Despite a long-held rivalry, the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University are relatively similar institutions. Located some 45 miles apart, the two universities are both tier 1 research schools, boast similar enrollment numbers and are known for their accessibility to Colorado’s many outdoor offerings.

However, despite all of the similarities shared by Colorado’s two largest universities, one key facet of the student experience sets the two apart: their Division I football programs and their accessibility to students.

With CU Boulder’s football program entering its second season of surging national popularity brought on by coach Deion Sanders, many students are facing a second season in which they couldn’t secure student tickets to watch the Buffs play at Folsom Field.

“I was so excited at the beginning,” said Constantino Papacostas Rodriguez, a second-year international student from Mexico who attends CU Boulder. “We’ve all been waiting for Coach Prime (and) his second year at Boulder. Expectations were high. They’re still high.”

For some students, these high expectations and national attention come at a price. Papacostas Rodriguez said he has not been able to claim a coveted student sports pass in either of his two years at the university.

For a total of $215 — including a $10 donation to the care of Ralphie, CU Boulder’s live buffalo mascot — students can claim these sports passes, which give them an opportunity to claim tickets to home football and men’s basketball games.

On July 10, CU Boulder released 75% of the approximately 12,000 total student sports passes. Students hoping to secure a pass were instructed to wait in an online queue until their turn and then purchase their passes.

However, students said they faced technological difficulties that prevented them from purchasing a pass despite joining the queue early.

“I was waking up at 4 a.m.,” Papacostas Rodriguez said. “I was just trying to make sure I was on time for it in case anything happened. I just woke up early that morning and was so excited. (I) barely had breakfast. I was just looking at the screen the whole time.”

He said that after being let into the queue, the website crashed once it was his turn to purchase a pass.

“I was freaking out, and when it was time for me to buy my tickets, my page went blank,” Papacostas Rodriguez said.

Other students reported experiencing similar technological difficulties.

“I got into the online queue 30 minutes before the website was supposed to open,” CU senior Emma Riley said. ”I was bumped into the queue, and I actually ended up being in the queue for four hours. I got bumped to the front of the line, but it never directed me back to the website. It actually just pushed me back to the start of the queue over and over again.”

Steve Hurlbert, a spokesperson for the university, said the university’s ticketing system experienced technological problems during the July sale for student sports passes but that the issue was resolved for the second drop date in August.

“In July, due to a technical issue involving our ticket service provider, some users were directed to a waiting page instead of to the page where passes could be purchased,” Hurlbert said in a statement to the CU Independent. “We worked closely with our service provider to fix the issue, and the August on-sale went flawlessly with no issues.”

“Paying more, to me, especially because the sports pass is already so expensive — we go to such an expensive school — it just feels cliche to be like, ‘Oh, pay us more money, and we’ll give you earlier access.’” – Emma Riley, CU senior

On Aug. 21, the university released the remaining 25% of available student tickets. This date was specifically intended for incoming students and the remainder of students who were unable to purchase a ticket in July. 

Despite the technological issues being resolved, some students were still unable to purchase a pass on this date. 

“August rolls around, (and) I’m ready to go do the same thing over again where I wait in the queue for another 30 minutes before it opens and I don’t get a ticket again,” Riley said. “I was up really early. It was 10 a.m., and I was really crossing my fingers hoping that I would get a pass. The same thing happened where that yellow alert message popped up and let me know that tickets had sold out. I didn’t even get to go onto the website before they’d sold out even though I was on the website prior to the queue even being open.”

Of the approximately 12,000 students with sports passes, only about 11,000 will be able to attend each game, as the university sold slightly more student passes than Folsom Field’s student capacity.

Each Sunday before a home football game, student sports pass holders are once again required to enter a queue to claim their ticket to that week’s game. CU Boulder students also have the option to purchase a Buff Club membership for $100 jointly with the student sports pass. Buff Club members receive an earlier ticket claim time for each weekly queue.

“Paying more, to me, especially because the sports pass is already so expensive — we go to such an expensive school — it just feels cliche to be like, ‘Oh, pay us more money, and we’ll give you earlier access,’” Riley said.

Some students and CU sports fans said preferential access should be given to seniors rather than students who pay for a Buff Club membership.

“My son, who’s a student and a senior, should have some kind of priority for getting student seats,” said Sarah Haworth, mother of Graham Haworth, a senior at CU Boulder. “He just got passed over, and it wasn’t anything that we did. We tried absolutely as hard as we could.”

Sarah Haworth said her son was disappointed in CU.

“He said, ‘I feel like they just see me as a number or a dollar sign or tuition,'” Sarah Haworth said. “‘They don’t really care about my college experience and me being a real fan of CU.'”

Hurlbert said it is a difficult process to balance the large number of people who wish to attend CU Boulder football games.

“Students are a crucial part of the game day experience at Folsom Field, and we value the contributions they make in supporting our student-athletes on the field,” Hurlbert said. “Currently, we can accommodate roughly a third of the entire student body, and while they are absolutely integral to the atmosphere during games at Folsom Field, so are alumni, faculty, staff and general fans.” 

One major difference sets apart the process for claiming game day tickets in Fort Collins: All CSU students are eligible to claim student tickets to all home football and basketball games for free, including tickets for the Rocky Mountain Showdown.

“CSU football will release student tickets for each game prior to the season, and in order to obtain those tickets, you go onto the CSU Rams website, you add those student tickets to your cart and then you check them out,” CSU senior Damon Cook said. “You don’t end up paying anything outside of what you already pay in student fees.”

Students at CSU must claim tickets to each game separately rather than in a bundled pass like at CU Boulder.

With two rivalry games — CU Boulder and the University of Wyoming — on CSU’s home football schedule this season, CSU implemented a new staggered ticket claiming process.

“This year is a little different because we (do) have a big opponent … coming to our stadium for the second (home) game,” said Eric Still, a senior at CSU who works in the ticketing office. “We’ve never really had to stagger student claims or anything like that. We did stagger them this year. … So seniors did get those first, then juniors, then sophomores, then freshmen.”

For students who were unable to secure their free tickets, they can instead purchase a paid plan through the ticketing office.

“I would say students do seem pretty satisfied,” Still said. “I do get a lot of calls from students that had ticketing troubles and weren’t able to get (a) game in time. With that being said, I had a couple additional options to give them. … We do have a mini plan starting at $205 that I tried to accommodate those people with.”

Hurlbert said much of CU Boulder’s decision to charge students for sports passes comes from the university’s standing in a Power Four conference, while CSU is in a Group of Five conference.

“It’s standard practice for Power (Four) institutions to charge students for tickets to athletic events, and at a price point of $215, we feel students are getting great value for their money as evidenced by the fact that sports passes sell out so quickly,” Hurlbert said.

Despite differences in ticketing, both students and the universities in Fort Collins and Boulder benefit from a game day atmosphere accessible to students.

“One of the things that I’ve always really liked about college athletics is, in general, it’s very personal,” Still said. “You take classes with the players, you can talk to the players (and) you have all these people around you who are there for the same reason. Being able to have students at games where something magical might happen, I feel like really creates that culture and, thus, helps the university.”

Reach Jessi Sachs at jessica.sachs@colorado.com or on Twitter @The_CUI.