Yellow Jackets vs Buffaloes- A Look Back in Time

Georgia Tech and Colorado have never played one another in football. Oddly, though, they do have a pigskin rivalry, special and momentary but also high profile and dramatic.

On the final day of the 1990 football season, back in a simpler time when bowl games were played on January 1st or before, the Yellow Jackets and the Buffaloes contended for a national title.

Back in those days, two national polls determined the national champion of the college football world. One poll was by the Associated Press, or simply the AP, an amalgam of sportswriters. The other was the so- called Coaches Poll, reported by United Press International, or the UPI.

When those votes came in , the reports went out. Each school won one poll, so there was a "split" national title. Colorado was voted number one by the AP, and Georgia Tech was voted number one by the UPI.

Many say that this split title was the impetus for the birth of the coalition that became the BCS, which has now morphed into the College Football Playoff, in an ongoing ( and ultimately unreachable) goal of having the championship decided "on the field".

Quaint to think that such a thing could happen, if only we have enough rounds of playoffs.​ As we know, such a pursuit will never create a result free of controversy. If you doubt that contention, talk to folks at Florida State regarding the CFB of 2024 (following the 2023 season)

The entire plan brings to mind the old joke about moving first base closer to home plate in order to eliminate all the close plays. Funny, but fallacious.

Also lucrative- which is the larger point, whether or not it is stated out loud. The public's appetite for all things college football is insatiable. Thus we now have a nearly powerless ruling body and four major conferences who do rule a sport wherein the players often make a million and often pay little mind to academics.

Back in 1990 , you could see the underpinnings of the growing dissatisfaction of the old way.

Colorado clearly benefited from the power of incumbency, having been ranked #5 in the preseason poll that summer. Thst ranking was based on their 11-1 record one year preceding. That ranking also helped explain how they could survive a 1-1-1 ( when ties were still fairly common) start to their 1990 season and not fall out of the top 20.

Georgia Tech, on the other hand, was still finding its way back to football prosperity, having earned a 7-4 record in 1989 in Bobby Ross' third year at the Institute. In his first two seasons, Ross had led Tech to a total of only five wins, including no wins in the ACC.

There was nothing about Ross' first three years that had the pundits thinking national powerhouse. Which says much about the allure of college football in general and also speaks to the nonsensical nature of preseason polls.

In part two, we take a deeper look into the very different paths these two teams took to become the 1990 college football national champion(s).