2000 NCAA Division I-A football season

rdf:langString 2000 NCAA Division I-A football season

rdf:langString Hard Rock Stadium was the site of the national championship

rdf:langString The 2000 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the Oklahoma Sooners claiming their seventh national championship and their thirty-seventh conference championship, the first of each since the departure of head coach Barry Switzer. Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops was in his second season as head coach, having been the defensive coordinator of Steve Spurrier's 1996 National Champion Florida Gators, and also having helped Bill Snyder turn the Kansas State Wildcats around in the early 1990s. Stoops erased a three-game losing streak against rival Texas by a score of 63–14, one of the worst defeats in Texas' football history. Despite the lopsided victory, this game marked a return of the Red River Shootout to a rivalry game with national title implications. The BCS title game was not without controversy, as the system shut fourth-ranked Washington out of the championship game, despite being the only team who had beaten each No. 2 Miami and No. 5 Oregon State and having the same 10–1 record as No. 3 Florida State during the regular season. 10–1 Miami, who handed No. 3 Florida State their only loss, was ranked higher in both the AP Writers' Poll and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll, and had the same record as the Seminoles, was also seen as a possible title contender. Virginia Tech also was left out of the BCS bowls, despite being ranked higher than one of the at-large teams, Notre Dame. The South Carolina Gamecocks broke a 21-game losing streak, stretching back into 1998, to go 8–4 including a win over Ohio State in the Outback Bowl. Two new bowl games began in the 2000 season: the Silicon Valley Bowl, which had a contractual tie-in with the WAC, and the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl.