Episode 38: The Fifth Down Game (Colorado vs Missouri 1990).

Welcome back to GenX Classic Sports. Today, we’re heading back to 1990 — a year of mullets, the Walkman, and Bill McCartney’s Colorado Buffaloes trying to climb their way to college football’s mountaintop.

But what happened one gray afternoon in Columbia, Missouri… would become one of the strangest and most controversial finishes in college football history.

It’s the day college football literally forgot how to count — the day Colorado was given a fifth down.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more nostalgia-packed content covering GenX retro sports, and the athletes who defined a generation. 

Production Credits:

Intro and outro music: Mason Enis

Narrator: Haylee Wolf

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2025. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

Transcript

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Welcome sports fans to Gen X Classic Sports before we bring the nostalgia of our sports built youth into the present day. Grab your favorite retro jersey, grab open a cold one, and let's troll down the rail line together.

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Welcome to Gen X Classic Sports. I'm your host, Sean Enos, and this will be episode 37. And today we're going to talk about the Hail Flutie play. And how many of you know where the term Hail Mary came from? It's actually kind of has a long history. I I thought I knew the answer, as most of you probably think you do too, but really it's traced all the way back as far as 1922. There's references to Hail Mary plays in college football with Notre Dame back then. But probably the one you're thinking about, and the one that I thought about, was Roger Stauback in 1975 through uh a desperation pass of 50 yards to Drew Pearson against the Minnesota Vikings, December 28th, 1975. Um, they needed a 50-yard touchdown with uh only 24 seconds left on the clock, and Stalback threw Pearson a pass. Pearson caught it, stepped into the end zone, they get the win. Um, and after the game, Stalback said something to the effect of I just said a Hail Mary and threw it. So the media picked up on that, and it's really been used since then the most. But as far as I can see, there's references back farther than that, just so you know. So, anyway, today is about another Hail Mary, except this one's called the Hail Flutie. And so we're gonna go back to November 23rd, 1984. Prime time, by the way, in the Gen Xers wheelhouse. 1984 was just a huge year in pop culture. We're talking movies, we're talking music, we're talking sports. 1984, man, was the year, I'm telling you. Thanksgiving weekend, November 23rd, 1984. Boston College versus Miami, the U, the Hurricanes. A warm afternoon in Miami at the Orange Bowl, and one of the most unforgettable plays in college football history evolved that day. And it's the game that made Doug Flutie, a household name and a legend, this five foot-9 quarterback who defied every odd known, every bit of the odds, um, and launched this Hail Mary play. And he really defied the odds as far as his career went in other ways. And so it wasn't just a touchdown pass. This was a moment that really became part of our larger sports uh mythology, one of the top moments in college football history ever. So, story time. It's 1984. Ronald Reagan was president, MTV was in full swing. Some of the movies that were showing that year were things like Ghostbusters and The Terminator in theaters. And college football, for the most part, was still a very regional-based sport. Um, it was really just starting to gain some footing in national television as an audience because um you were getting more um uh national matchups uh to watch weekly. So at the time, the Miami, the U, the Hurricanes, they were the new rising powerhouse on the block because of Jimmy Johnson. They had the swagger, they had the speed, they were flashy, and they were brash, and they were in your face. And Jimmy encouraged that, and that's what they excelled at. And they, I've said this before on here, they they put the foot down on the pedal and they didn't let go. And so Jimmy Johnson had turned the Hurricanes basically into a team that everybody loved to hate, unless you obviously were a hurricane fan. So it's worth talking about how Jimmy got to this point with the Hurricanes because it was actually his first season as the Hurricanes coach. The year before, the Hurricanes had won the national championship under head coach Howard Schnellenberger. But after the 83 championship game, he uh he he left unexpectedly to go to the USFL. So here comes Jimmy Johnson, and this season was his first. But among the pressure of being the coach for a defending national champion, of course, there's a lot of high expectations, and Jimmy was very in your face and so forth, but no one really knew what to expect in some ways. And so Jimmy came in, he had a quarterback named Bernie Kosar, and they emphasized the pass because they had so much speed, and so they were averaging 30 points per game under Bernie Kosar and Jimmy's passing attack. Now, to keep the tradition alive of this this juggernaut that Howard Schnellenberger had just won the national title with, Jimmy and company they did start out the season like they should have, according to the fans. They started out eight and zero. So it doesn't get much better than that to start the season when you're the new coach for a defending national champion. And among those wins, um, they had beaten teams like um Auburn, Florida, Notre Dame. So they had some big wins, and they're sitting there at 8-0 at one point. However, however, the wheels did start to fall off, though. After starting that season 8-0 with a uh the eighth win was against Louisville in Miami, then the trouble started. The following week they played their rival, Florida State, on November 3rd, and they lost that game 41 to 17. And so, you know, here's Jimmy. They start out eight and oh, but then they lose to their biggest rival at the time, uh, Florida State. And so that stay sets the stage for what happens next. On November the 10th, so two weeks before this game, Miami had gone to Maryland. Actually, the game was in uh Miami. My fault about that. That that was played in Miami. And they led them 31 to nothing at halftime. But Maryland had a quarterback named Frank Reich. And Frank Reich, if you'll remember, was the backup to Jim Kelly on those great Buffalo Bills teams. Frank Reich led a 31-point comeback and came back to beat the Hurricanes 42 to 40 at the time, I think the greatest point-wise comeback in NCAA football history. Frank Reich owned it. And if you'll remember, years later, he did the same thing in the pros and had the greatest professional comeback, and he was the guy that had both. So pretty odd. I don't think that's true anymore. I think since then the Vikings, with maybe Kirk Cousins or somebody, have uh have beaten his NFL comeback record, but still, that's quite a feat. So Jimmy and company lost that game after having a 31-point lead. They lost that game and then had a bye week. So they've been stewing for two weeks, okay, about how badly they're wanting to beat Doug Flutie and the Boston College Eagles. So you just need to understand that there was a lot of uh momentum for Miami, and then they lost that controversial game, and then they had to wait a week, two weeks to play Boston College. So that was the situation awaiting, you know, Doug Doug Flutie and his teammates. I just think it's really important to understand what they were walking into when they got to Miami that Saturday, or that Friday, actually. Meanwhile, you got this polar opposite over here, Boston College, the Eagles. This a small Catholic school, not exactly known as a football powerhouse at the time, but they had a kid from Massachusetts named Doug Flutie who was kind of rewriting the script of quarterbacks in college because time had given way at that point to the tall pocket passers. And, you know, that wasn't who he was. He was five foot nine. Now there were still some wishbone quarterbacks out there who were 5'9 and they were doing their thing, but that wasn't Flutie. Flutie was a balanced all-around quarterback doing his thing, and so by Thanksgiving weekend, both teams were good. They were really good. Boston College was ranked 10th in the nation and had an 8-2 record. This is an 11-game season back then. Miami was 12th in the nation. Both teams had Heisman level quarterbacks. Besides Doug Flutie for Boston College, you had Bernie Kosar for Miami. It's important to remember that back then the bowl schedules were predetermined by matchups for conferences and so forth. And so this wasn't a hand-picked playoff. You know, you had to have the absolute best record you could have, and you had to have the most wins you could pile up in order to qualify for some of the bowl games or for the bowl game in your conference that could possibly lead to a national championship. So every win counted, and this was the last game of the season. You know, if this was that Thanksgiving weekend when you wind down the college football season traditionally. This was also, keep in mind, this was the three-channel days. Um, this was pre-cable having college football. It was a big deal to play on national television, okay, because the sport was growing, and you really wanted to be on national TV for recruiting purposes. And there was one more factor. It was nationally televised on CBS, and here's the big one. It was the day after Thanksgiving, a huge audience sitting around the house. Um, and so this was a spotlight moment before all the other games of the weekend were even going to be played. And so, even though Flutie was known up in the Northeast, he was on his way to really the whole country knowing who he was. So from the very beginning, this game was a shootout. This was all offense and not much defense. Miami's offense was loaded. They had Kosar with uh receivers. Eddie Brown was one of them that I remember, but uh there was a guy named Stanley Shakespeare as well. They they were extremely fast. Um Boston College, they played fast and aggressive as well, and they proved early on in the game that they weren't intimidated. And so here in this orange bowl atmosphere where the crowd was really loud, really crazy, and at some point Miami had the record for most home wins over a couple years span, and I don't remember the exact years, or over a several year span, actually. The temperature was only in the 70s, and you'd think Miami, wow, you'd think it'd be a lot hotter. But the thing was it was very humid that day, that day. It was really humid, and so um classic, you know, South Florida football weather, and so they started trading punches from the opening kickoff, and at the half, the score was tied 21 to 21, and Flutie had already thrown for 300 yards. Now, 300 yards doesn't sound like much today in a half. Sounds like plenty of guys could do that. That was a huge deal back then, okay. Keep in mind this was the era of mostly low-scoring games, too, where really 28 points was a lot and 35 was something else. And so 21-21 at the half with a quarterback having 300 yards, that's a shootout. But, you know, this was Miami, their home field, and Kosar was good for a reason. He's matching Flutie throw for throw. And so when the second half started, the hurricanes came out and they struck first with a score, but Boston College, they just kept coming back. And, you know, few punts, uh, a little bit of defense only, no time to breathe. Keep in mind Flutie wasn't supposed to be able to keep up with this, but he was carving them up. He was that, you know, Miami's defenses were talented too, and they were fast and they were aggressive, but he was carving them up, and if nothing else, on guts, you know. And so by the fourth quarter, everybody watching at home knew they were watching a special game, and I was watching at home for sure. I remember watching this game, and if I'm not mistaken, my dad and I were watching it, and it just kept, you know, it just it's one of those games you love. If you're gonna be high scoring like that, man, go blow for blow back and forth. And that way you know at the end, man, whoever's got the ball last is probably gonna win the game, right? So at one point in the fourth quarter with about four minutes left, Boston College had a chance to drive a long way, uh go on a long drive and kind of ice the game, but it eventually short passes and scrambles and so forth, the clock running, eventually stalled out. And so with just 28 seconds left in the game, Miami scored, and they were up 45 to 41, and that looked like the end. It was over. And everybody, I think, believed that except Boston College, because Flutie wasn't done yet. He took the field for that final drive with no timeouts, 80 yards to go, and 28 seconds left in the game. So the first play, he threw a completion, he threw another completion, and just like that, Boston College was at midfield, and they had eight whole seconds left to go with the ball on Miami's 48-yard line. One play left. And I can see this play in my mind right now, talking about it. One play left. Flutie dropped back. You know, I don't know if it was a seven-step drop or what, but he dropped back and then the defense up the middle kind of surged on him a little, and he rolled just a little bit to his right from what I remember, and then he launched it. And, you know, this dude's 5'9, and 5'9 guys aren't necessarily supposed to be able to throw one that far. But right there through that Florida muggy hot night, the ball went 60 plus yards through the air and all the way to the end zone. And downfield, his best friend, his roommate on the road named Gerard Phelan, had gotten behind everybody. Don't ask me how. Go back and look at the video that I'll provide a link for for the YouTube shot. Somehow, this guy got behind him. What's the number one rule in playing pre-vent defense on a Hail Mary? Don't let anybody behind you and don't bat the ball up would be rule number two. Somehow Gerard Phelan got behind everybody, and the ball went right over the fingertips of the Miami guys and right into Gerald Phielen's arms. Touchdown. Final score, Boston College 47, Miami 45, and obviously the only people that went crazy over that were the Boston College fans in attendance. I just kind of have this image of Flutie kind of rocked back on his back foot and launching that to get everything, all the momentum he could into that throw. Because that's kind of how they used to teach us to throw with momentum. You kind of rock back and then rock forward. Now they teach you to sort of twist at the waist, it's a whole different world. But what a play. And it instantly became known as obviously a big hell merry pass, but a lot of people called it the hell fluety. CBS cameras were on hand and called all the pandemonium, of course. The Boston College band rushed the field, obviously, not too early, like the Stanford band did. They rushed the field when it was over and appropriate, and just unbelievable chaos. I remember Brett Musberger was calling the game, and uh he said something about witnessing uh history, and then within a few hours of that, Doug Flutie's name was everywhere in the sports landscape of the United States. It was everywhere. He was on the front page of sports pages the next day all over the country. He was on NBC's Today Show. Everywhere. The 24-hour news cycle wasn't born yet, but the next morning it really cranked up all over the country. Um that that throw was on a loop at most um during most sports um segments of the evening news. And so for Gen X fans, this was a huge event. Once again, that's the only ones I talk about, right? You know where you were when you saw it. It was one of those kind of moments. I looked up some quotes about it and stuff, and and it was compared to the Miracle on Ice. It's been compared to Kirk Gibson's home run in the World Series. Just you just know where you were when you saw it happen. A week later, Doug Flutie won the Heisman Trophy. Back when it really meant something to win the Heisman Trophy. It was, I don't think back then politics were uh involved. I mean sports politics, you know, like what school you came from. A lot of that was thrown out and you gave it to the deserving guy, and uh Flutie certainly deserved it. Uh he was the first Boston College player to ever win the Heisman. And let's be honest with ourselves, probably he won the Heisman the moment that ball landed in the end zone in his buddy's hands, right? So um, yeah, but he won the Heisman for uh probably because of that. But you know, he also had led his team to a top 10 ranking. Let's not forget that. So, on top of everything else, his own personal notoriety, there was something that came out of that called the flutey effect, and that's what people started calling the surge of national attention that Boston College got after the game. Um, applications at Boston College for students skyrocketed, enrollment rose dramatically over the next few years. That one thing in a sports uh setting really put Boston College on the map as a school beyond sports and football. And, you know, for Flutie, that was a defining moment and a long career that was far from over. I mean, even if it had stopped right there, that would have been something. But dude had a lot more left. And um, some notable Boston College players that day on the roster was Doug Flutie, of course. But he had a brother named Darren Flutie, who was a freshman wide receiver on the team as well. And they had a receiver also on the team named Kelvin Martin, and Cowboys fans remember him because he was very important to the early Jimmy Johnson teams that won the Super Bowls. Um, Kelvin Martin was uh the third uh receiver for the Cowboys and a return specialist. On defense that season, Boston College had a guy named Bill Romanowski that I've know you've heard of. And here's an interesting little trivia nugget is also on that team was a big defensive man named John Bosa. And John Bosa is the father of Nick and Joey Bosa, who are currently in the NFL. At the end of the season, there were four different guys drafted into the NFL from Boston College, and their head coach was named Jack Bicknell. And Bicknell had a son who was actually the center on the team and was out there on the field during the Hell Flutie play. So that's a cool little piece of history for their family. Doug Flutie finished as the player of the year from three different voting organizations that year. He was a consensus first team All-American. And when he left, I didn't know this, but when he left college, he was the NCAA's all-time passing leader with 10,500 yards. As a team, Boston College finished the season 10-2. They ranked number four at the end of the season in the coaches' poll. They ranked number five in the AP polls. And after the miracle in Miami, they got uh a trip to Dallas to the Cotton Bowl for their troubles, and they beat the Houston Cougars, who were the champion out of the champions out of the old Southwest Conference, and so Boston College took care of them in the Cotton Bowl and finished with that end of the season. Number four ranking in the coaches poll, number five in the AP poll. So back in those days when there was not a whole lot of undefeated uh teams, really, you know, 10 and 2, kind of coming out of nowhere. That was a big season, a historic season, not only for Doug Flutie, but for Boston College. So, what kind of career did he have? Well, so let's look at his timeline. In 85, when he finished up at Boston College, he went straight to the USFL, which, if there's ever a topic I want to do a podcast on, it's the USFL. But he played for the New Jersey Generals only in 1985. In 1986, he ended up in the NFL just like all the other USFL guys with the Chicago Bears. With the Bears, he only played, it looks like in four games. He had about 380 yards passing. He joined in the middle of the season um after being in the USFL, and that was at the end of McMahon's run, Jim McMahon's run with the Bears. Um he so he stayed with the Bears in 86. In 87 and 88, he was with the New England Patriots, and it looks like he played in about 12 games there, um, had you know decent numbers. He started part time. He wasn't the guaranteed starter, so he only started part time. And after the 88, 89 season, when his contract was up, he went to the CFL. So in the CFL, the Canadian Football League, he started off with the BC line. Lions and he played 33 games for them and he led the passing in both of their uh the led the league in passing both seasons there um in 33 games with the BC Lions in uh 92 through 95 he played for the Calgary Stampeders and he won the 1992 Grey Cup and was the CFL's most outstanding player as a Calgary Stampede in 66 games. He passed for 20,000 yards. Okay. So then contract time in 96 he goes to the Toronto Argonauts, who were a big deal back then. They were getting some NFL talent for sure. And he won back-to-back Great Cups with the Toronto Argonauts. So in he's had three he had three Great Cups from 92 to 97. Um he was the MVP in 1996, he was the MVP in 1997 when he won those two Great Cups, and he passed for about 12,000 yards in 34 games uh in the CFL. Uh so he passed for 42,600 yards in the CFL. After that, he went back to the NFL in 1998, and through 2000, he was with the Buffalo Bills. With the Buffalo Bills from 98 to 2000. He passed for 7,500 yards and he was the NFL comeback player of the year in 1998. He made the Pro Bowl in 1998 and he led the Bills to the playoffs. After that contract was up, he went to the San Diego Chargers. I knew he had been with the Chargers from 200 2001 to 2004. He played with the Chargers and really was just a backup there, and he went back to the New England Patriots, played a season for them in 2005, and retired afterward afterwards. And here's some trivia for you that I had a note to mention. He famously, under Bill Belichick, asked for and got permission to complete a drop kick point after a PAT dropkick, the last one that's been done in NFL history. That's where you have to kick the ball as soon as it hits the ground. It looks like a punt, but the ball actually has to hit the ground and you kick it as it hits the ground, and he's the last person to complete one of those back in 2005. Before he did that, I'm gonna guess it had been 50 years since it had been done. So anyway, that's Doug Flutie. Doug Flutie was a guy that no, he wasn't the star like a Dion or Barry Sanders or Walter Payton or any of that. But the guy left his legacy just because of guts and the fact that he hung around 20 years nearly after a high school, after a college career, just um really doing his thing in Canada and being uh a really good serviceable backup in the NFL in between stints as being actually a starter in the NFL. So the guy put together a heck of a career, and it was uh one that shouldn't have happened anyway, according to the NFL norms at the time. And so he's a significant part of Gen X football history. You know, it's one of those replays that when you see it, it kind of gives you the chills. And the thing is, he's such a short dude, man. He's 5'9, and for college standards, uh to be a passing quarterback, like I said, that was not normal. It's just one of those cinematic plays that proves that um, you know, that kind of stuff can happen. And 40 years later, here we are talking about it. And you know, Flutie, he went on to be a little bit of a cultural phenomenon himself later on in the NFL. Anyone remember Flutie Flakes, which was kind of like Wheaties that he he ended up with for a charity that he funded? Um, that was a big deal. I think sports card collectors still uh grab a box of Flutie Flakes when they can get their hands on them. Um and he really wasn't supposed to be a professional quarterback, he just wasn't. Back then, uh guys like Benny Testaverdi were 6'3, 6'4 with the cannon arm, and they stood in the pocket and they were phasing out. Wishbone quarterbacks were still in college football, don't get me wrong, but the pro leagues, they did not want those guys. They had no use for them in the NFL, and they converted them to running backs and receivers and D-backs and things like that if they gave them a shot at all. Flutie, though, was a legit passer, a legit pocket passer at 5'9, and that that was very different at that moment. Uh, he wasn't supposed to be that, but that's what he honed his craft up in Canada, and when he came back down uh to the NFL, it was bounced around a little bit as a starter and as a backup, and you know, was was really good at what he did. Um, so he's the perfect underdog story. That's what I'm trying to say. And everybody loves an underdog, and that's the kind of thing that makes us fall in love uh with sports in the first place. That play is still telecast and replayed every Thanksgiving weekend on the national telecast. Sports networks, highlight reels, documentaries, it's just one of those moments that they show anytime uh that you want to talk about a collegiate foot college football sports memory. And you know, for Gen X fans who remember watching it, it's one of those things, it's all about what we love, right? Passion and unpredictability and the idea that anything can happen in a ball game. I think that's one of the things we love about the sport. And the hell flutey will always be one of the biggest plays in college football history, and we Gen Xers got to view it firsthand for ourselves on the day after Thanksgiving, all the way back in 1984. As usual, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen to my foolishness and all my guys with me. I appreciate you listening. Uh, I appreciate it if you would click a like, click a comment, click subscribe, whatever you can do, and that'll let us know you enjoy what we do. And we appreciate you listening, and we'll talk in a week. Thank you.

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Thank you for joining us on Gen X Classic Sports, where nostalgia meets the thrill of the game. Tune in next time for more insightful discussions and memorable moments brought to you by Pine Street Productions. Until then, stay passionate about sports and keep the memories alive.