This week marked the 20th anniversary of the infamous fifth down in the game between Missouri and Colorado. Sure enough, Missouri will play Colorado this week — what are the chances?
The Buffs used the blunder of the fifth down to win the game. They would go on to win an improbable national championship that season, their only football national championship.
Missouri's fortunes after the "loss" were not good. Bob Stull's Tigers, despite having high preseason hopes, could not rally from the adversity, finishing the season 4-7.
Big Eight conference officials said there was nothing they could do about the blunder.
''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 1990 statement. ''The final score in the Colorado-Missouri football game will remain as posted.''
It doesn't mean much now, and nothing can take away the sting of losing a game unfairly, but in a sports world of instant replays and reversed calls...
Should the Big 12 Conference go back and rule the fifth-down game in Missouri's favor, 20 years after the fact?
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It's these situations that enable us to separate universities that have class from universities with no class.
How many Big Ten football teams today cry over a bad officiating call made years ago?