Fifth Down Game (1990)

This article is about football game between Colorado and Missouri. For the 1940 game between Cornell and Dartmouth, see Fifth Down Game (1940).

The Fifth Down Game is the name of a college football game that included a play that the crew officiating the game permitted to occur in error. That play enabled the Colorado Buffaloes to defeat the Missouri Tigers by scoring a touchdown on the last play of their game on October 6, 1990. The ensuing controversy cast doubt on Colorado's claim to Division I-A's 1990 national championship, which it shares with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. It has been called one of the top memorable moments and blunders in college football history.

Background

In American football, a team on its initial possession of the ball on offense is allowed four (4) successive and consecutive attempts or "downs" to move the ball 10 yards (9.14 m) towards the opposing goal line. If the team on offense is more than ten yards distant from the opposing goal line, and it moves the ball ten yards in four attempts or fewer, it gains another series of offensive tries or downs. That is, another "first down" which restarts the process. If, after four successive tries, or downs, the offense has not moved the ball ten yards, or into the end zone by either a run, a completed pass, or a place kick through the uprights of the goal post, the other team is given possession of the ball at the point on the field where the ball was last played. Unless, on a pass play into the end zone, the ball is intercepted (i.e., fairly caught) by the defense. Whereupon, the ball is placed at the twenty (20) yard line of the end of the field whose end-zone was where the interception occurred. Under the rules, and excluding penalties (which either erase a played down and thereby restore the number of tries (downs) available in a set; or subtract the number of remaining tries ("loss of down") as a penalty for a rule violation) no offense is to be allowed more than four (4) successive and consecutive offensive tries or attempts to gain a first down. The Officials on the field, and at the Official Score Keeping table ("the booth") are supposed to independently and coordinately keep a running tabulation of plays (tries'), downs, and yards in addition to other data; on each offensive series by each team. The Officials are to do this in both locations independently and in coordination as a check on the tabulation(s) that they each (on the field and in the booth) independently keep. In the case of this game, due to an officiating error, Colorado was given a fifth consecutive try, "down" which they used to score the game-winning touchdown as time expired.

Game recap

The game pitted the Colorado Buffaloes (CU) against their Big Eight Conference rival, the Missouri Tigers (MU), and was played on October 6, 1990 in front of a crowd of 46,856. The game was played at Faurot Field, Missouri's home stadium in Columbia, Missouri. Colorado's starting quarterback, Darian Hagan, was injured and backup quarterback Charles Johnson, who had some playing time the previous week and season, played the game. However, Colorado was still heavily favored to win. Colorado was ranked #12 by the Associated Press in the nation while Missouri was unranked (ranked 26th or lower). Colorado's record coming into the game was 3–1–1 (three wins, one loss, one tie) with wins over #12 Washington and #20 Texas ranked teams and unranked Stanford; their loss to the #21 ranked Illinois team and the tie to #8 Tennessee. Missouri was 2–2 (two wins, two losses) coming in to the game with wins over #21 Arizona State and unranked Utah State and losses to unranked TCU and Indiana.

The lead in this game changed several times, and several big plays kept the momentum swinging. With less than three minutes to go, Colorado took possession of the ball deep in its own territory trailing by the score of 31–27. Johnson led the team on a last-ditch drive. With about 40 seconds to go, he completed a pass to Colorado tight end Jon Boman who fell down just yards short of the goal line. Boman slipped due to the poor conditions of the field. This play gave the Buffaloes a first down, but it led to immediate confusion because the Buffs were running a hurry-up offense.

On first down, Johnson spiked the ball to stop the clock. On second down, a power run into the line by Eric Bieniemy was stopped just short of the goal line. Colorado then called its third and final timeout. During the timeout, the officiating crew forgot to flip the down marker to note that it was now third down. On the next play, with the down marker showing second down when it was really third down, the Buffaloes made the same call and Bieniemy was again stopped short of the end zone. Johnson then spiked the ball (thinking it was third down when it was really fourth) to stop the clock with two seconds left. He later claimed that he had no idea the officials had made a mistake, and believed he was spiking the ball on third down. On the following play – fourth down according to the marker, but "fifth down" in reality – Johnson kept the ball himself. Although there was some question as to whether he had broken the plane of the goal line, the officials awarded Colorado a touchdown.

Referee J.C. Louderback and the Big Eight officiating crew conferred for nearly 20 minutes to decide their course of action. During the delay, radio and television announcers noticed that Colorado had scored with the help of an additional play. Louderback was shown on the phone. After a lengthy consultation, the referees announced their decision: It was a touchdown, and Colorado would now have to run the extra-point conversion. Not wanting to take any risks with only a two-point lead, the Buffaloes snapped the ball and downed it to end a controversial 33-31 contest.

Scoring details

Team	Description	Score	Time	Quarter
MU	Bailey 19yd pass from Kiefer (Jacke kick)	0-7	11:10	1
CU	Bieniemy 29yd run (Harper kick)	7-7	3:19	1
MU	Mays 49yd pass from Kiefer (Jacke kick)	7-14	1:55	1
CU	Pritchard 68yd run (Harper kick)	14-14	1:45	2
CU	Harper 35yd FG	17-14	10:51	3
MU	Jones 13yd run (Jacke Kick)	17-21	7:30	3
CU	Pritchard 70yd pass from Johnson (Harper kick)	24-21	13:56	4
MU	Jacke 45yd FG	24-24	11:11	4
CU	Harper 39yd FG	27-24	3:41	4
MU	Mays 38yd pass from Kiefer (Jacke kick)	27-31	2:32	4
CU	Johnson 1yd run (conv. failed)	33-31	0:00	4

Effects

Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, a former Missouri Tigers player, did little to soothe the controversy. Asked whether he would consider forfeiting the game, McCartney declared that he had considered it but decided against it because "the field was lousy." He complained about the unusually slick Omniturf artificial turf surface, which he said had caused repeated slips and falls during the game. It is alleged that Missouri purposely did not put sand on the field in order to make it slippery, and that their players, knowing this in advance, wore longer spikes on their shoes to compensate (Colorado did not know this and had to make do with shorter spikes).

The Big Eight...ruled that Colorado's 33-31 victory over Missouri would stand even though game officials allowed the Buffaloes a fifth down that produced the winning touchdown on the game's final play. Missouri's chancellor, Haskell Monroe Jr., had appealed to the Big Eight, asking that Missouri be declared the winner.

It has been determined that, in accordance with the football playing rules, the allowance of the fifth down to Colorado is not a post-game correctable error, Carl James, the Big Eight commissioner, said in a statement. The final score in the Colorado-Missouri football game will remain as posted.'

Closure came in the summer of 1998– four years after McCartney retired as the Buffs head coach – when he admitted to making mistakes and being saddened by the Fifth Down fiasco. McCartney made the remarks at a Promise Keepers gathering at the site of the controversy, Columbia, Missouri.

The seven man Big Eight Conference officiating team was suspended indefinitely following the contest.

National championship

See also: NCAA Division I-A national football championship

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) governs American football as played by the teams representing the largest universities in the United States, termed Division I-A (Changed in 2006 to FBS — Football Bowl Subdivision). Although smaller schools participate in formal NCAA tournaments to determine the national college football championships in Divisions I-AA, II, and III, Division I-A lacks such a tournament.

The "mythical national championship" of Division I-A is determined by polls of coaches and/or sportswriters. In the early 1990s, two such polls were regarded as authoritative: A poll of sportswriters conducted by the Associated Press (AP) called the AP Poll, and a poll of college football coaches conducted by the American Football Coaches Association called the Coaches Poll. These polls are conducted weekly during the football season, and the final polls (in January, after all bowl games) determine the championship.

Because 1990 was a year in which no single college football team was dominant, the Fifth Down controversy played a role in determining the Division I-A national champion for the 1990 season. The Missouri game caused Colorado's ranking to decline to 14th. However, most of the top teams lost in subsequent weeks, while the Buffaloes won their remaining games, including a 27-12 victory in Lincoln over highly-rated Nebraska and a squeaker over Notre Dame. The Orange Bowl victory over Notre Dame was considered very controversial as well, due to a clipping call on Notre Dame on a punt return touchdown late in the game by Raghib Ismail when Colorado held a 10-9 lead, which would be the final score after Notre Dame was assessed the penalty. A blocked Extra point by Colorado turned out to be the winning margin.

Colorado finished the 1990 season with a record of 11–1–1 (eleven wins, one loss and one tie), while the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets' record was 11–0–1, (eleven wins, zero losses and one tie). No Division I-A team had an unblemished record, and only Georgia Tech finished without a loss.

Observers favoring Colorado for the national championship noted that they had played a more difficult schedule than Georgia Tech. Those favoring Georgia Tech pointed to the Yellow Jackets' undefeated status and to the tainted victory achieved by Colorado at Missouri in the "Fifth Down" game, not to mention the Orange Bowl controversy. With a loss at Missouri, the Colorado record would have been 10–2–1, and the Buffaloes may not have been as strongly considered for the national title with that record. No team has ever been voted National Champion in either the Associated Press Poll or the Coaches' Poll following a season in which they participated in three or more games that they did not win.

After the conclusion of the 1990 season, in January, 1991, the AP Poll voted Colorado national champions. The Coaches Poll voted the championship to Georgia Tech. Both universities therefore claim the 1990 championship. More recently, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was established to create a National Championship Game for major college football featuring the top two teams in the BCS Ranking (which takes into account both human polls and six computer rankings). However, the BCS has not been without controversy, nor has it eliminated split championships. For instance, in 2003, LSU (the winner of the BCS National Championship Game) was voted number one in the Coaches Poll while USC was voted atop the AP Poll and the two teams therefore split the national championship.

Missouri ended the 1990 season with a record of 4-7 (four wins, seven losses). The Tigers would not have another winning season until 1997 under Larry Smith, and did not return to consistent contender status until the middle of the 2000s under Gary Pinkel. The surface at Faurot Field was changed to natural grass in 1995, and in 2003 to FieldTurf, an rubber infilled artificial turf which closely simulates grass.

Precedents

Similar events had occurred in college football prior to Colorado's Fifth Down. Until 1990, the phrase "Fifth Down Game" described the Dartmouth-Cornell game of 1940, which is the first occurrence of a fifth down in college football. That game and its aftermath are described as the only time in the history of football that a game was decided off the field.

In 1972, Miami was the beneficiary of a "fifth down" in its game against Tulane. With Tulane leading 17-14 late in the game, officials mistakenly called the Miami offense back on the field for another down after it had turned the ball over on downs. Miami scored a touchdown on the next play to win the game, 24–21.

Fifth downs have occurred at least one other time as well, without changing the outcome of the game.

See also

• 1990 NCAA Division I-A football season
• 1991 Orange Bowl
• Flea Kicker