Football returns with a bang for the Jackets, as they’ll open the season by traveling west to Boulder, Colorado for a Power 4 non-conference bout and the chance to settle a 35-year-old score for good. It’s a score that shouldn’t need to be settled… and yet here we are.
What’s at stake is, of course, the claim to the 1990 national title. Officially this was split between Tech, which took the top spot in the Coaches’ Poll by one vote, and Colorado, which took the top spot in the AP Poll and other polls
that pretend to be consequential.
All this really means is that we experienced the old trope of sportswriters not actually paying attention to teams out west… except in this case it actually worked in Colorado’s favor.
The official record shows that Colorado finished the year with an 11-1-1 record. Their lone official loss was a September non-conference game at Illinois, 23-22. So that’s respectable, right? Illinois was ranked at the time, after all.
The issue is the official record showing that it was their lone loss that year.
On October 6, Colorado traveled to face Missouri in a Big 8 conference game. It was televised regionally but ended up being well out of the public eye, as it overlapped with a nationally televised top-10 bout between Florida State and Miami and a top-25 bout between Illinois and Ohio State. And that was to Colorado’s benefit, because it took everything they had—and then some, as it turned out—to beat a pretty mediocre Missouri team.
In the final minute, the Buffaloes were trailing 31-27 but managed to get the ball inside the 5-yard line. Colorado handed it to their All-American running back on second down and third down, only for him to get stuffed both times. And then they spiked it on fourth down.
It’s fairly well-established in football canon that offenses only get four downs to reach the line to gain. And a fourth-down spike is the sort of thing that you’d expect to see from a 1-10 team, not a title contender. But Colorado got to be special that day. They got an extra play… because the refs had lost count a few plays earlier and believed the spike had happened on third down.
(Oh, and the spike happened with 0:02 left in the final quarter. Those two seconds were only left because the refs arbitrarily stopped the clock for six seconds to clear out the pile from the previous play, buying Colorado precious time to get set for the spike.)
The best part is that even the result of the fifth down play itself was controversial. Colorado QB Charles Johnson tried to punch it in himself on a QB keeper as time expired, and it wasn’t remotely clear that he actually crossed the plane. But this was long before the days of video review, so the call stood, and Colorado won 33-31.
It also wasn’t the only final-minute controversy that went Colorado’s way in 1990. They faced Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl after the regular season, and when CU punted while up 10-9 in the final minute, Raghib “Rocket” Ismail ran it back 92 yards for what looked like the go-ahead score… only for it to be called back by way of a controversial clipping penalty. As a result, a play that to this day remains one of the most exciting moments in Orange Bowl history technically never happened.
The Orange Bowl ending is harder to hold against Colorado, because bad/shaky calls happen all the time. But it does seem… noteworthy… that if not for a legendary play being called back and one of the most controversial officiating mistakes in college football history, they could easily have ended up a 9-win team. And sure, they did play a tough schedule, but claiming that point in Colorado’s favor while ignoring Tech’s road win at #1 Virginia feels like willful cherry-picking.
As if to drive the point home, this week brought confirmation of something that had long been rumored: then-Nebraska coach Tom Osborne put Georgia Tech at #1 over Colorado in his final 1990 Coaches’ Poll ballot. The only coach who faced both teams that year decided that Tech was more deserving of the title.
All that said, let’s be clear: this isn’t to suggest that Colorado wasn’t one of the best teams in the country in 1990. They had a punishing option-based ground attack led by two All-Americans in running back Eric Bieniemy and guard Joe Garten and a capable defense anchored by future NFL All-Pro Alfred Williams. And despite the two losses, Colorado did rack up a lot of wins over very good teams and won their conference title cleanly even with the Missouri loss. They should feel proud to fly that Big 8 Champions banner.
Even though they outwardly claim that 1990 national title, it’s telling that they’ve never retired the jersey of anyone who brought them their claimed national title… and just as telling that they did choose to retire the #2 jersey this offseason. Whatever dubious reason they provided for it regarding the Browns’ fifth-string quarterback, retiring that number just makes logical sense for Colorado. After all, what better way could there be to honor where they truly should have been ranked 35 years ago?
