Quick, what season do you think of when you think of reasons the BCS didn’t work? You probably answered one of, 2003, 2004, or 2011. Those seasons seemed to break the system placed by the BCS due to one key reason; the system picked the wrong teams. 2003 USC, 2004 Auburn, 2011 Oklahoma State all have legitimate gripes with the process and how the teams ahead of them were selected. The season that I don’t see being brought up in all of these conversations is 2001.

The 2001 season obviously has a dark cloud hovering over it, due to the September 11th attacks making the nation forget about football for a couple of weeks while we tried to process a terrorist attack. The 2001 season also has the next distinction of boasting one of the major contenders of the greatest college football teams of all time in the 2001 Miami Hurricanes. The 30 for 30 does a great job of diving into the massive amounts of NFL talent in their 2 deep so I won’t bog down in the details here. Because of these things, the journey to get to their inevitable National Championship seems to be a loss to the casual fans of history. What I want to do, in the upcoming 20 year anniversary of that season, is going to dive into different aspects of the season that truly make it one of the weirdest seasons no one seems to talk about.

The Roster is still Bonkers 20 Years Later

First, a personal story about my relationship with this season. I was in third grade in the fall of 2001, and as a part of that class, we would have carte blanche to write about what we wanted to and present it to the class, as long as we hit some page limits (I believe it was 2 pages double spaced). During the winter of 2002, I decided that I wanted to write about the result of this 2001 season, much to the amazement of my teachers and classmates. The reason I remember this is that I remember distinctly my love for the 2001 Oregon team, and we will get to them, and Joey Harrington as a player (oops). Pretty sure I got an A on the paper, for what it’s worth.

Today I want to set the stage for the season by briefly going into the major players coming off of the 2000 season, at least among the important teams. The biggest story coming out of the 2000 season was the decision making of the BCS. Despite being Florida State at home, Miami, who’s lone loss was a Week 1 loss to Pac-10 Co-Champion Washington, was left out of the National Championship Game against unbeaten Oklahoma. This was mostly due to the computers valuing Florida State’s margin of victories down the stretch, culminating with a 30-7 home victory over then #4 Florida, which leapfrogged the Seminoles for good. In the ensuing offseason, the BCS tweaked it’s process doing two key things. The first was giving extra points for victories over top 15 BCS ranked opponents. The second was limiting the use of margin of victory as a measuring stick among competitors, to the point two of the computers used for the BCS were replaced since they relied on margin of victory. The combination of those changes, if used retroactively, would have put Miami (FL) into the Championship Game.

Things Did Not Go Well for Butch in Cleveland

Despite the lack of Championship Game appearance, the Hurricanes went into the Sugar Bowl against fellow state rival Florida and knocked them off 37-20. In the offseason, head coach Butch Davis left to take the Cleveland Browns job. Davis, who took over the Canes after their sanctions in the mid 90s, took the NFL job in February, which didn’t allow for the football team to have many options to take over a still hungry roster. Upon the request of the players, offensive coordinator Larry Coker was promoted to the head coach position. Most media members and coaches predicted Miami (FL) to easily win the Big East, especially with the departure of Michael Vick to the NFL from Virginia Tech. The Hurricanes began the year as the preseason #2 team in both polls.

The #1 team in the preseason ended up being the team that lost to Miami in the previous year’s Sugar Bowl. Despite that result, Florida returned a ton of production, led by sophomore QB Rex Grossman, and was picked overwhelmingly as the SEC East and overall SEC favorite, with Tennessee (Preseason AP #8) the second pick among the media, making their annual second September matchup once again having SEC and National Championship implications.

In the Big 12, the common belief that it would be some three way horse race between Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, who started the season AP #3, #4, and #5 respectively. Oklahoma was coming off a National Championship win over Florida State, but replacing Heisman runner up Josh Huepel. Texas was coming off of a disappointing season, with losses to Oregon in the Holiday Bowl, Oklahoma, and Stanford. Junior Chris Simms was looking to finally get over the hump and win the Big Game as Texas QB. Nebraska was looking to get over the top after their dynastic run in the mid 90s. Eric Crouch was looking to get the Huskers over the hump after two seasons of no National Championship Game appearance.

Florida State was trying to continue its dominance over the ACC by winning its 10th consecutive ACC Championship. The teams seemingly standing in the way were Georgia Tech (picked #10 AP Poll) and Clemson, who had finished 2nd and 3rd in the conference in 2000. Florida State was replacing the 2000 Heisman winner Chris Weinke and replacing him with freshman Chris Rix. They were picked as the #6 team in the country in the preseason polls. Oregon was the consensus pick to win the Pac-10 after their Holiday Bowl win over Texas and both Washington and Oregon State losing weapons on both sides of the ball. Oregon was picked as the #7 ranked team in AP Poll.

Further down the line, the college football landscape began to take form in the way we would see it today. The Sun Belt conference first sponsored football, and the Big West disbanded, forcing Boise State (among others) to either the WAC or the Sun Belt. TCU passed Boise State in the night as the two of the majors “non-powers” just missed on being conference rivals, which would happen only once, 10 years later.

The 2001 season had their own version of “Week 0” in that there were multiple high profile matchups at the end of August. While not featuring any ranked matchups, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Georgia Tech were all in action. All three teams won their games; Nebraska and Oklahoma easily putting away TCU and North Carolina, respectively. Georgia Tech, in a sign of things to comes for the season, struggled to put away Syracuse 13-7.

The game from this first weekend of true consequence, unbeknownst to any at the time, was Fresno State at Colorado. These two teams weren’t seen as two of the teams to watch over the course of the season, both entering the game unranked, but showcased what they had to offer to the season and beyond. Fresno State was unanimously assumed to be the best team in the new look WAC. Colorado, overshadowed by Big 12 North powers Nebraska and Kansas State, was assumed to slot into that 3rd spot in the division. Future #1 pick (and the first of many QBs the Texans seem to not bring to their potential) David Carr led the Bulldogs into Boulder and helped turn four Colorado turnovers into 17 points in a 24-22 victory. The game was sealed when Fresno State got their fifth turnover of the game on an INT on a Hail Mary attempt. This game, when taken into the larger picture, cost Gary Barnett’s Buffs squad a shot at the National Championship. Fresno State got a signature win for the program that had only been ranked once in the final AP Poll in their program history.

Next time on the odyssey, we are going to look into the ACC race, which saw a few twists and turns on the way to a winner not even the most fervent fan could have seen coming. Let me know down in the comments below what you remember about the 2001 season at large (don’t worry I will cover the Notre Dame side of it later in this journey). Sound off below!