2001 American Football Season

The 2001 American football season is remembered as a year of unprecedented resilience, historic shifts, and legendary performances. Across both the professional and collegiate landscapes, the season produced storylines that would define the sport for the next two decades.

The NFL: Tragedy, Resilience, and the Birth of a Dynasty

The 2001 National Football League season was profoundly impacted by the September 11 attacks. The tragedy forced the league to postpone Week 2 games, ultimately shifting the entire schedule back one week and pushing Super Bowl XXXVI into February for the first time in league history.

• The Rise of Tom Brady: When New England Patriots starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe suffered a devastating injury in Week 2 against the New York Jets, an unknown second-year backup named Tom Brady took the reins. Brady led the team to an 11-5 regular-season record, sparking one of the greatest dynasties in sports history under head coach Bill Belichick.
• Super Bowl XXXVI: The Patriots faced the heavily favored St. Louis Rams, an offensive powerhouse known as “The Greatest Show on Turf” led by MVP Kurt Warner. In a dramatic finish, Brady marched the Patriots down the field with no timeouts, setting up Adam Vinatieri‘s 48-yard game-winning field goal as time expired. New England claimed their first title in franchise history with a 20-17 victory.
• Individual Milestones: New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan set the official single-season sack record with 22.5 sacks, earning Defensive Player of the Year honors. On the offensive side, Rams running back Marshall Faulk earned Offensive Player of the Year after compiling over 2,100 yards from scrimmage.

Beyond the champions and the controversies, the 2001 season represented the end of an era and the beginning of a new organizational structure for professional football.

• League Structure Changes: The 2001 season was the final year the NFL operated with 31 teams. The following year would introduce the Houston Texans as an expansion franchise to balance the league at 32 teams.
• The Final “Central” Divisions: It also marked the last year of the traditional AFC Central and NFC Central divisions. The addition of the 32nd team in 2002 triggered a massive league realignment, moving from three divisions per conference to the modern four-division format.
• Replacement Officials: The regular season began with a labor dispute. Replacement referees—many pulled from college or the Arena Football League—officiated the final week of the preseason and Week 1 of the regular season before a new collective bargaining agreement brought the regular officials back to the field.

College Football: An All-Time Juggernaut

The 2001 collegiate season was defined by what many consider the greatest team ever assembled, alongside a polarizing postseason finish that fueled calls for a better championship system.

• The Miami Hurricanes’ Dominance: Head coach Larry Coker led the Miami Hurricanes to a flawless 12-0 record. The roster was famously loaded with future NFL stars, including Ed Reed, Clinton Portis, Andre Johnson, Jeremy Shockey, and Sean Taylor. They dismantled the competition all year, capping their season with a 37-14 blowout victory over Nebraska in the Rose Bowl to win the BCS National Championship.
• The Heisman Trophy: Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch won the Heisman Trophy after a spectacular season orchestrating the Cornhuskers’ option offense, rushing for over 1,100 yards with 18 touchdowns while throwing for 1,510 yards.
• BCS Controversy: The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system faced heavy scrutiny after Nebraska—who had just been routed 62-36 by Colorado and failed to win their own conference—was selected for the national title game over a highly ranked, surging Oregon Ducks team led by quarterback Joey Harrington.

A Deep Dive into 2001 Football History and Highlights

• January 1, 2001 – The Rose Bowl game celebrated its 87th installment as the Washington Huskies powered past the Purdue Boilermakers 34-24. The Player of the Game was Wash QB Marques Tuiasosopo.
• January 3, 2001 – Pro Player Stadium, Miami Gardens – College Football’s 3rd BCS National Championship pitted the #1-ranked Oklahoma Sooners against the #2-ranked Florida State Seminoles, per the American Football Database. This was a defensive lovers’ game! The Sooners kicked a field goal early in the game and held onto that 3-0 lead for most of the game until the third quarter, when they booted through another 3-pointer.  Finally, in the fourth, Quentin Griffin scored on a 10-yard run to give  Oklahoma a bit of a cushion to pad the lead. The Noles’ only scoring came on a final-stanza safety. The Sooners won the BCS Trophy with great defense, 13-2, at the Orange Bowl.
• January 14, 2001 – The AFC Championship at Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland featured the Baltimore Ravens defeating the Oakland Raiders, 16-3.
• January 14, 2001 – Giants Stadium, East Rutherford – NFC Championship, New York Giants beat Minnesota Vikings, 41-0.
• January 17, 2001 – NFL owners met in Dallas and voted to increase shared revenue across the league. All 32 teams agreed to pool the visiting team’s share of gate receipts for all regular and preseason games, starting with the 2002 season. According to a 2004 study by Brown, Nagel, McEvoy, and Rascher, this revenue plan assisted with new stadium construction and renovations in cities such as Denver, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Seattle, and Pittsburgh. Others, including Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, developed large new venues, while Chicago’s Soldier Field and Green Bay’s Lambeau Field benefited from major renovations. (source)
• January 28, 2001 – Super Bowl XXXV took place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. The Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants 34-7.
• February 3, 2001 – Record-Breaking but Fleeting Ratings: The XFL’s February 3 debut on NBC drew a 10.3 television rating. However, curiosity quickly faded, and viewership plunged roughly 71% over the next three weeks. [Fun While It Lasted] The original XFL launched and completely folded in 2001, marking the league’s first and only season. Created by WWE’s Vince McMahon and NBC’s Dick Ebersol, the spring football league introduced wild, WWE-style rules but ultimately lost tens of millions of dollars and collapsed in under four months. [YouTube, Business Insider]
• February 3, 2001 – The Opening Scramble: The XFL league completely eliminated the traditional opening coin toss. Instead, it started games with two players sprinting from opposite 30-yard lines to the 50-yard line to dive for the ball to determine first possession.
• February 4, 2001 – Aloha Stadium, Honolulu – The AFC struck back, extinguishing the NFC 38-17. Oakland Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon took home the MVP trophy, highlighting his comeback as an elite signal-caller.
• February 28, 2001 – NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is named the Sports Industrialist of the Year by the Sports Business Daily.
• March 26, 2001 – Stepping forward to the 21st century, the NFL announced that, for the 3rd straight year, it set a record average paid attendance. It was the first time that paid attendance exceeded 66,000 per game. Also, the NFL announced that the Washington Redskins set a league record for attendance in 8 games, with 656,599, surpassing the Detroit Lions’ record of 634,204 set in 1980.
• May 8, 2001 – Patent 6,229,550 is granted for Blending a Graphic to create the yellow line on TV for line to gain, the yellow first-down line. Since the late 1990s, the virtual yellow line has quietly enhanced football broadcasts by providing viewers with a live, intuitive guide to the line of gain, even when the sticks are nowhere in view. The graphic is engineered to appear painted on the field, rather than simply plopped on top of the players. The line debuted during a September 27, 1998, game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals. It was developed by Sportvision Inc. and operated by six people in a 48-foot semi-truck parked outside the stadium. ESPN was the only network that immediately agreed to pay the steep price of $25,000 per game. Before long, other companies began offering the yellow line to the other networks, and now you won’t see a football game without it, according to Vox.com.
• October 27, 2001 –  The 13th edition of the College Football Holy War took place as Boston College beat Notre Dame 21-17 in Chestnut Hill.
• November 3, 2001 – Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Oxford, Mississippi – The University of Arkansas defeats the University of Mississippi, 58-56, in 7 overtime periods, at the time the longest game in NCAA football history. 
• November 10, 2001 – James MacPherson scored with 1:17 to play in the game, and Quintin Williams made the defensive play of the game seconds later as Wake Forest rallied from a 24-point halftime deficit to stun North Carolina 32-31 in front of 53,000 fans at Kenan Stadium.  Wake Forest, outgained 338 yards to 118 in the first half, staged one of the greatest comebacks in ACC history—special thanks from the Wake Forest Athletic Department for this incredible story.
• November 11, 2001 – Husky Stadium, Seattle, Washington – Seahawks young running back Shaun Alexander, in just his sixth start, ran the rock for 266 yards on 35 carries and scored an 88-yard touchdown run as Seattle upset the favored Oakland Raiders 34-27.
• November 17, 2001 – Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn, Alabama – The Tide Rolled as Alabama beat Auburn 31-7. (source)
• November 25, 2001 – Olympic Stadium, Montreal – The 89th battle for the Grey Cup was played. It was the Calgary Stampeders who took their 5th Championship in team history as they outlasted the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 27-19. Marcus Crandell was the game’s MVP, and Aldi Henry took home the Most Valuable Canadian award.
• December 1, 2001 – A big matchup and upset took place in the Big 12 Championship as Colorado upended Texas, changing the National Championship picture.

Chaos and the Crown: How Colorado’s Defense Derailed Texas’s National Title Dream in 2001

• December 8, 2001 – The SEC Championship Game of 2001 had #21 LSU Tigers upending the second-ranked Volunteers of Tennessee by the score of 31-20.

• December 10, 2001 – Eric Crouch, the option quarterback from Nebraska, won the 67th Heisman Trophy Award. Eric was a dual threat in the 2001 season, rushing for 1115 yards and 18 touchdowns on the ground while passing for 1510 yards, according to Heisman.com. In addition to the Heisman, Crouch also took home the Davey O’Brien quarterback Award and the Walter Camp player of the Year Award.