On its second down, Cornell halfback Walt Scholl managed to run the ball to the one-yard line.
With nine seconds left on the clock, quarterback "Pop" Scholl threw an incomplete pass into the end zone.
Making the most of the unexpected opportunity, quarterback Scholl threw a touchdown pass to William Murphy, and following the extra-point kick, Cornell won the game 7–3.
If the schools had not made this agreement, it is unclear how or if the dispute would have been resolved: while Friesell admitted his mistake to the Eastern Intercollegiate Football Association, he acknowledged that his authority "ceased at the close of the game".
College football's only "official" record books at the time were kept by private publishers, based on information provided by individual schools.
[2] The New York Times compared the Fifth Down Game to a 1922 contest between Columbia and NYU where the schools disagreed on whether the deciding play counted as a touchdown or a safety.