BOULDER — If the Buffs want to keep Bradlee Van Pelt out of Folsom Field Saturday night, they’re gonna have to wrap up this time.
“I have a ticket,” the former CSU Rams quarterback and CU Public Enemy No. 1 told me Tuesday afternoon during his California commute. “I have a ticket, they say, if I make it.”
He laughed. If? Are you kidding? Deion Sanders? Rocky Mountain Showdown? With his Rammies up against the world, Stephen A. Smith, the Wu-Tang Clan, ESPN, Fox Sports and half the 1997 Pro Bowl roster? Dude wouldn’t miss it.
“Hang on, hang on,” I said. “Are you even allowed at Folsom after what happened last time?”
Another laugh.
“That’s a great question. I might come incognito,” the 43-year-old CSU icon replied. “I was explaining to my wife what happened the last time I was there. It definitely was not the best showing of myself.”
This was 2005, when Van Pelt showed up wearing a t-shirt with an obscenity, razzed Buffs fans and generally had a ball, even though the CSU lost, 31-28. Mind you, Van Pelt was a Bronco at the time, backing up Jake Plummer. The powers at Dove Valley heard about his antics from CU types and were not, shall we say, amused.
“You get caught up in the hype of the game and the emotion, and trying to get underneath the skin of your opponents, which was what I tried to do, but didn’t do it in a classy way,” Van Pelt explained. “And again, I can attribute that to being in your 20s and not understanding that you’re not coming across as a professional.
“What can you say about it now? It is what it is. I like to say a lot of us in our 20s, if we knew then what we know now, if we could, we would go back and do things differently. But it’s part of our past.”
Van Pelt’s past never left. Not after the business ventures, the NFL, or the on-air punditry with Sky Sports across the pond.
The CSU guy who famously spiked a football off Buffs defender Roderick Sneed’s helmet after scoring the winning touchdown vs. CU in 2002 is now a proud, doting dad with five kids, including a 4-month-old, back home.
“I’m dumbfounded,” he laughed. “And I think I’ve felt that way for probably the last 15 years.”
Perfect strangers still bring up The Spike, which turned 20 last fall. Hop onto YouTube and type “Van Pelt Buffs,” and you’ll find one clip of the play has garnered 50,000 views while another’s got 30,000.
“I couldn’t believe that 10 years on, 15 years on, today, it still comes up and it comes up from people … I don’t even know, I’ll meet them and they’ll bring it up on YouTube,” Van Pelt continued. “And it’s dumbfounding to me, but I’ve learned that it’s part of my folklore now and I have to live with it. And I even chuckle because I can look at it and look at different things where I shake my head and I’m like, ‘Oh, that looks really slow. I can’t believe no one caught me.’”
They’re still saying that in BoCo, dude. Something Van Pelt knows full well, given that three of his brothers have lived in Boulder at some point or another over the years.
“So there’s going to be a lot of trash-talking and ragging back and forth,” Van Pelt said. “And I like to stick up for my Rams. It’s on. I don’t care what the point spread is. It’s on. I don’t care that it’s played in Boulder, Deion Sanders, any of that stuff, doesn’t matter. These (CSU) guys have got a chance. Look, they’ve got an uphill battle. (But) don’t write them off.”
Vegas already has. Per TeamRankings.com, the ’23 Showdown, as of Tuesday, featured the largest point spread — Buffs by 23.5 — for any game in the series since 1995.
“I don’t think (Sanders) would have recruited me (as a high-schooler), particularly with my style of play and what I wanted to do as a QB,” Van Pelt said. “(But) why wouldn’t you want to play for someone that wanted to win and wanted to bring in top talent to help you win? To me, it would defy logic to not want to go and be on a winning team.
“I will say, I don’t think Coach Deion Sanders is everyone’s ideal head coach. I understand why some people would not want to go to (CU).
“It’s too early to say what’s going to happen (at CU), it’s a long season. But at this stage, it’s hard to refute, and I think you could say I’m not the only one, that there’s something more than just hype there.”
Although the hype is off the charts. So are the ticket prices, with VividSeats.com reporting an average get-in price at $201 as of Monday, making it the most expensive Showdown seat since the site began tracking such data a decade ago.
“That’s why I might have to go incognito,” Van Pelt chuckled. “The kids there, they don’t care about these old-timers. The (worry) is those guys who’ve been going to games a long time, maybe they’ve had a couple beers, and (now) they’re like, ‘I’ve been waiting 20 years to do this!’”
New CU fans, the Prime-Timers, skew young. But those diehards have long memories. And pretty good aim for their age.
