In 2002 we were twelve years away from College instituting a playoff, and hte sport was still using the BCS as a way to decide who were the top two teams in the country. This systematic way of doing it seemingly changed annually (more so the following year when USC was left out and ended up being voted #1 in teh AP Poll at years end - the specific result the BCS was supposed to avoid). This year though, we didn't need computers to tell us that the top teams were Ohio State and Miami, both undefeated. It was all set to be played in the glow of Tempe Arizona in an old shitbox known as Sun Devil Stadium, branded The Fiesta Bowl. For one day, that title was more than accurate.
The game shouldn't have been close. The Hurricanes were the defending champions, with future NFL stars all over hte place (though not as many as the year before when they still had Ed Reed and Reggie Wayne as well). It is startling looking back at the roster the Hurricanes put on the field - back before Nick Saban and then a slew of others took the focus away from Florida.
The only weak link was only a weak link from an NFL perspective in their QB of Ken Dorsey. Outside of that, they had Willis McGahee as a dominant RB (with Frank Gore as the change of pace guy), Andre Johnson as the lead WR, Kellen Winslow II as the main TE, two long-time NFL starters on the OL, three on the DL including VInce Wilfork, two longtime NFL regulars at LB (DJ Williams, Jonathan Vilma), Antrel Rolle at corner and a young beast named Sean Taylor at safety. They were loaded. They had won 34 straight games entering this one. That streak would not go any higher.
It's probably wrong to state Ohio State was a list of nobodies - certainly looking back they had a lot of future NFL talent on the team, even putting aside their main player of Maurice Clarrett heading into the game. Their roster featured Michael Jenkins, Drew Carter and Chris Gamble at WR (Gamble was also a starting corner, a position he played full-time in the pros), Nick Mangold as a center, Shane Olivea as a tackle, Will Smith as a DE, Mike Doss and Will Allen as safeties, and a young AJ Hawk as a backup linebacker. Certainly they had talent, it just never showed until their moment beating a dynasty.
Ohio State went 13-0 prior to the Fiesta Bowl, but it was the way they played - a lot of running from I-formation, so little throwing from Craig Krenzel - and the way they won that led to such little respect. Hard to blame the world though. That 13-0 record was littered with close games, beaitng Cincinnati by just 4, Northwestern by 11, Wisconsin by 5, Purdue by 4, and Illinois by 7 - all of those unranked teams. They won the right to play in the title game by beating Michigan 14-9. They were putting up bad NFL offense scores in these games (10-6, 13-7, 23-16, 23-19). The defense was consistently great, the offense consistently bad enough to win ugly but they won.
Miami did not win ugly. They won beautifully - apart from two games (over Florida State by 1, and the only weird result, a 7-pt win over Pittsburgh). They dominated good teams, humiliated bad ones. There were no signs this was anything aside from a ludicrously talented, good, team. And they were - it was more that a truly great team was hiding in Ohio behind Tressel's 'old-school' bullshit.
The game itself was a fascinating chess match that the Buckeyes changed on specific big plays. It started quite ominously, the teams traded punts but the Hurricanes punt came after a drive that featured two Andre Johnson catches for first downs and two sacks. The two sacks were an indicator that the Buckeyes defense was more than good enough. The Buckeyes did fall behind 7-0, but an interception gave a short field to make it 7-7, and a sack-fumble on the eunsuing drive gave another short field and another TD to make it 14-7. Suddenly, the little Buckeyes were very much alive.
What really showed this was not the night for Miami was the first of two bonkers plays that will live in infamy. Kraig Krenzel threw a terrible interception after having first and goal (featuring a 50-yard pass to Chris Gamble) to Sean Taylor but on the pick return, Maurice Clarrett just took the ball away from Taylor. It was an amazing play - another sign that the Buckeyes were every bit as physical and capable of the amazing.
The game ended tied at 17,-17 a truly defensive struggle with many big plays biut the Buckeyes absolutely looking they deserved to be onthe field. The Hurricanes won snap to snap, but the Buckeyes could either get pressure enough, or get a big play so often, to make it still very competitive. College Football has so little ability to surprise us anymore - and even the recent 'upset's aren't even that close (see Ohio State's demolition of Clemson), but this one surprised, and did so because it gave us an NFL score with a buch of future NFL players.
The Overtimes played out brilliantly, with the other lasting moment: the pass interference flag. After scoring a TD to make it 24-17, the Hurricanes seemed to have snuffed out the last of the fight, with a simple pass to Chris Gamble on 4th down dropping incomplete. There was a combustible release of a celebration, with Miami players rushing the field and a few fans getting a step away, and then we all saw that little piece of laundry. There may not have been a higher profile refereeing decision in college football in my lifetime.
That flag - one for pass interference - indirectly ended a dynasty. The Buckeyes scored two plays later, and ekded out a TD in the second OT to make it 31-24. The Hurricanes neededa bunch of plays to get traction but ultimately had a 1st and Goal at the 2 - but three runs and a terrible pass with a Buckeye rusher hanging off Dorsey's shoulder ended it.
The celebration was made famous for Tressel's iconic "we always had the best damn band in the land, now we have the best damn team in the land" line, which was delivered perfectly. At that moment, to me the BCS era peaked as it had delivered. It gave us a team from the Big 10 playing a team from the ACC. It gave us the two best teams and an opportunity to duke it out, with a college upstart in Ohio State taking on the bluest-blood program at that moment. It gave us drama, and drama we knew would decide a title. It was beautiful, it was a perfect college football moment.
The next year gave us controversy the BCS would never really recover from, when they passed over a 11-1 USC team for a 11-1 Oklahoma team that got hammered in its conference title game. Oklahoma would lose to LSU (Saban's first title, a lifetime ago), USC won the Rose Bowl, and the AP decided USC was the best team - a direct conflict from the coaches poll which had LSU. Two years later we got a game more dramatic and more legendary than this (Texas's win over USC) but by then we had seen the BCS's imperfections. Here, we saw nothing but its glory.
