Stephens: Air Force vs. CSU football rivalry on life support

The ugliest trophy in college football makes its biennial visit to Fort Collins on Saturday.

A trophy that the latest generation of CSU football fans can’t fathom its existence.

Atop it sits a wooden ram and falcon, squaring to battle like they so often do in nature. And placquered across the mountain in which they fight for supremacy are the names of the annual game’s victor, Colorado State University or Air Force.

Twenty one times the trophy reads Air Force, 14 does it say CSU, and eight of the past nine games this “rivalry” has been won by America’s airborne military academy.

Rivalry.

Yeah, sure.

CSU VS AIR FORCE: Game day guide

That used to be a word reserved for games against teams you were excited to play; games that were bigger than “the next test” in a long season but for CSU and Air Force, the battle for the Ram-Falcon Trophy has become just that. No one cares anymore.

It’s a tertiary rivalry for the Rams behind Wyoming and the University of Colorado and the same goes for Air Force with its focus being Army and Navy.

Said Air Force quarterback Karson Roberts on Tuesday: “Yeah, I mean the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy is our biggest goal every year, beating Army and Navy. But we’ve kind of started this rivalry with CSU with the Ram-Falcon trophy, so it’s a big game. Like I said, we’re treating it like another opponent, just going in, executing the game plan and trying to go 1-0.”

Said CSU linebacker Kevin Davis and tight end Kivon Cartwright — well, they didn’t say much of anything. An apathetic sounding “it’s just another game.”

And it’s not “just another game” in the way the Border War and Rocky Mountain Showdown are, where that’s what players tell themselves and the media to remain on an even keel. When it comes to playing Air Force, it’s how they genuinely feel.

Davis, Cartwright and Roberts weren’t around when this rivalry was at its peak in the 1990s and early 2000s. CSU quarterback Nick Stevens was one year old in 1996 when the Rams rallied from a 41-14 deficit in the third quarter to win 42-41, and when the Falcons started their seven-game streak in the series in 2006, Cartwright, a sixth-year senior, was a freshman in high school.

Even Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, a quarterback at the academy in the 1980s, doesn’t know any differently. He’s 12-4 against the Rams in his lifetime.

“They’re undersized, usually, but it never matters. They go and play Notre Dame, they play all these schools, but you never see them get blown out. They’re just tough and they keep coming,” said Anthoney Hill, who was 3-1 against Air Force as the CSU quarterback from 1991-94 and is now on coach Mike Bobo’s staff.

“I mean, it’s a rivalry, but it’s different. I kind of have to detach myself from it somewhat or I run the risk of overplaying it and telling (the players) about my years. If I play that card all the time, it kind of gets worn out ... It’s still a rivalry, it’s a trophy game, it’s in state, it’s a conference game and on top of that, like every coach says, it’s the next game.”

And maybe that’s part of the reason Air Force vs. CSU has lost its appeal. Rivalries aren’t being stressed as heavily in today’s era of college football. The playoff system has helped put every Power 5 school in position to win a national championship while their Group of 5 counterparts are trying to go undefeated and to earn an invitation to an inclusion bowl; traditional opponents are irrelevant.

When former Michigan coach Brady Hoke had clocks outside the locker room counting down to kickoffs versus Michigan State and Ohio State, that was a deviation from the norm.

Temporary resuscitation was shocked into this game in 2013 when CSU broke its seven-game skid with a 58-13 victory to made it bowl eligible for the first time since 2008, and again last season when the Rams, ranked No. 21 in the country, lost by a field goal, eliminating all hope of a Mountain West championship. But it will take years of back and forth to bring this rivalry back to life.

The anticipated sellout crowd for Saturday’s game should be credited to homecoming, more so than the opponent.

There is no exchanging of the game ball at a neutral location at noon before kickoff; no grilling falcon breast on the CSU plaza. It’s a rivalry without tradition that’s become so lopsided, it’s hard to consider playing Air Force anything more than just another game.

For insight and analysis on athletics around Northern Colorado and the Mountain West, follow sports columnist Matt L. Stephens at twitter.com/mattstephens and facebook.com/stephensreporting.