home tickets) as we could — to try and minimize the red,” McKinney says. He laughs again. “We knew it wasn’t going to happen.”

Oh, they tried some things, the way CU is trying now. They gave season ticket-holders priority. They incentivized joining Wyoming’s Cowboy Joe booster club; the more you gave, the more extra tickets for the Nebraska game you could buy, all the way up to 20.

Suddenly, Cowboy Joe memberships jumped. The number of season tickets sold went from roughly 7,000 in 2010 to 11,688 in 2011.

“And our season tickets went back down to the 7,000 (mark) the following year,” McKenzie chuckles. “It was remarkable.”

Keep the Big Red out of Boulder?

When the moon turns blue.

“(Buffs AD) Rick George (said), ‘Hey, let’s do what we can do to have a stadium full of Buffs fans,” explains Matt Biggers, CU’s associate athletic director of external affairs. “He was here during the heyday of the rivalry and he knows what that’s like.”

It’s testy. Testy, complicated, and slightly paranoid.

When CU joined college football’s new-money club in the late ‘80s, Nebraska — which for generations ran with the Alabamas and Clemsons instead of the Minnesotas and Purdues — refused to acknowledge the Buffs as equals. When Huskers quarterback Adrian Martinez got hurt on a tackle during CU’s victory in Lincoln last September, Big Red fans cried foul.

Basically, it doesn’t take much to set off old fuses. Or open old wounds. So when CU athletics emailed season-ticket holders in April offering an “exclusive” presale for the Nebraska game, it included a graphic with a banner that read, BUFFS UNITE! KEEP THE RED OUT, and a plea to “help us keep the red out of Folsom Field.” Oh, and a warning that “we reserve the right to cancel your order if we see tickets purchased during the presale on the secondary market.”

Cue Huskers AD Bill Moos, who never saw a bear he couldn’t wait to poke square in the backside.

“We’re on our way,” Moos told Nebraska fans in the spring when asked about CU’s efforts to stifle the Huskers invasion.

Keep the Big Red out of Boulder?

When blood drips from a stone.

“Individual Nebraska fans that wanted access, maybe some of them along the way were frustrated,” Biggers says. “But I think, deep down, they understood what we were trying to do. I think a lot of them understood and figured out ways to get their hands on tickets in some different ways … but I think our fans appreciate the effort. They want to be in a stadium that’s full of black and gold.”

A May presale for CU fans capped tickets at six for the Huskers showdown, compared to 10 for the other five contests at Folsom this fall. And constraints on supply have — no shock — slapped a premium price on demand, with the least expensive seat for the Buffs’ home date with the Big Red starting at $220 on VividSeats.com as of late Friday evening.

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“CU was selling tickets to their season-ticket holders with a caveat of, ‘Do not sell these to Nebraska people or you will lose these tickets, and your season tickets,’” notes Wendy Frenzel, acting president of Coloradoans for Nebraska. “My concern is, how are they policing that? And what amount of CU fans and Nebraska fans will not be able to attend the game because of that?

“As the AD for Nebraska said, that’s fine — let’s just make Boulder red. If we can’t be in the stadium, there are a lot of places to be (nearby), and let’s make Boulder red.”

To that end, the C for N crew plans to co-host a tailgate and game watch on Sept. 7 with Blur Parties along 28th Street and Canyon Boulevard between the Embassy Suites and the Hilton Garden Inn, a block party for roughly 2,000 fans.

If ya can’t join ‘em?

Beat ‘em.

“We also had Texas here, previous to that, and it wasn’t quite to the level of Nebraska,” McKinney says. “We’ve had Oregon here, they traveled. We’ve had the Longhorns here, they travel well. We’ve had Texas A&M here. We’ve had some big national programs. But nobody has the frenzy that Nebraska has.”

Keep the Big Red out of Boulder?

When Beelzebub takes a snowmobile to work.

“I’d say (CU’s) efforts are working, unfortunately,” Fesler sighs. “But I’m sure for the right price, people will pay. And people will sell their tickets. I expect a lot of red in the stadium.”