Colorado player apologizes for profane remarks disparaging Northwestern’s temporary stadium
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A Colorado football player apologized Tuesday for making disparaging comments about Northwestern’s temporary lakefront stadium that were caught on video.
Buffaloes safety Ben Finneseth joined Colorado coach Deion Sanders at a news conference to address the video, which garnered 6.6 million views after a Daily Northwestern journalist posted it on social media.
In the video shot before Northwestern’s 41-7 win over Colorado, Finneseth waited with his teammates to enter Martin Stadium and yelled, “This place f−−−−−− sucks! S−−− sounds like a f−−−−−− library!”
The Wildcats have played at the 12,000-seat Martin Stadium for two-plus seasons as they await the opening of the new $875 million Ryan Field on Oct. 2 against Penn State.
Sanders brought Finneseth into the news conference Tuesday to speak and called him “one of my favorite guys.” But the coach also said he has “the utmost respect for that school (Northwestern), that team, what they’re doing with the program. Some foolishness came out of it, and we want to correct our wrongs and make it a right.”
Finneseth, a senior from Durango, Colo., apologized “to everyone that’s tied into the university, to everyone at Northwestern, to everyone that supports us, to my teammates and my coaches.”
“It was childish,” Finneseth said. “It was a stupid thing that I said. It won’t happen again, and the way I handled it was horrible. I promise you guys it will not happen again, and I’ll be much more mature moving forward.”
Northwestern coach David Braun said Monday that a coaching friend sent him the video after the game.
“I’ll tell you what, it certainly didn’t sound like a library out there during the game,” Braun said. “Really, really proud of our fan base and Wild Side (the NU student section).”
The new Ryan Field will seat 35,000 fans and features a standing-only section for students.
“New Ryan Field is this opportunity to totally redefine how we do game day at Northwestern,” Braun said. “And I’m so excited to have Wild Side be in the group that’s leading the charge in that.”
The thorough manner in which Northwestern (2-0) beat Colorado (2-1) fueled the viral clip in the three days after the game. The Wildcats had four takeaways and quarterback Aidan Chiles had three touchdown passes and two rushing touchdowns to be named the Big Ten offensive player of the week.
Sanders told reporters after the game that he called out players who were laughing coming off the field. He said Tuesday that he dismissed some players for “conduct detrimental to the team” after they appeared to care more about themselves than the team.
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