The 2005 Colorado Buffaloes football team represented the University of Colorado at Boulder in the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season. The previous year's team won the Big 12 North Conference. That marked the third Big 12 North championship for the Buffaloes in four years. The team had expectations to improve on their winning and appeared to be on the right track with a 7–2 record to being the season. But in the end, head coach Gary Barnett had his contract bought out and Colorado suffered four straight losses including an embarrassing 70–3 loss to Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game. They finished the season 7–6. In the 2005 Champs Sports Bowl against Clemson, Mike Hankwitz acted as interim head coach, even though Dan Hawkins had been hired as the new head coach. Hawkins coached his