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2004 Oklahoma Sooners

2004 Sports: The Year That Belonged To Boston

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The city of Boston owned 2004 sports, with a World Series-Super Bowl parlay. The Red Sox won their first World Series crown in 86 years, while the Patriots were the other end of the championship spectrum—they sealed a dynasty, with their third Super Bowl victory in the last four campaigns.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
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It wasn’t a championship game though, that most defined 2004. It was the American League Championship Series, where the Red Sox trailed the New York Yankees 3-0 in games, and were then down 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 4, facing the greatest closer of all time in Mariano Rivera.
A stolen base by pinch-runner Dave Roberts proved to be the pivot point on which the lever of history swung. The Red Sox tied that game and 96 shocking hours later they were celebrating on the field at Yankee Stadium.  Their four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series seemed almost anticlimactic by comparison.
The Patriots’ postseason run might been have the most impressive of their three championship years. They had to beat Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts to get it started, and then went to Pittsburgh to face a 15-1 Steelers team in the AFC Championship Game. The run was completed by beating the Philadelphia Eagles, the best team in the NFC over the previous four seasons, at the Super Bowl in Jacksonville.
Yes, it was quite a year to be a sports fan in Boston. Read here for more detail on both the 2004 Boston Red Sox and 2004 New England Patriots.
In both the MLB & NFL seasons, the runner-ups deserve their own special place in history. The historic nature of the Red Sox run has had the unfortunate effect of obscuring what a tremendous National League Championship Series was played that same year. You can read a game-by-game account of the great seven-game battle waged by St. Louis against the Houston Astros in the NLCS.
And in the NFL, the Philadelphia trip to the Super Bowl was a long time in coming. The Eagles had lost the NFC Championship Game each of the previous three seasons. After a 13-3 campaign in 2004, highlighted by Pro Bowl years from quarterback Donovan McNabb and receiver Terrell Owens, and led by the league’s second-best defense, Philadelphia entered the NFC playoffs as the #1 seed with all the pressure on them.
The Eagles won their divisional round playoff game with the 8-8 Minnesota Vikings, as McNabb tossed two early touchdown passes and led a not-as-close-as-it-sounds, 27-14 win. Michael Vick and Atlanta came to town for the NFC Championship Game, the third straight year the championship had been played at Lincoln Financial.
Philadelphia’s defense completely contained Vick, not letting him run and forcing him into an erratic 11/24 passing day. The Eagles methodically pulled away, 27-10 and for the first time since 1980, were back in the Super Bowl.

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The rites of spring were defined by one man—William Davison. He wasn’t a leading scorer, a great assist man, a brilliant coach or even a savvy GM. Mr. Davison made his fortune as a manufacturer of architectural and automotive glass, and with his money, he bought both the Detroit Pistons of NBA and the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning. The Pistons and Lightning both won championships in the same year, making Davidson the only owner in sports history to double dip.
The Pistons won the NBA title as a rarity in professional basketball—a team without a marquee star that derailed the two-time defending conference champs, the top seed in their conference and finally the Shaq-Kobe Dynasty in Los Angeles, all in succession. Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup by winning two tough seven-game series in the conference finals and Cup Finals.
Read more about the 2004 Detroit Pistons
Read more about the 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning

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The world of college sports was marked by two big showdowns, both involving teams that were ranked 1-2 to start the season, lived up to the hype and built to a postseason battle.
USC and Oklahoma eyed each other up throughout the football season, played in the Orange Bowl for the national championship, although the head-to-head battle did not live up to expectations. The Trojans hammered the Sooners 55-19. Read more about The Massacre In Miami, how each team got there, and the agitation fans of undefeated and third-ranked Auburn felt.
Texas wasn’t in the mix for a national title, thanks to an early loss to Oklahoma, but the Longhorns made it back to a major bowl game for the first time since 1996, and the first time under Mack Brown. There was no shortage of controversy in how they got there.
USC’s playing for the national title opened up a spot in the Rose Bowl, which everyone would assume would be filled by Cal. The Golden Bears had lost only to the Trojans—and given the champs their toughest game at that—were ranked higher than Texas, had a premier quarterback in Aaron Rodgers and the Rose Bowl’s tradition was to choose replacement teams from its conferences of origin whenever feasible.
Brown aggressively lobbied voters, and without compelling on-field reasons, there was a late shift in votes that put Texas ahead of Cal and into the Rose Bowl. The Golden Bears were correctly outraged, although it did set up what would prove to be a great storyline over the next two years. Texas beat Michigan 38-37 when quarterback Vince Young led a drive for a last-play field goal. It was the prequel to what would happen on the same field a year later when Young led the Longhorns to a national title.
On the basketball side, it was UConn and Duke who opened the season 1-2. Their own path to a showdown didn’t have the neat linear movement of USC and Oklahoma. The Huskies finished second in the Big East before winning the conference tournament. Duke won the ACC and survived a couple tough fights in the NCAA Tournament. But they both got to San Antonio for the 2004 Final Four.
UConn fell behind early, thanks to foul trouble on center Emeka Okafor, but Duke had the foul problems late. The Huskies turned an eight-point deficit with four minutes left into a four-point lead with just seconds to play. All that was left was one final desperation shot by Duke to go in—meaningless to the outcome, but it covered the point spread, and became one of Las Vegas’ memorable moments. Read more about the 2004 UConn-Duke game.

2004 College Football: The Massacre In Miami

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The 2004 college football season was marked by two teams that opened the year determined to find vindication, for very different reasons. The USC Trojans and Oklahoma Sooners opened the season 1-2 in the polls, finished it the same way and built to a championship conclusion in Miami.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
Start reading today. 

USC had been voted a share of the 2003 national title, although the Trojans believed they were robbed of the chance to play LSU for an outright crown. Pete Carroll had returned the USC program to national prominence two years earlier and they were stacked for a run at a no-doubt-about-it title.

Matt Leinart was at quarterback and on his way to a Heisman Trophy in December. Running back Reggie Bush would win the same award one year later. Four defensive starters made first-team All-American.

Overall, an astonishing 53 players on this team, at various stages of their careers, would go on to play in the NFL. The Trojans were so stacked that they could have top receiver Mike Williams declared ineligible and not miss a beat.

USC played a road-neutral game against Virginia Tech at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins, to begin the year. The Trojans won 24-13, and then won a pair of easy games over Colorado State and BYU, before facing their two hardest challenges of the year against the Pac-10 teams of northern California.

Stanford led USC 28-17 before the Trojans rallied with two touchdowns and a 31-28 win. The game with Cal was even tougher. The Bears were led by senior quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and Cal trailed just 23-17 late in the game and had a 1st-and-goal on the 9-yard line. A big sack from defensive tackle Manuel Wright was the key play in a stand that preserved USC’s win in a game that would prove to settle the conference championship.

USC blasted 15th-ranked Arizona State, and rolled over Washington and Washington State. A bad weather trip to Oregon State was difficult and the Trojans trailed 13-0 early before turning it around to win 28-20. A victory over Arizona wrapped up the conference title, and USC then closed out their perfect regular season with a hard-fought win over UCLA, behind 335 all-purpose yards from Bush, and then beat up Notre Dame.

Oklahoma’s desire for redemption came from having been the dominant team throughout almost all of the 2003 season, and then falling apart at the end. The Sooners lost the Big 12 title to Kansas State in a 35-7 blowout, but OU’s lead in the computer rankings so large that they hung on to #2 and got to play LSU for the national championship—a game the Sooners also lost.

OU had future pros like Jamaal Brown at offensive tackle and Mark Clayton at receiver. Quarterback Jason White was back after his ’03 Heisman campaign. But no one electrified Norman like an incoming freshman, running back Adrian Peterson. A 1,925-yard opening campaign set a new NCAA record for freshmen, and started what continues to be an almost-certain Hall of Fame career in the NFL.

The Sooners rolled through their first four games, and then faced #5 Texas. Bob Stoops’ defense came up big in a 12-0 win that gave Oklahoma control of the Big 12 race. They were challenged in a tough 38-35 win at Oklahoma State, and again in a 42-35 victory at Texas A&M, but nothing could keep the Sooners from the Big 12 championship game. Stoops’ team got the first part of its redemption with a 42-3 blowout of Colorado.

Before the USC-Oklahoma national championship battle could commence, both teams had to turn back a compelling argument made by SEC champion Auburn. The Tigers had also gone undefeated and had played a tougher schedule than either the Trojans or Sooners. It was argued that Auburn was victimized only by having ranked lower when the season began, and it was hard to say they were wrong.

Auburn had to settle for going to the Sugar Bowl and hoping that enough AP voters—which did automatically recognize the winner of the BCS-designated title game—would rebel against the system, the same they had for USC a year earlier.

The worst possible outcome took place at the Sugar Bowl. Auburn beat Virginia Tech, but it was in unimpressive fashion. The Tigers were still undefeated and in the nation’s best conference (though this was nowhere near as clear-cut as it would become within the next ten years), but the lackluster Sugar Bowl win wasn’t going to inspire anyone to give them a piece of the title.

Thus we came to Miami, where the Orange Bowl would settle the national championship. Oklahoma was a one-point favorite coming in, and scored on their first offensive possession to take a 7-0 lead. USC answered when Leinart found tight end Dominique Boyd to tie it.

The swing moment of the Orange Bowl came when a special teams error by Oklahoma gave USC the ball at the 6-yard line.  An easy touchdown unleashed the floodgates. Leinart hit Dwyane Jarret with a 54-yard touchdown pass, and the lead grew to 28-7 in the blink of an eye. By halftime it was 38-10. By the middle of the fourth quarter it was 55-10. Oklahoma scored nine cosmetic points at the end and the final score was 55-19.

Sports can take drama away as quickly as it seems to promise it. The Massacre In Miami was just such an example. After a year of buildup focusing on these two teams, after peripheral controversy, with two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks on the field and with the Las Vegas consensus having the game a virtual pick’em, the suspense lasted little more than a quarter.

The Massacre In Miami might have denied us suspense, and the flaws in the system denied Auburn its fair chance to lose on the field, but we were left with the image of enduring greatness. There was no doubt who the best team was in the 2004 college football season, as the USC Trojans won their second straight national title—and this time they left no doubt.