Over on SI.com, Stewart Mandel's mailbag answers included what he thought were the most significant football games of recent years. His list only reaches back to 1998, when he started covering the sport, so it's clearly not comprehensive, but at least he didn't try to reach beyond his knowledge base. Anyway, here's his list:
1. Florida State 46, Virginia Tech 29, Sugar Bowl, Jan. 4, 2000: While the Seminoles won the game, Michael Vick's epic performance was the single biggest impetus to the influx of athletic-style quarterbacks we see today. It's not that there weren't "mobile" quarterbacks before Vick, but coaches rarely gave them the freedom to improvise. Vick helped convince any remaining cynics of just how big an impact such a player could have on a game if properly unleashed, a la Vince Young in this year's Rose Bowl.
2. Ohio State 31, Miami 24 (2 OT), Fiesta Bowl, Jan. 3, 2003: Besides being a classic game, it was the first time a Big Ten or Pac-10 team reached the BCS title game, a significant milestone considering it was these leagues' attachment to the Rose Bowl that had precluded a championship game for so long. More notably, the Buckeyes proved it possible to beat the 'Canes -- who had won 34 straight at the time -- simply by being the more physical team, something that hadn't happened to Miami in a long, long time.
3. Colorado 62, Nebraska 36, Nov. 23, 2001: For all the reasons mentioned above. (These were mentioned in the question: I still can't stop thinking about Colorado's 62-36 rout of Nebraska in 2001, signaling the beginning of Nebraska's demise, the end of the Huskers' marriage to the option-oriented offense and a general erosion of fear when facing that team. )
4. Louisville 26, Florida State 20, Sept. 26, 2002: It's amazing to me that more people don't remember this rainy, Thursday-night game as a defining moment. The 'Noles were less than two years removed from their streak of 14 straight top four rankings and three straight BCS title-game appearances. Louisville was then a member of Conference USA. The Cardinals won. If that doesn't say it all about the new era of parity in college football, I don't know what does.
5. Northwestern 54, Michigan 51, Nov. 4, 2000: In talking to coaches over the last several years, I've learned that this game is viewed as something of a landmark moment in the current craze of spread offenses. When people saw Northwestern, which had had one of the worst offenses in the country only a year earlier, use the spread to put up 654 yards on the Wolverines, it spawned a whole lot of copycats, most notably Urban Meyer when he took over at Bowling Green the following season.
It's too early to say at this point, but if Notre Dame does indeed "return to glory" under Charlie Weis, I'm sure last year's USC game will be viewed in much the same light as these.
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Florida is probably going to beat the living shit out of Alabama this year since our squad will be filled with youngsters, but it was hilarious seeing the powerful and confusing spread-option held to three points once it came in contact with a team that knew how to play patient, consuming defense.
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