Comment on Keeler: How CU Buffs’ Travis Hunter, CSU Rams’ Henry Blackburn turned 2023 Rocky Mountain Showdown hit into positive legacy

Monday night’s headliner was right-hander Antonio Senzatela on his comeback tour. But it was the Rockies’ ninth-inning rally and another terrific performance by their bullpen that brought down the house. The Rockies beat the Diamondbacks 3-2 at Coors Field on a throwing error by shortstop Geraldo Perdomo. The rally began with a leadoff single by Brenton Doyle off reliever Ryan Thompson.

FORT COLLINS — Surely, Kansas State wasn’t allegedly offering CSU quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi $600,000 in NIL money just to hand off and get the heck out of the way. “I have slowed the game down on offense a little bit,” Rams football coach Jay Norvell explained Monday at Canvas Stadium, “because we were playing some really talented people these first three weeks and I felt like, to give our defense a chance, I needed to slow down the game a little bit and run it a little bit more.” The problem isn’t that the Rams are fighting Shedeur Sanders.

CASTLE PINES — Logan O’Connor was well on his way to a breakout season for the Colorado Avalanche, and then a roadblock years in the making got in the way. O’Connor set a career-high last season with 13 goals and was going to easily secure a new top mark in points before a torn labrum in his hip ended his campaign in early March. “That was frustrating.

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court refused Monday to revive a defamation lawsuit that former NFL quarterback Brett Favre filed against a fellow Pro Football Hall of Fame member — former tight end Shannon Sharpe. Favre filed the lawsuit over comments Sharpe made in 2022 on a Fox Sports show amid a developing Mississippi welfare scandal involving millions of dollars diverted to rich and powerful people. Mississippi State Auditor Shad White said Favre improperly received $1.1 million in speaking fees to go toward a volleyball arena at The University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre had played football and where his daughter was playing volleyball.

FORT COLLINS — CSU Rams football coach said Monday that he’d “be surprised” if star wide receiver Tory Horton plays this weekend’s game against UTEP. “I don’t believe Tory will play,” Norvell said during his weekly news conference, “and (he) probably shouldn’t have played last week.” Horton, a 6-foot-2 senior and one of the top wideouts in Mountain West history, played in the Rocky Mountain Showdown against CU — a 28-9 Rams loss — while clearly hobbled by a groin injury he’d suffered in a win over UNC the weekend prior. Norvell had said the Monday prior that he expected Horton would play against the Buffs, especially given the stakes of the rivalry, and the stakes of its being the first CU-CSU game at Fort Collins since 1996. The California native caught just two balls for 24 yards, his lowest yardage total in a game since a loss at Utah State (20 yards) last Oct.

Perhaps the road will do the Broncos some good. They’re about to see plenty of it. Denver is 0-2 after a pair of limp offensive outings and now has to try to turn its fortunes around while playing back-to-back road games at Tampa and the New York Jets. Instead of returning home for the week of practice between those games, head coach Sean Payton and company are staying out that way and spending the work week in West Virginia. “It’s not a make-or-break, but we’re going to have a better idea of where this team is going to be after these next two weeks going on the road to Tampa, then of course practicing a week on the Eastern seaboard and then playing the Jets,” Payton told reporters Monday. “Sometimes that can work as a positive relative to your team being together the whole time.” A year ago, Payton didn’t like the way Denver played when it traveled east.