The Colorado Buffaloes didn't do much of anything to deserve that game with mistakes piled upon mistakes, but this ending is probably going to rub in their craw.

If you were sane and decided to choose sleep over this football game, Pac-12 after dark took a turn for the darkest. Colorado had a chance to tie the game late in regulation, but were denied a chance due to the bungling of the officials.

If you missed it, the bizarre finish to Colorado vs. Hawaii. pic.twitter.com/vmWKaiBIzH

— Avinash Kunnath (@avinashkunnath) September 4, 2025

• Phillip Lindsay catches a short pass from Sefo Liufau for six yards. The ball was spotted just short of the first down, so it was third down and the clock kept running with 14 seconds left.
• The Colorado wide receiver hands the ball to the official, admittedly a little too casually. That takes three seconds.
• The line judge, for whatever reason, sets the football down where he is at the sidelines instead of getting it to the center of the field for the referee. That takes three more seconds.
• The umpire finally gets the line judge's attention. He tosses it to the umpire, who then tosses it to the center judge, but a Hawaii player runs right into it and the center ref has to chase it down. That takes four more seconds.
• The center judge bobbles it, bobbles it again, and then by the time he gets it down and tries to get back, time runs out.

I tried to Vine the Colorado/Hawaii finish but the ref took too long and the Vine recording clock ran out. So here: pic.twitter.com/RPWshkutZK

— Kevin Zimmerman (@KZimmermanAZ) September 4, 2025

Wisconsin fans are probably having flashbacks to this insane finish on the isles between Colorado and Hawaii. For those who forget why, remember this ending from a few years ago between the Badgers and Arizona State Sun Devils when the Pac-12 refs literally sat on the football and denied Wisconsin a chance to win?

And no, these were not Pac-12 refs (I believe they were an Mountain West crew).

Colorado cannot point to this to the reason they lost. They were extremely careless and made several huge mistakes. There was an early blocked punt. They gave up a two point conversion, a 77 yard touchdown involving a missed tackle, and three costly turnovers. There was bad timeout management that would have saved them if they had one late, and a very casual two minute drill that ate up more time than necessary.

But man. That ending was ugly.