Content note: This episode includes an extended discussion of the September 11 attacks and their connection to college football.
For Relaunch Week, Alex and Richard revisit the 2001 college football season, a year flattened in memory into the dominance of an all-time Miami team but very, very strange below the surface. September 11 halted the sport and jumbled its schedule; a chaotic December put Nebraska in the national championship game after Colorado had beaten the Huskers by 26; Florida and Tennessee settled the SEC East in December; Oregon got left out; and a landmark coaching class signaled that the sport’s next era had already begun. This subscriber episode tells the story of the season in about 80 minutes, including archival audio of Lee Corso condemning the SEC’s initial plan to play four days after the attacks. In this episode:
- 0:17: How Miami’s dominance hides a lot of weirdness in the history books
- 15:04: September 11’s effect on the season, including …
- 33:59: How the BCS race became unlike any other
- 56:37: An absurdly good crop of new head coaches that reshaped the sport
- 1:02:21: Rex Grossman vs. Eric Crouch
- 1:15:24: The many eras that were butting against each other here
Producer: Anthony Vito
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