Legendary head coach Bobby Bowden was at the peak of his power when the 2000 season began. His Florida State program was on an amazing run of 13 consecutive seasons finishing in the national top five. They had won or shared the ACC title every year since joining the league in 1992. What’s more, Bowden […]
The University of Miami had become known as simply “The U” thanks to their dominance in the 1980s and the early 1990s. They won four national titles, and narrowly missed several others. They played with a swagger that made them a national brand. But the mid-1990s saw the ‘Canes slip, even to the point of […]
In 1999, Virginia Tech had produced its greatest football season ever. A program that had been gaining steam for several years–a major bowl victory in 1995 and another appearance in a marquee bowl a year later—had gone to the next level when dynamic freshman quarterback Michael Vick arrived on campus. Vick got the Hokies to […]
It was 1995 when Northwestern shocked the college football world by winning an outright Big Ten title and going to the Rose Bowl for the first since 1948. Almost as improbably was the Wildcats following that up in 1996 with a share of the conference championship. But after two losing seasons, and the departure of […]
The Michigan football program was in a good place in 2000. They were just four years removed from having won the national championship in 1997. They were coming off a 1999 season that was capped by an Orange Bowl victory over Alabama and led by a quarterback named Tom Brady. With Brady now gone, the […]
The Oklahoma Sooners were no strangers to competing for national championships and doing it at the Orange Bowl, but when they arrived in Miami following the 2000 college football season, it had been a while since Boomer Sooner had been on top.
This article offers a snapshot of 2000 sports, a year that saw a dyansty have its last run in baseball, another get started in the NBA, and the college football season was marked by a debate ironically similar to one that rocked the political world.