\u201cThey fire coaches who go for it on fourth-and-2 or -3,\u201d Colorado broadcaster Dave Logan said on the telecast.<\/p>\n
But, announcing partner Les Shapiro replied, job scrutiny at this level isn\u2019t like the NFL, and McCartney had just signed a 15-year contract.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA college coach like McCartney doesn\u2019t have to worry about that at all,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n James Franklin and Brian Kelly might disagree.<\/p>\n The kicker to the story: Colorado drained the clock, then missed the field goal on the last play of the half.<\/p>\n The Fifth Down game was among the 10 I recently watched from the \u201990s \u2014 one per season from a sampling that hit every major conference and region \u2014 to bring fresh eyes to the formative years of my college football experience:<\/p>\n 1990: Colorado 33, Missouri 31 Tommie Frazier was a key college football figure of the 90s<\/p>\n Mitch Sherman<\/p>\n That sequence in the Fifth Down game was my favorite because it shows how much has changed (analytics, job security) and what remains the same (#collegekickers) over the past three wild decades. Here are 15 other observations from my rewatch binge, from the things I didn\u2019t know I\u2019ve been taking for granted to the debates we still haven\u2019t settled.<\/p>\n The stakes are different<\/p>\n As powerbrokers consider more College Football Playoff expansion<\/a>, the 1990s\u2019 marquee games were a refreshing reminder of how much less today\u2019s big games mean.<\/p>\n In the broadcast\u2019s introduction to the top-two Miami-Florida State showdown in November 1991 (Wide Right I), one Seminole said the game \u201cis the national championship\u201d before a Miami player showed off a recent title ring. Keith Jackson called the buildup \u201cso flavorful you almost hate to let it go.\u201d The buzz was even bigger for the Notre Dame-FSU \u201cGame of the Century<\/a>\u201d two years later.<\/p>\n As Tennessee played Northwestern in the January 1997 Citrus Bowl, one of the announcers bemoaned the way \u201cpeople shake their heads and say it wasn\u2019t a great year\u201d because the Volunteers lost twice. The tone would have shifted with a Playoff if the Vols could have turned 10-2 into a run to the semifinals.<\/p>\n When traditionalists stress the need to protect the sanctity of the regular season<\/a>, those are the moments they\u2019re talking about \u2026 even if the do-or-die stakes of 1991 FSU-Miami disappeared long ago \u2014 and undefeated Miami went on to split that national title with Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n Conference championships have evolved, too<\/p>\n Given today\u2019s discourse around the relevance (or irrelevance) of conference title games in the CFP era, it was interesting to see the evolution play out over six years.<\/p>\n The first conference title game, the SEC\u2019s Alabama-Florida matchup in 1992, felt novel. The broadcast\u2019s introduction refreshed viewers\u2019 memories about the additions of South Carolina and Arkansas and how the league split into East and West divisions (remember those?). Like today, it was played at a so-called neutral site (Birmingham\u2019s Legion Field).<\/p>\n The biggest change was how isolated the game felt. No. 2 Alabama was undefeated, so a win would have meant a trip to the Sugar Bowl and a likely showdown with undefeated No. 1 Miami \u2014 that event\u2019s first 1 vs. 2 matchup \u201cin a good long time,\u201d as announcer Keith Jackson explained. Yet that titanic possibility felt like an afterthought for most of the broadcast.<\/p>\n When Kansas State and Texas A&M played for the Big 12 title six years later, the framing flipped. The Wildcats were 11-0 but behind fellow unbeatens Tennessee and UCLA in the inaugural Bowl Championship Series standings that would decide who met for the national title. The BCS race<\/a> filled the backdrop of the beginning (Brent Musburger\u2019s opening lines), middle (regular updates on UCLA\u2019s stunning loss to Miami) and end (the rare on-field postgame interview with the losing coach, Kansas State\u2019s Bill Snyder<\/a>) of the broadcast. Winning a conference championship took a backseat.<\/p>\n My takeaway: How we\u2019ve viewed conference championships vs. national championships started changing years before the CFP, let alone talks of further Playoff expansion. The conversations we\u2019re having today are merely an extension of the evolution that took place between Alabama\u2019s triumphant win and Kansas State\u2019s upset loss.<\/p>\n Star power was treated differently<\/p>\n Because the 1997 Heisman Trophy race between Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson, Ryan Leaf and Randy Moss was so fascinating it became a \u201c30 for 30\u201d documentary, I expected Woodson\u2019s case to feature prominently in his game against Ohio State. Nope.<\/p>\n Although the Michigan defensive back\u2019s performance in all three phases was a focal point of the broadcast, his candidacy was not. After Woodson\u2019s three biggest plays \u2014 a 37-yard catch, a punt for a touchdown and an interception in the end zone \u2014\u00a0 the word \u201cHeisman\u201d was not uttered at all. It was a far cry from the coverage of Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter two years ago.<\/p>\n The hoopla around Manning, however, was about what I remembered and comparable to the buzz around his nephew, Arch. By my count, broadcasters mentioned Manning 40 times in the first 13 minutes of the January 1997 Citrus Bowl, from a promo that featured a plaid-clad Manning staring seriously into the camera to a David Letterman-style list of the top five reasons why he should stay at Tennessee for another year. They gushed about his family lineage and remarked about the way he watches \u201cmore videotape than Bob Saget\u201d \u2014 if you\u2019re under the age of 30, that\u2019s a reference to the TV show \u201cAmerica\u2019s Funniest Home Videos.\u201d The only thing missing was a breakdown of Manning\u2019s NFL Draft stock by Mel Kiper Jr. with deep analysis of which team would be the best fit.<\/p>\n Things we take for granted today<\/p>\n Technology: You don\u2019t know how much you miss graphics or replays until they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just obvious things, like the yellow first-down line that finally appeared at the end of the decade. Imagine the social media uproar if two snaps played out during a commercial break (which happened in Missouri-Colorado).<\/p>\n If you stumbled on a game in the early part of the decade, you wouldn\u2019t know the score, game clock, down or distance. The moments are less dramatic if you can\u2019t see how much time is left as Washington tries to score on a final drive at Oregon in 1994 or how many timeouts Texas A&M has left while Kansas State tries to drain the clock in the Big 12 championship. And forget about a ticker providing constant updates on other games.<\/p>\n We can gripe about how long some officiating reviews take and wonder why there never seems to be a camera with a clear shot of the goal line. It\u2019s still preferable to the old system where key plays aren\u2019t reshown (like an illegal substitution in the 1992 SEC title game) and tricky fumble calls can\u2019t be reversed.<\/p>\n Meme-worthy fans: Broadcasts featured crowd shots, of course, but not as many as I expected. The ones that did happen were usually too wide to spotlight fans who would have gone viral if going viral had been invented yet. No LSU fan staring coldly into a camera<\/a> or shirtless Florida State professor reading a book during a blowout<\/a>. Not a single surrender cobra<\/a> was shown after FSU missed the Wide Right field goal to lose to Miami or Florida threw a pick six that helped Alabama win the 1992 SEC title. In fact, the telecasts didn\u2019t immediately show the reaction of any Seminoles or Gators fans at all.<\/p>\n The best fan moment? A wide shot of Kansas State fans gathering around a portable TV someone brought into the stadium to see the end of Miami\u2019s win over UCLA that kept the Wildcats\u2019 national title hopes alive.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \n Texas A&M\u2019s Big 12 championship win denied Kansas State a shot at the first BCS national title. (Getty Images)<\/p>\n Things I didn\u2019t miss<\/p>\n Halftime interviews with coaches: It took a few games for me to notice how rare they were. That tells me they\u2019re less valuable than I realized, barring something like an injury update.<\/p>\n The injury tent: Cameras were so close to the action you could see Nebraska star Tommie Frazier<\/a> getting his leg massaged during the January 1996 Fiesta Bowl and hear BYU linebacker Rob Morris telling trainers he \u201cfelt a weird twist.\u201d We don\u2019t need to be that close to the action, but the game feels more personal when you see FSU linebacker Derrick Brooks trying different cleats to see what worked best with his ailing ankle.<\/p>\n Alternate uniforms: Of the 18 teams I watched (I doubled up on Florida and Florida State), 15 uniforms were instantly recognizable. Missouri and BYU were close enough. Only Oregon stood out by not standing out. I\u2019m not against alternate uniforms, as long as they aren\u2019t monstrosities like Florida wearing swamp green<\/a>. But there\u2019s a level of comfort when you turn on a game and know who\u2019s playing instantly because Ohio State and Michigan still look like Ohio State and Michigan.<\/p>\n Things that felt familiar<\/p>\n Scheduling debates: As BYU thumped Colorado State in the Mountain West\u2019s first conference game in 1999, ESPN\u2019s announcers began discussing strength of schedule. If the Cougars went undefeated (they didn\u2019t), should a nonconference schedule featuring Washington, Virginia and Cal be enough to trump a power team that loaded up on out-of-league cupcakes?<\/p>\n We had a version of that same debate last season with a different team that hoped a tough nonconference game would outweigh its three regular-season losses: Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n #Collegekickers (sort of): Although college kickers remain entertainingly unpredictable now, they\u2019re better than they used to be. Nine of the 10 games I sampled included at least one missed field goal\/extra point. Better kicking would have drastically changed two famous endings. If Colorado hadn\u2019t missed that first-half field goal and another kick in 1990, the Buffs wouldn\u2019t have needed a fifth down to beat Missouri. If FSU hadn\u2019t blocked a Miami field goal a year later, the Seminoles would have needed a touchdown in the closing minutes and would never have attempted the Wide Right miss.<\/p>\n Florida State\u2019s Sebastian Janikowski won back-to-back Lou Groza Awards as the nation\u2019s top kicker by making 80.6 percent of his field goals from 1998-99. That percentage would have ranked 51st among teams last year.<\/p>\n
\n1991: Miami 17, Florida State 16
\n1992: Alabama 28, Florida 21
\n1993: Notre Dame 31, Florida State 24
\n1994: Oregon 31, Washington 20
\n1995: Nebraska 62, Florida 24
\n1996: Tennessee 48, Northwestern 28
\n1997: Michigan 20, Ohio State 14
\n1998: Texas A&M 36, Kansas State 33
\n1999: BYU 34, Colorado State 13<\/p>\n![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-396834-1024x680.jpg\")
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