The 1956 Colorado Buffaloes football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

in the Big Seven Conference during the

1956 NCAA University Division football season The 1956 NCAA University Division football season saw the University of Oklahoma Sooners finish a third consecutive season unbeaten and untied to again win the national championship. The 1956 season saw the NCAA split member schools into two divi ...

. Led by ninth-year head coach

Dallas Ward Dallas Carl "Dal" Ward (August 11, 1906 – February 15, 1983) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He was the head football coach at the University of Colorado in Boulder from 1948 to 1958, compiling a career rec ...

, the Buffaloes compiled and overall record of 8–2–1 with a mark of 4–1–1 in conference play, placing second in the Big 7. The team played its home games on campus at

Folsom Field Folsom Field is an outdoor college football stadium in the western United States, located on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder. It is the home field of the Colorado Buffaloes of the Pac-12 Conference. Opened in 1924, th ...

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

. Colorado was runner-up in the conference to undefeated

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

, whose winning streak had reached 40 games and who declared the consensus national champion. The Sooners did not play in a

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

due to the Big Seven's no-repeat rule;, so Colorado was invited to the

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in th ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

, and defeated Clemson, 27–21.

Schedule

References

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

Colorado Buffaloes football seasons Orange Bowl champion seasons Colorado Buffaloes football {{Colorado-sport-team-stub