Timeline 25: The player who caused the Buffs to have a winless season
May 13, 2020, 6:33 AM
On March 6, 1995, The Fan was born. In the 25 years since, a lot has transpired on the fields, courts and ice in Colorado, giving the hosts and listeners who’ve been part of the station during that time plenty to talk about and debate.
During the course of the next few weeks, we’ll take a look back at that history, remembering the good times and the bad, the winners and the losers, the successes and the failures. It’s a series we’re calling “Timeline 25” and it continues today with a look one of the weirdest stories from 1997 – CU’s winless season.
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Nowadays, it’s not all that strange for the University of Colorado to have a rough season on the gridiron. In fact, it’s become the norm. But back in the 1990s, when the Buffaloes were a national title contender most seasons, it was odd.
In fact, CU only posted one losing season in the entire decade. That came in 1997.
The Buffs started the season as the No. 8 team in the country. But playing the nation’s toughest schedule, for the second time in the decade, was too tall of a task.
Kordell Stewart was gone. So too was Koy Detmer. That left the quarterback job to John Hessler, a player who was gritty, but not nearly as talented as his predecessors.
By season’s end, the Buffs were 5-6. For the only time in the ‘90s, they weren’t going to a bowl game.
But the losing didn’t end there. Home wins over CSU, Wyoming and Kansas, plus road victories at Texas and Iowa State, have been wiped out. The record books have been changed.
Officially, CU was 0-11 in 1997.
Why? Because they used an ineligible player.
In their infinite wisdom, the NCAA determined that Darren Fisk gave the Buffaloes some sort of leg up that year. All told, the fullback had one carry for zero yards. It was the only time he stepped on the field all season.
Fisk was a walk-on that year for CU, having taken a circuitous route to Boulder. Initially, he enrolled at Colorado in 1992, having not involvement with the football program. He then transferred to California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, where he played football. Fisk was injured in his first game, however.
In 1994, Fisk transferred back to CU, where he approached the football team about walking on. He didn’t play that season, but did participate in 1995, ’96 and ’97. All told, that’s four seasons of football in six years of college enrollment, which is an NCAA violation.
Ultimately, it was a record-keeping error. Fisk didn’t play football during his first year of college, plus he thought he received a medical hardship for the one-game season at Cal Poly.
But the NCAA is a bear for details. They were all over it. And Darren Fisk, who has gone on to be the CEO of a real estate company in Colorado, caused the Buffs to have their only winless season of the modern era.
