Plati-'tudes
October 3, 2000
A bi-weekly notes column penned by David Plati, who is in his 17th year as Colorado's Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations.
It's a 1990-91 national championship reunion kinda P-'Tudes! Enjoy!
TRIVIA QUESTIONS... CU -- CU accomplished a "double double" in the 1990-91 academic year. What was it? Godfather -- What was the only sports reference in any of the Godfather movies?
HOUSTON FEATURED IN THIS WEEK'S SI... Freshman running back Marcus Houston is the subject of a four-page feature in this week's Sports Illustrated (the one that should arrive in your mailbox Thursday if you subscribe). The gist of it is about Marcus, the person, his off the field accomplishments highlighting his Just Say Know program. Written, by John Garrity, it is a must read for any Buff fan.
REUNION WEEKEND... Part of the homecoming celebration this past weekend on the CU campus was the 10-year reunion of CU's first national championship football team. Here's a list of some of what the 1990 team accomplished:
- The first Colorado team to win a national championship;
- The first Colorado team in 81 years to win outright back-to-back conference championships since 1908-09;
- Became the second Colorado team to win 10 consecutive games in a single season, and most of the players were on the 1989 team that did it the first time;
- Players on the roster set or went on to set 175 school records, 123 of which are still owned by members of the '90 team today. To put that in proper perspective, that's 123 of 603 individual records, better than 20 percent of all school records.
- Three players associated with the team won trophies: senior Alfred Williams won the '90 Butkus Award, sophomore Deon Figures went on to win the Thorpe Award in '92, and freshman Chris Hudson won the Thorpe in 1994;
- Twenty-seven players on the 1990 roster went on to play in the National Football League.
What are members of the 1990 national championship team up to now? Here's a list of those I gathered the whereabouts of, combined with others that may have not attended but I know what they're up to (*-denotes was in attendance at the reunion)
There were also some members of other teams in attendance, several from the 1989 squad including Jeff Campbell, J.J. Flannigan and M.J. Nelson.
MY BEST 1990 MEMORY... There's a whole slew to pick from, and at the dinner last Friday that was a common question floating around the room. The sight of Alfred Williams and Kanavis McGhee standing on our bench with about three minutes left in the game waving goodbye to the Nebraska fans is still most vivid, and the chills that ran through one's spine when Deon Figures picked off the Rick Mirer pass with 13 seconds left and ran out the clock to seal the Orange Bowl win. Remember, if Notre Dame completes that pass, they had Craig Heintrich, whom Lou Holtz would not have been shy in trotting out to try a 60-yard field goal.
MORE TRIVIA... CU had three players receive votes in the 1990 Heisman Trophy balloting. Can you name them? TB Eric Bieniemy finished third (798 points), with QB Darian Hagan finishing 17th (17 points), and WR Mike Pritchard 50th (2 points). Points are awarded on a 5-3-1 scale, so it means two out of the 913 voters that year selected Pritch third, not a bad compliment. Ty Detmer (BYU) won the trophy that year, with Notre Dame's Raghib Ismail finishing second. The "Rocket" and Bieniemy became friends that weekend; if you ever bump into EB, ask him about the restaurant the paired dined in... it's a funny story that I'll let him tell!
BY THE WAY... Generally speaking, most people refer to Colorado and Georgia Tech being co-national champions. Technically, that's not true. If you only recognize the AP and UPI polls, then yes, the two split the title. But in the other major recognized rankings, CU claims the consensus honor. The Buffs were also the choice of USA Today/CNN (which took over the coaches' poll from UPI the following year), the National Football Foundation (which awards the MacArthur Bowl trophy for the honor), the Football News and the Sporting News (which the NCAA recognized as official at the time because of their histories of selecting national champions.
THIS WEEK'S NUMBER... 34. I believe that's the number of cigarettes smoked by the New England Patriots' play-by-play announcer at Mile High Stadium on Sunday (despite Mile High Stadium's no smoking policy). I know this because working in KOA's box right next door, he was smoking out myself, Dave Logan and Scott Hastings, and I've headaches ever since. I guess in this case, the media was above the law, and the guy could care less.
NO, THAT WASN'T A UT FLAG... So I walk out of my office on the Friday before the K-State game and see an orange and white-checkered flag on top of a crane that is working the dig site for the new Bioscience addition adjacent to Carlson Gym. Hmmm, I think to myself, that's pretty dang tacky to hang a Tennessee flag on our campus, especially on homecoming weekend. Well, guess what... it's the standard warning flag for aircraft that cranes hang when left erect. That's what the construction firm informed me, at least, and it sounded on the up-and-up. We did request that for the next two home games, since the crane will be there until around Dec. 1, if the color could be switched to yellow and white; our next two games at Folsom are versus schools that have orange as a school color (Texas and Oklahoma State). Stay tuned.
TRIVIA ANSWERS... CU -- The Buffs won national championships in both football and skiing (ending an eight-year drought in ski titles). Godfather -- Hyman Roth told Michael that he "liked to watch football in the afternoon."
DON'T FORGET THE SKIERS... In keeping with this week's theme, here are where the 16 members of the ski team that went to nationals that year are, as well as the coaches, all information courtesy of head coach Richard Rokos: