Better shed than red.
“I’m tired of Folsom Field,” Jodi Summers Bunn told me, “looking like we’re in Lincoln.”
Would you eat a month’s rent to keep the Nebraska Cornhuskers from invading Colorado Avenue Saturday for Coach Prime’s CU Buffs home debut?
Bunn and husband Chris forked over $1,980 for six extra tickets to Buffs-Huskers, giving the Pagosa Springs couple and their family a block of 10 for college football’s national game of the week. Context: Per ApartmentList.com, the median monthly rent in Boulder checks in at $1,927.
And the kicker? As of Labor Day weekend, Jodi and Chris were still trying to move four of those seats. But not just to anybody.
“I would rather eat the cost of the tickets than sell them to somebody in (Huskers) red,” Jodi stressed.
“We’ve had a couple people inquiring. And if that falls through, I will take those four tickets with me to the game. And I will only sell them to people in CU gear. We’re not going to try to make money at all. We’re not going to try to hike the price. We just want to see that they’re physically wearing CU gear.”
Four tickets, purchased at $330 a pop, is $1320. That’s an awfully pricey Saturday breakfast tab. Even for Boulder.
“We are not,” she said, “messing around.”
Jodi’s side of the family has stood shoulder to shoulder for five generations, with season tickets that date back to 1952. Her parents snapped theirs up in 1966. The Deion Sanders Effect has a lot of newbies in PRIME 21 shirts breathing CU gold right now, but Bunn bleeds it.
“(Buffs athletic director) Rick George makes sure he comes up and gives my dad a big hug before every game,” Jodi said proudly.
It’s the kind of loving, heartfelt legacy that would rather lose two grand than repeat 2019, when the Bugeaters celebrated their first trip to BoCo in 10 years by taking over the place.
Fortunately, they brought ex-Huskers coach Scott Frost along, too. Frosty being Frosty, he showed up for a rivalry game on the road without an experienced kicker. It bit him square on the backside. Nebraska punter Isaac Armstrong missed a 48-yard field-goal to end overtime, giving the Buffs a 34-31, come-from-behind victory. Jodi and Chris waved the Big Red parade adieu. Suckers.
“I’ve had a lot of heartbreak with this rivalry in my (life),” she said. “CU is a part of our family culture. I mean, ‘Better dead than red.’ And the ‘N’ (on the helmet) stands for ‘knowledge.’”
She also knows there’s a caravan coming, streaming west from Council Bluffs to Carpenter Park. She knows that when some of her Buffs peers see a camper full of Huskers pull up, they don’t see the enemy. They see desperate buyers who are about to turn their CU seats into a free winter vacation in Cancun.
“If I were sitting next to a Nebraska fan (Saturday), I’d know it was a season-ticket holder (from my section),” Jodi said. “And they would not like to hear what I’d have to say.”
Even if the Huskers football team doesn’t really show up anymore, Big Red faithful still do. Especially when challenged.
“It’s what they do. They’ve done it my entire life,” Jodi sighed. “I’m hoping that Rick and his crew did a good enough job not allowing that to happen as much as it’s happened in the past.”
Which is the other way in which The Prime Effect helps — if Front Range casuals, neutrals and skeptical Buffs weren’t on board before CU shocked TCU in Fort Worth, they sure as heck are now.
The average price to get into Buffs-Huskers via TicketCity.com over the holiday weekend sat at $521; the lowest “get-in” seat, with fees, was $295. It’s the highest average mark-up for this rivalry, Jim Howard, TicketCity’s vice president of ticket operations told me, in at least 15 years.
“Really, it all comes down to winning games,” Jodi said. “If Deion comes out, honestly, and has even a (.500) season … you’re just going to continue to have more and more fans. That’s what we need to try to do.”
Jodi and Chris ain’t messing around, either. If you want a crack at their tickets Saturday, best know your stuff. No Googling allowed. Big Red spies abound. The four questions on The Bunn Test:
1. Can you sing CU’s fight song?
2. What ‘s CU’s actual school colors?
3. When was CU established?
4. In what year did Ralphie run for the first time?
“I want real fans,” Jodi said.
Yeah, but what if one of those real fans turns up with a CU pullover, Venmos half a house payment, waits until you’re out of eyesight, only to reveal they were wearing a red 1995 Orange Bowl T-shirt the whole time?
“No, no, no,” Jodi laughed. “I’m gonna ask what they’re wearing underneath.”
Bunn was born a Buff. But she wasn’t born yesterday.
