BOULDER, Colo. — The Colorado Buffaloes begin Year 2 under head football coach Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders on Thursday.
The Buffs officially open the season against FCS powerhouse North Dakota State at 6 p.m. at Folsom Field in Boulder.
The North Dakota State Bison are 82-18 in the postseason with 17 national titles. They won nine FCS championships over an 11-year span from 2011 to 2021.
Thursday's game marks Colorado's return to the Big 12 Conference.
North Dakota State Bison vs. Colorado Buffaloes
- Thursday, Aug. 29 at 6 p.m.
- Folsom Field, Boulder, Colo.
TV and Radio
- TV: ESPN
- Radio: 850 KOA
Tickets
- Tickets are available at the CU Buffs ticket website.
Betting odds
- BetMGM College Football Odds: Colorado by 9½.
New in 2024
The Buffaloes have a new football stadium videoboard. Construction of the videoboard began in January on the south end of the stadium.
CU Athletic Director Rick George said the videoboard is more than five times the surface area of the old board. The videoboard has gone from one of the smallest in the Power Four conferences to above the national average of all schools within those conferences.
The new screen measures 130 feet wide by 36 feet high, eight feet taller than the previous board and 98 feet wider, or about the same width of the ribbon board under the old videoboard, which measured 32 feet by 28 feet.
The ribbon board below the videoboard has also been significantly expanded, stretching from the north end of the club level on the east side around the bowl to Balch Fieldhouse on the southwest side, over 1,000 feet from the top of section 203 to the top of section 220.
New CU Buffs stadium videoboard
"Enhancing the atmosphere of Folsom Field on game day is always a top priority, and we are always looking for ways to improve," George said last fall. "I’m confident this new video board will further enrich and elevate the game day experience for our fans next year in our first season in the Big 12 Conference."
CU said the majority of the approximately $15 million project went into the steel infrastructure to support the videoboard, which included four columns running from the bottom of the video board to the ground around the south side of the stadium.
CU Buffs 2024 football schedule
- Thursday, Aug. 29, at 6:30 p.m. - vs. North Dakota State - ESPN
- Saturday, Sept. 7, at 5:30 p.m. - at Nebraska - NBC
- Saturday, Sept. 14, at 5:30 p.m. - at Colorado State - CBS
- Saturday, Sept. 21 - vs. Baylor
- Saturday, Sept. 28 - at UCF
- Saturday, Oct. 12 - vs. Kansas State
- Saturday, Oct. 19 - at Arizona
- Saturday, Oct. 26 - vs. Cincinnati - ESPN
- Saturday, Nov. 9 - at Texas Tech
- Saturday, Nov. 16 - vs. Utah
- Saturday, Nov. 23 - at Kansas
- Friday, Nov. 29, at 10 a.m. - vs. Oklahoma State - ABC
With games scheduled to air on NBC, ABC, CBS and ESPN, Colorado's first four announced start times are all on national TV. CU Athletics said this is the second time CU will appear on three of the four major networks in the United States in the same season, the other coming in 1990.
With FOX being a partner of the Big 12, Colorado has a chance to appear on all four networks in the same season for the first time in school history, CU Athletics said.
The CU Buffs have sold out of season tickets for the 2024 football season. CU Athletics said football season tickets sold out for the second-straight season and the 10th time in CU history.
This is the second time CU has sold out of season tickets before August of an upcoming season. The first time was last year.
CU Athletics said that prior to last season, it had been 27 years since last selling out of season tickets, doing so in a seven-year run from 1990-96. The only other time CU sold out of season tickets was the 1972 season.
For the second-straight year, the season ticket renewal rate finished above 98%, the best two marks in school history.