This series reviews the program history and stadiums of colleges that dropped or deemphasized football.
I wrote about the Denver University's football program twice in the past:
Today's Tidbit... Denver University Football and Artwork in September 2022
Today's Tidbit... The Highs and Lows of Denver University Football in April 2023
Parts of this story overlap with those stories since the program's history has not changed since penning those stories
From its beginning, the Denver football program was an oddity. Some claim that its 1885 game with Colorado College was the first gridiron contest west of the Mississippi, an assertion that might surprise those who recall Minnesota's 1882 and 1883 teams. However, I have yet to confirm which side of Mississippi they played their games on. Still, Denver was among the earliest Western teams.
Like many schools that dropped football, Denver is a Catholic university, but being isolated in Colorado, they seldom played other schools of shared faith and football ambitions. Only in 1948, after Colorado exited the Mountain States Conference, did Denver have enough open dates to schedule more than one soulmate in a season. That year, they played St. Mary's, Georgetown, and Detroit on successive weekends and pulled off football's Holy Trinity, going 1-1-1 in those games.
Like other schools of the time, Denver's early years included games with local high schools and multiple games per year with Colorado College, Colorado Mines, and Colorado State. The Pioneers had short periods of success and failure, managing seven conference championships and three bowl games in 75 years of gridiron play.