The score could be settled 12,659 nights later.

Is this the Revenge of The Game Never Played? Do the current players have any idea of the meaning — especially since none ever thought of The Great Debate of 1990?

Colorado athletic director Rick George, CU lifer and six-decade assistant coach Brian Cabral, successful corporate executive and game hero Charles S. Johnson and a doofus Denver sportswriter, among others, do recall monumental memories of a New Year’s Day long ago and far away in Florida.

The Colorado Golden Buffaloes will play the Georgia Tech Ramblin’ Wreck for the first time in college football history Aug. 29, 2025. But Jan. 1, 1991, is the day the two schools always remember in their record books.

They should have had a play date then.

The No. 1 Buffs and the No. 2 Yellowjackets belonged in the 57th Orange Bowl in Miami, but remain linked together forever.

Fascinatingly enough, two days before that Orange Bowl, 23-year-old two-sport star Deion Sanders returned an interception 61 yards in Atlanta for the Falcons in the fourth quarter as they drubbed the Cowboys 26-7.

Prime Sanders, who turned 58 on Aug. 9, will be on the sideline at Folsom Field for his third season opener as the Buffaloes’ head coach in Prime Time (6 p.m.) for the Friday game against Georgia Tech, a team that has never played in the state of Colorado.

Deion is delirious to be back in Boulder after suffering with and surviving bladder cancer earlier this year.

The Buffs want to win one for two — coaches Prime and Mac. Bill McCartney, the CU head coach 1982-1994, died Jan. 10 at 84 after struggling for years with dementia.

Mac & Prime are the two most pivotal and paramount leaders of the CU football program for all time. Mac brought the Buffs back from dormancy and coached Colorado to its only national championship, and Prime resurrected the lifeless Buffs in 2023 and firmly positioned the university once more in the national highlights and prominent football limelight.

The opponent in CU’s opener in 12 days figures prominently in the matter of both coaches even though these two schools really haven’t mattered to each other since Tech began playing football in 1892, two years after Colorado’s first collegiate game.

Except for once.

The Old South of Georgia, say hello to the Wild West of Colorado.

So, for all the young’uns, here’s what happened there and then:

In 1990, Colorado produced a year like no other before or since.

It all began in ’89, when the Buffaloes of Boulder won all 11 regular-season games against the likes of Texas, Washington, Illinois and all their Big 8 Conference rivals, including powerful Oklahoma and almighty Nebraska. The undefeated No. 1 Buffs were invited to confront No. 4 Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. The Irish prevailed on the first day of ’90, 21-6.

Colorado continued claiming championship contention for 1990 with the toughest schedule this side of the Mississippi. In the neutral-site opener adjacent to Disneyland, CU tied Tennessee at 31. After defeating Stanford, the Buffs fell by one point to Illinois. At 1-1-1, the Buffaloes wouldn’t lose in the conference (despite the officials’ “fifth-down’’ miracle mistake at Missouri) and rose again to first in the country. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech would score more than 40 points in six games and beat everybody except North Carolina in a 13-13 finish. The Yellowjackets ranked second overall.

Polls would determine the NCAA title, and a Georgia Tech-Colorado matchup was the natural choice for the Orange Bowl. But the bowl committee instead picked No. 4 Notre Dame (for the fame despite two defeats) for a rematch with Colorado. Georgia Tech played Nebraska in the Citrus Bowl.

The Huskers were humiliated, but the Buffs had Notre Dame defeated late when Rocket Ismail returned a punt for a 92-yard touchdown. The play was called back because of a controversial clipping penalty, and the Buffs, with Charles Johnson having replaced injured quarterback Darian Hagan, held on for a 10-9 victory.

The AP poll of writers gave the Buffs the national championship. The UPI poll of coaches named the Yellowjackets titlists by one vote. Nebraska coach Tom Osborne changed his pre-bowl vote to Tech.

So, Colorado and Georgia Tech were selected co-champs despite the ludicrous lack of a game between the pair.

George, who was a recruiting coach for McCartney then, has scheduled home-and-home games with Georgia Tech this season and next.

Let the best team, at last, win the Friday Night Fight.