It’s a tale Ben Finneseth probably has told dozens of times, but that doesn’t mean it gets old.

It’s the defining story of how he got to where he is now: a key leader of the Colorado Buffaloes heading into his sixth and final season of college football.

As the story goes, it was the summer of 2020 and Finneseth was getting ready for his senior season at Durango High School. He and his dad made the trek to the Denver area to tour Colorado School of Mines, one of the Division II programs recruiting Finneseth, who at that point had already decided to study engineering wherever he went to college.

After visiting the campus in Golden, Finneseth asked his dad, Robert, to drive up to Boulder so they could see Folsom Field for the first time. Finneseth was born in North Dakota, where his parents are from and was raised in Minnesota with his three siblings until the family moved to southwest Colorado at the start of his high school career.

When Finneseth peered through the southwest gates of the stadium on an empty campus, he turned to his dad and said, “I’m coming here.” 

Finneseth had no idea how he’d do it, but he was determined to make it happen. 

After the first game of his senior year, which ended with an 8-0 record and a state championship, Finneseth posted a highlight tape online and tagged every member of the CU coaching staff.

He wound up earning a preferred walk-on spot and enrolled the following summer ahead of the 2021 season.

That feels like a lifetime ago both for Finneseth and the program as a whole. It was 18 months before Deion Sanders was hired. Finneseth is the last remaining player from the pre-Coach Prime era, one that started with nearly every one of his teammates from the 2022 season being shown the door shortly after the coach was hired.

How did a walk-on safety who described himself as “one of the worst players on the team” stick around this long and why?

“People just tell me that I can’t do it,” Finneseth said. “I had a coach my freshman year, he really is what drives me. He wasn’t the nicest person to me. I didn’t feel like I belonged my freshman year here. There’s so many things that have happened throughout my career and people that have (ticked) me off and people that don’t believe in me and I just want to prove ‘em wrong.”

One person that Finneseth wants to prove right is Sanders.

Coach Prime has long lauded Finneseth as an example of hard work and awarded him a scholarship in 2025. Now, Finneseth is trying to pay it back on and off the field as the undisputed leader of a team that desperately lacked an influential locker room voice during a disappointing 2025 season.

“He’s the first coach that I felt like in my career actually believed in me,” Finneseth said. “To be honest, I didn’t understand why, at first. I should’ve been one of the guys that he cut. I might’ve been one of the worst players on the team and he saw something in me. I’m just extremely grateful to him for continuing to believe in me and wanting to give me opportunities.”

The opportunities will continue once the games start. Finneseth will have a chance to play a key role on defense and special teams once again. In his last season, he wants to help the Buffs win the Big 12 and reach the College Football Playoff, while personally winning the Burlsworth Trophy, given annually to the top player in the country who began their career as a walk-on.

More than anything, Finneseth wants this season to be just the start of a legacy that carries on long after he’s done wearing black and gold. 

If this is the start of a new era of CU football, one where player-led teams hold each other accountable and win consistently under Sanders, that’s enough to fulfill a kid from Durango who six years ago wanted nothing more.

“If I could be remembered for my leadership and the way that I brought out the best in the people around me, that’s what I care about, honestly,” Finneseth told The Denver Gazette. “That’s what I feel I was called in life to do by the Lord and that’s my biggest focus.”