Colorado Rides on Stewart’s Rocket : College football: A 64-yard touchdown pass on last play gives Buffaloes 27-26 victory over Michigan.

His right arm had unleashed the most important pass in the history of Colorado football, a pass that will grow in length and height around Boulder as the story is handed down through the years, and all Kordell Stewart was hearing were questions about his eyes.

Did he see who caught it?

Did he see who tipped it?

Had he ever in his life seen anything like it?

Stewart, still dazed by the last-second chain of events that enabled Colorado to stagger out of Michigan Stadium Saturday evening with a 27-26 victory, blinked hard at that last one.

“What’s that guy’s name?” Stewart asked.

“Flutie?

“The guy who threw that one for Boston College?”

Flutie, that would be correct. Doug Flutie. Little guy. Not much bigger than the Heisman Trophy he won in 1984. Had this huge throw to beat Miami with no time on the clock that year.

Assured he was on the right track, Stewart nodded.

“I saw it,” Stewart said, “on ‘The Best Plays of Recent College Football.’

“I saw that one, but who would ever say, ‘I’m going to go in there and do it myself someday?’ ”

Stewart, however, has the evidence, recorded forever on videotape and in future Wolverine nightmares.

The clock will glow “0:00” with Stewart bouncing up and down on his 26-yard line, arm dangling, waiting and hoping for someone in a gold helmet to reach the end zone.

The ball will travel more than 70 yards toward a tangled mess of Michigan defensive backs and Colorado receivers.

And then, before the ball hits the turf, Colorado’s Michael Westbrook will dive and grab it and roll over before winding up at the bottom of a delirious victorious dog pile.

For the record, the play will go down as a 64-yard touchdown pass, Stewart to Westbrook,although at least one other player, wide receiver Blake Anderson, got a hand on it, and the ball carried 74 yards in the air.

And, no, Stewart never saw it or saw who tipped it.

“I didn’t know it was a touchdown,” he said. “I could only tell by the way the crowd was reacting. . . .

“The ball popped up in there and all of a sudden, it looks like a big truck dumped this load of people in the end zone.”

The play, which saved the Buffaloes from a 26-21 defeat, is nothing special in itself. “Jets Formation, Rocket Left” is how it is known in the Colorado playbook. Other teams have called it “Hail Mary” or “Big Ben.”

Whatever the label, the concept is universal--a fling and prayer, reserved for only the most desperate circumstances.

“It’s something every team in the country practices--’Two seconds on the clock, here goes,’ ” Stewart said. “Who is going to say, ‘I’m going to do it, in my last season, on the road, against Michigan?”

More than half an hour after the fact and Stewart was still having trouble believing it, which explains the unique choice of touchdown celebrations he made.

While teammates somersaulted around him in the end zone, Stewart took off his helmet, gotdown on all fours and kissed the second yellow “I” in “MICHIGAN.”

“I kissed the end zone, I licked the grass, I kissed my teammates on the lips, I was going to kiss anyone who came close to me,” Stewart said.

The last time Stewart got that close to that end zone, he fumbled. Five minutes before launching “the Rocket,” with Colorado trailing Michigan, 26-14, Stewart kept the ball on first and goal from the Wolverine four, gained three yards and lunged for the goal line--only to lose his grip in the air, sending the ball rolling into the arms of Michigan safetyClarence Thompson for a touchback.

The fumble appeared destined to be Stewart’s primary topic of postgame conversation, especially after the Buffaloes (3-0) pulled to within 26-21 when tailback Rashaan Salaam scored on a two-yard run with 2:16 left.

But Colorado got the ball back with 14 seconds to play, enough time for two passes, maybethree.

Stewart completed one, to Westbrook for a 15-yard gain, with eight seconds left, then spiked the ball with six seconds remaining.

Time for one more play. “Jets Formation, Rocket Left.”

As the play is designed, according to Anderson, “I’m supposed to go down the flank and Michael and the other receivers are supposed to get behind me. My job is to tip it, to hopefully get it to them.”

Anderson said the team practices the play once a week. “Three times, on Thursday,” he said.

And how often does it work?

“It doesn’t,” Anderson said with a shrug. “Basically, we’re just going through the motions when we practice it.”

Stewart called it “a miracle, a big-time miracle” and acknowledged that he was “scared” when he cranked up to set it in motion.

“I was nervous,” he said. “I was scared. I had confidence I could do it, but it was buried deep, deep down inside, behind the arteries and all that stuff.”

Michigan Coach Gary Moeller, who had been prepared to talk about what a great day this had been for Wolverine football, with tailback Tyrone Wheatley (17 carries, 50 yards, one touchdown) back in the fold, could only shake his head after his team fell to 2-1 and say, “We work against that play all of the time. It’s not a miracle. Everybody did everything right, the ball bounced up and they caught it.”

Westbrook said he had never caught a pass anything like it “except in my dreams.”

Stewart has shared the same vision.

“I dreamed it,” Stewart said, smiling, “and it dropped from out of the skies.”