2001 Peach Bowl (Napoleon's World)

The 2001 Peach Bowl was the site of the national title game for the 2000-01 NCAA college football season, and featured the 11-1 No. 1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish against the 11-1 No. 2 California Bears. The Irish wound up winning 34-28 over the Bears to earn their 6th national title and first since 1969.

"Armageddon"
The final weekend of the 2000 football season featured a drastically different ranking order than what would follow once all the games were completed: No. 1 Texas, No. 2 Huron, No. 3 Virginia, No. 4 Notre Dame, No. 5 Nebraska, No. 6 California. All teams were 11-1, except for Nebraska, which was 10-1 and still had a rivalry game with 5-6 Sequoyah remaining. Texas was guaranteed a spot in the title game with a victory over Mississippi in the SouthCo title bout, and observers generally agreed that the winner of the Huron-Notre Dame game in the Lakes Conference championship bout in Chicago would likely head to the title game as well. Virginia, with the country's best defense, needed a Texas loss and a victory over reigning Atlantic champion, No. 9 and 10-2 Florida State, to advance to the championship game. Nebraska needed Texas and Virginia to lose coupled with a win over Sequoyah, and California would need a loss by everyone above it plus a win over a very strong No. 8, 11-1 Oregon State team to enter the title game.

Texas and Huron were heavily favored to win, and as the Highlanders were the only team Texas had lost to all season, and due to the nature of the rivalry between the two programs, coupled with the chance of a game between the past two national champions, raised the anticipation for what sportswriters were prematurely dubbing, "the Game of the New Millennium."

What ensued was referred to as "Armageddon" by most observers. Virginia was shell-shocked by the FSU passing attack, their championship-caliber defense getting bludgeoned for 391 passing yards and five passing touchdowns en route to a 42-27 loss. Later in the day, Huron was beaten by Notre Dame for the second time that season as Irish quarterback Chris Leach led a heroic fourth-quarter drive capped with a touchdown to pull out a gutsy 34-31 win and guarantee Notre Dame a spot in the national title game.

The biggest upsets came at night, when Sequoyah defeated Nebraska 34-20, and Mississippi blasted Texas in one of the greatest college football upsets of all time, beating the Longhorns 38-17. California went on to beat Oregon State 21-13 and, thanks to the improbable upsets above it, was headed to the national title game.

It was the first time in college football history that the top three teams all lost in the same day, and that four Top 5 teams lost on the same day. The final rankings following the weekend: No.1 Notre Dame, No. 2 California, No. 3 Sequoyah State, No. 4 Nova Scotia, No. 5 Missouri, No. 6 Florida State, No. 7 Texas, No. 8 Huron. The Top Ten had never seen such radical shifts before in history. Chris Leach went on to win the Bosch, largely thanks to his heroic drive against Huron.

Pre-Game and Buildup
The game's hype had died enormously after the cataclysmic weekend of losses, and the Peach Bowl was denied its coveted Texas-Huron matchup. Still, with Chris Leach's Bosch trophy and the presence of the only 11-1 conference champions from major conferences, it was billed as a good game.