Fifth Down Game ( 1990 ) The Fifth Down Game was 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 is allowed four attempts or " downs " to move the ball towards the goal line . If the offense moves ten yards in four attempts or fewer , it gains a " first down , " which restarts the process . If , after four attempts , the offense has neither scored nor gained ten yards , the other team is given possession of the ball . Under normal circumstances ( for example , excluding penalties which can involve replaying a down ) , no team is supposed to be allowed five attempts . In this game , due to an officiating error , Colorado was given a fifth consecutive 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 ( i . e . below the top 25 ) . 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 team and the tie to # 8 Tennessee . Missouri was 2 – 2 ( two wins , two losses ) coming in to the game with wins over # 21 and unranked and losses to unranked and . 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 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 failed 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 and scored 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 . Aftermath . 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 in Columbia , Missouri . The seven man Big Eight Conference officiating team was suspended indefinitely following the contest . National 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 game s ) 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 disputed 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 , no 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 , a rubber - infilled artificial turf which closely simulates grass . The Colorado - Missouri series went dormant after the Buffaloes left the Big 12 for the Pacific - 12 Conference on July 1 , 2011 . The Tigers departed the Big 12 on July 1 , 2012 to join the Southeastern Conference . 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 . During a 1968 National Football League game between the Chicago Bears and Los Angeles Rams , the reverse of a fifth down situation happened . The Rams were penalized for holding during a last - minute drive , and the officiating crew not only assessed the yardage , but also advanced the down marker from first to second . Nobody in the press box or on the field noticed , and the Rams turned the ball over on downs , their last possession in a 17 - 16 loss . In 1972 , Miami was the beneficiary of a " fifth down " in its game against Tulane . 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 .