A Different Breed of Ram Fans

What kind of Ram fans were these? Stomping their feet when they should be sitting on their hands. Drowning out jet planes when they should be downing Chardonnay spritzers. Making whole sections of a stadium rock when they should be heading for the exit to fire up the Rolls.

Football games do not move these fans. These fans move football games, or at least the buildings they are played in. The Colorado State Pogo came to Anaheim Stadium for Freedom Bowl VII and if the Rams’ brand of Saturday night fever didn’t quite bring down the house, the upper deck seemed in doubt most of the evening.

“I was looking up at that upper level, the View level, and there it was, going up and down,” said Colorado State fullback Todd Yert, mimicking the motion by air-dribbling a pretend basketball. “I’m going, ‘Wow, what if that broke?’

“I’ve never seen a level of a stadium sway like that. That’s what you call the apex of emotion, right there, for us.”

Or something like that.

Go Rams, Rock The House goaded one bedsheet banner and the mountain rockies did just that. The Ft. Collins industrial-strength version of the Wave was felt upstairs, where out-of-towners in the press box asked, “Are we having an earthquake?” and apparently down on the field, too, because the Oregon Ducks spent the third and fourth quarters as if they were playing on a boat deck.

Oregon had the game in hand, leading by a field goal and driving for more, when all of a sudden, the Ducks couldn’t keep their feet.

Tailback Sean Burwell breaks through the line and into the secondary, jitters when he should have bugged and proceeds to fake nobody but himself out, dropping the football into enemy hands at the Colorado State 45.

Quarterback Bill Musgrave takes a center snap at his own two and tries to hand off right while fullback Ngalu Kelemeni tries to run left. The players butt heads and the football squirts loose, recovered in the end zone by an Oregon lineman for a Colorado State safety.

Punter Tommy Thompson gets down to field a low snap, but gets a knee down as he does it, giving Colorado State possession right there, at the Oregon 19.

Burwell takes off again at the Colorado State 26 and loses the ball at the 25, stripped and recovered by linebacker Eric Tippeconnic.

Cornerback Daryle Smith moves in on an easy target, Yert, who moves in the open field with the ease of a semi, and tries to one-arm him. “One arm’s not enough,” says Yert, who trudges on by for a 52-yard touchdown run, nearly doubling his longest run of the regular season.

Oregon Coach Rich Brooks is fighting off seasickness, but with 1:01 to play, Burwell holds onto the football long enough to score. The Ducks, incredibly, are a two-point conversion away from victory.

Brooks goes for the gamble, but plays his safest card: Musgrave, the ever-steady quarterback, on a short out pattern to Michael McClellan. The play has worked before. Already Saturday night, Musgrave and McClellan have hooked up nine times for 148 yards.

It works one more time, at least technically. Musgrave gets the ball to McClellan, McClellan catches the ball, McClellan gets his feet in the end zone.

The ball, however, never makes it and the ball is what counts.

Colorado State wins, 32-31.

“By golly,” Brooks says, “we gave you an exciting football game. Dropped balls. Penalties. Mistakes. That’s exciting.

“Unfortunately,” Brooks was pained to add, “that’s very uncharacteristic of how we played this year. And (Colorado State) just hung in and took advantage.”

Oregon lost this game more than Colorado State won it, but don’t mention that around the 8,000 rowdies who made the exodus from Ft. Collins, especially if you’re seated in the Terrace level.

“They’re fanatics,” said Tippeconnic, with true admiration. “They’re fans you want to have on your side. We were 6-0 at home this year and they tore the goal posts down after two of them.

“Tonight, I thought they were going to break the top level for a minute. It was pandemonium. Pandemonium up in the stadium and down on the field.”