A punter’s pass proved to be a key play in Buffs’ ’86 turnaround,
It was a running joke between former Colorado football coach Bill Mccartney and Barry Helton, one of several standout punters to pass through the Buffaloes program.
To Mccartney, the punt was as critical as any play in football because of how it could dramatically swing field position. On some of Mccartney’s early CU teams, the Buffs certainly had plenty of opportunities to put that theory into practice.
Helton didn’t arrive in Boulder with dreams of being an NFL punter. That vocation was a sidebar to the athletic skills that made Helton, a Colorado native, a standout quarterback at Simla. Yet when Mccartney shifted to an option-based offense in 1985, Helton understood he would have to find another way to make a living with his legs.
Mccartney wasn’t shy about utilizing Helton on fake punt schemes when the opportunity arose. One of the most successful of those calls occurred 34 years ago on Sunday at Missouri, when the lone regular-season completion of Helton’s CU career helped spark a gritty road win at Missouri that changed the outlook of the 1986 season and, arguably, the entire Buffs program.
“I always used to tease coach Mccartney because he was always saying, ‘The punt is the most important play in football,’” Helton said. “But I’d say, ‘Other than the fake punt when you throw it and get the first down.’ We would joke all the time, and so it was always exciting when that was the call.
“I went to CU wanting to be a quarterback and ended up a punter. It turned out great but it wasn’t my plan when I got there. It was always fun in practice to do the fake punts and throw the ball a little bit.”
The Buffs finished 7-5 a year earlier and earned a bid to the Freedom Bowl, but a 2-4 finish showed Mccartney just how far CU still had to go in order to compete in the Big 8 Conference. The ’86 season began 0-4 when the Buffs limped into Missouri, and CU held a slim 7-3 lead early when Mccartney decided to roll the dice.
Facing fourth-and-one from their own 29-yard line, Helton executed a fake and delivered a pass to safety Mickey Pruitt for a 17-yard gain and a first down. Seven plays later, a 5-yard touchdown run from OC Oliver gave the Buffs a 14-3 lead that wasn’t seriously threatened the rest of the way.
While the 1985 team finished with a slightly better record than the ’86 squad (6-6), the victory at Missouri began a 6-2 finish that included CU’S first victory against Nebraska in 19 years. Unlike 1985, there was a sense the Buffs were turning the corner. CU didn’t finish with a .500 or under record again until 1997.
The fake at Missouri accounted for Helton’s only regular-season completion in four attempts during his CU career, though he also found Jon Embree for a touchdown on a fake in the 1985 Freedom Bowl.
“That was the year we did better in the Big 8,” said Helton. “I just wanted to play. I didn’t want to have a scholarship for five years and never get to play. So I had to learn to punt, and luckily I did. I still threw a lot of balls at practice because I enjoyed it.”
Helton, a two-time All-american at CU, appeared in 50 NFL games over four seasons, mostly with San Francisco. He was inducted into the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and the CU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019. A hip injury shortened his NFL career, but he settled into the business world almost seamlessly as the longtime owner of Helton Auto Inc., a car dealership in Colorado Springs. Helton said in recent years he has divested from his auto business and owns several storage facilities around Colorado Springs.