The 2002 NCAA Division I-A football season ended the season with what most consider an exciting double overtime national championship game. Ohio State and Miami both came into the Fiesta Bowl undefeated. The underdog Buckeyes defeated the Hurricanes 31–24, ending Miami's 34 game winning streak. Jim Tressel won the national championship in only his second year as head coach.
Rose Bowl officials were vocally upset over the loss of the Big Ten champ from the game. Former New England Patriots coach Pete Carroll returned the USC Trojans to a BCS bid in only his second season as head coach. Notre Dame also returned to prominence, as Tyrone Willingham became the first coach in Notre Dame history to win 10 games in his first season.
The only conference move during this season saw the University of Central Florida leave the Independent ranks to join the Mid-American Conference as its 14th member.
Beginning with the 2002 season, teams were allowed to schedule twelve regular season games instead of eleven leading to additional revenues for all teams and allowing players the enhanced opportunity to break various statistical records.
Read more about 2002 NCAA Division I-A Football Season: Standings, Bowl Championship Series Rankings, Final BCS Rankings, Bowl Games, Heisman Trophy Voting, Other Major Awards
Famous quotes containing the words division, football and/or season:
“That crazed girl improvising her music,
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship
Her knee-cap broken.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)
“How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)