Memorable Moments: Rams Ready to Enter a New Conference

While this may be homecoming week and all the pageantry that goes along with that time-honored event, the Rams will make history on Saturday when they face Oregon State for the first-ever Pac-12 game in CSU football history. The Pac-12 is the sixth conference Aggies and Rams football has competed in since 1893, so we look back on the first conference games played in each of the previous five conferences and how the era of those conferences went.

When the first football games were played at Colorado Agricultural College in the spring semester of 1893, there was no athletic conference formed for any college in Colorado. With the excitement of the new game of "foot-ball" spreading throughout Colorado colleges, it was decided in March of 1893 to hold a meeting to form a conference. On March 18, 1893, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of Colorado (also known as the Colorado Football Conference or Colorado Athletic Association) was established for the fall of 1893 semester.

On Oct. 7, 1893, the first game CAC played in the new conference was in Boulder against Colorado, a 44-6 loss in a season that saw only four games in total. The IAAC is the only conference any CSU football team has won a championship in football. After a break from 1895 to 1898, the newly named Aggies football team played in the conference until 1908, when a more organized conference was formed. Continued arguments and a lack of rules doomed the IAAC when the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference was formed in 1909.

On Jan. 1, 1909, the Rocky Mountain Faculty Athletic Conference was formed and was made up of four area schools: CAC, CU, Colorado School of Mines and Colorado College. Other area schools were added over the years and the conference, known today as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, or RMAC is still operating and Colorado Mines remains in the conference as its only charter member.

The Aggies first game played in the RMAC was against Colorado, a resounding 57-0 defeat on Oct. 23, 1909, in Boulder. However, when Harry Hughes came on as the school's new head football coach and athletic director, CAC football was changed for the better. Hughes won eight RMAC titles in football and one season, 1915, could be disputed as a national championship. The RMAC is where the Aggies had their greatest success and served as an excellent conference for its time.

By the mid-1930s, the RMAC had grown to be too large, with the "Big 7" schools as the conference leaders and smaller schools like Western State and Northern Colorado in the "Little 5" division. Finally, at the end of 1937, Colorado State Aggies, Colorado, Utah, Utah State, Denver, Wyoming, and BYU formed the Mountain States Athletic Conference, also known by many as the Skyline Conference.

Hughes' Aggies played their first game in the new Mountain States Conference on Oct. 1, 1938, against Wyoming in Laramie. This game was a very boring scoreless tie, with fumbles and a lack of any offense by either school. Colorado A&M/Colorado State University played in the Skyline Conference from 1938 to 1961, during a great change in college athletics throughout the Rocky Mountain Region. Colorado A&M, under coach Bob Davis won their lone Skyline championship in 1955. Finally, after the 1961 season, the conference split up to form the new Western Athletic Conference but without CSU or Utah State.

By 1961, CSU had the oldest athletic facilities in the former Skyline Conference and the schools of the new WAC wanted to have better competition and that meant updated facilities. This forced several major decisions at CSU, by both athletic director Bob Davis and university president William E. Morgan. Finally, in 1963, bonds were secured to allow for the construction of a new gymnasium on the west side of the main campus and a football stadium to be built along the foothills. When Hughes Stadium opened in 1968, Colorado State was admitted to the Western Athletic Conference.

On Sept. 14, 1968, the Rams opened their season in Albuquerque against the New Mexico Lobos for their first WAC game. New Mexico had won the first WAC title in 1962 and had remained tough competitors, CSU lost to them 21-13 in the first WAC game. The Rams saw some near championship successes in the WAC in 1977 and 1980, but it was not until coach Sonny Lubick took the WAC and CSU by storm, winning the first WAC title in 1994 and winning two more in 1995 and 1997. Just as the RMAC had expanded too large, the WAC had the same issues by the late 1990s.

CSU President Albert Yates, along with other university presidents of the larger WAC schools decided to break away from the WAC and form a new athletic conference for the 1999 season. Thus, was born the Mountain West Conference and CSU played their first MWC game on Sept. 16, 1999, in Provo, a 34-13 loss to BYU which the Rams would share a portion of the first MWC championship with. The Rams would go on to win two more MWC titles in 2000 and 2002, giving Lubick six championships between the two conferences.

This week, CSU faces Oregon State, a founding member of the original version of the Pac-12 since 1915. The Rams will face their new conference foe at home, the first time in school history CSU has begun a new conference with a game in Fort Collins. The entrance into the Pac-12 is an exciting period in CSU athletics, the history is about to be written for what will come over the next several decades.

Calendar

Upcoming Events

Recent Results