‘Fifth Down Game’ still worth recounting

You can also plead the fifth. Or purchase one at a liquor store after you testify.

In music, there was “A Fifth of Beethoven.” Without the number 5, Dave Clark and Ben Folds would have had to subtract a saxophone player, or add a rhythm guitarist and a percussionist. And what about the Jacksons? There were five, which seems like just the right number. (Asterisk alert: There can be five Beatles, but only if you count Billy Preston.)

In baseball, you can be retired 5-3, third to first. In hockey, you shoot the puck through the 5-hole or get 5 for fighting. In basketball, you go 5-on-5. You can also go 1-on-1 if you’re Kobe and win a championship. But not if you’re LeBron.

In football, there are only four downs. Except on Oct. 6, 1990, at slippery Faurot Field in Columbia, Mo., when there were five.

On Wednesday, it will be 20 years since the officials and/or the ghost of Sal Aunese provided Colorado with an extra down during a frantic final goal-line series, which backup quarterback Charles Johnson converted into a game-winning touchdown and the Buffaloes converted into a national championship. Or at least two-thirds of one.

Two Las Vegans played pivotal roles in the notorious “Fifth Down Game.”

Mike Pritchard, the Rancho High School graduate who scored on a 68-yard run and a 71-yard pass, said the Buffaloes were celebrating their 33-31 victory in the locker room before anybody mentioned a fifth down.

“Missouri didn’t know, either. All they had to do is call a timeout (to rectify the situation),” said the UNLV football broadcast analyst, who caught 422 passes during a nine-year NFL career.

Does anybody really know what down it is? Does anybody really care?

Jon Boman, a Chaparral High product, was CU’s tight end. Boman said Jay Leeuwenburg, the Colorado center and current football studio host for The Mtn., might have been the only person in the stadium who really knew what down it was. Bill McCartney, the Buffaloes’ coach, really didn’t care.

“(Leewenburg) said, ‘Coach, if we do that, we’re gonna run out of downs,’ ” Boman said of a series of plays McCartney called during Colorado’s final timeout. “Coach Mac told him to be quiet, this is what we’re doing.”

On first down, Johnson spiked the ball to stop the clock. On second down, Eric Bieniemy was stopped just short of the goal line. Colorado called its last timeout to huddle with McCartney, and it was then the officiating crew failed to turn the down marker over to “3” and nobody noticed.

Bieniemy was stopped short again, and Johnson spiked the ball again, to stop the clock again. Then, on fifth-and-goal, Johnson plunged into the end zone. Barely. The Buffaloes turned to the heavens to thank their lucky stars and Aunese, their former quarterback and inspirational leader who had succumbed to cancer the year before.

People forget that had Boman not slipped on the hockey rink that Missouri called Omniturf on the final play before the fifth-down series — a review of the game film chronicled more than 70 slips due to the treacherous footing — Colorado wouldn’t have needed a fifth down. Boman caught a pass from Johnson in the right flat with a clear path to the end zone before doing a Kristi Yamaguchi on the slick surface.

People also forget that Colorado fell to 14th in the polls after the Missouri game before catching fire and beating a bunch of ranked opponents while the stars lined up in its favor. When the once-beaten and once-tied Buffs edged Notre Dame 10-9 in the Orange Bowl, the national title, or at least two-thirds of it (Associated Press and USA Today), was theirs.

“We played the toughest schedule in college football and we beat those teams or tied those teams,” Boman said of the controversy that clouds Colorado’s championship season to this day.

Pritchard said: “We were definitely lucky. But over 12, 13 games you’ve got to make your own fortune, too.”

I think what Pritchard was trying to say was that in college football, there are lots of ways to win the national championship.

But a five-finger discount isn’t one of them.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.