The 2001 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the University of Miami winning the national title for the fifth time.
The Hurricanes were led by Larry Coker, who was in his first year as head coach after five years as Miami's offensive coordinator under Butch Davis and became the first head coach since 1948's Bennie Oosterbaan from the University of Michigan to win a national title in his first season. Coker had the benefit of inheriting a star-studded program that Davis had rebuilt in the aftermath of NCAA sanctions in the mid-to-late '90s. Miami completed a perfect 12-0 season, which culminated in a 37-14 win over Nebraska in the Rose Bowl BCS National Championship Game.
In yet another controversial season for the BCS, (AP) #4 Nebraska was chosen as the national title opponent despite not having even played in the Big 12 championship game. The Huskers went into their last regularly scheduled game at Colorado undefeated, but left Boulder having lost the game by a score of 62-36. The Buffaloes went on to win the Big 12 championship game. The BCS computers, among other things, didn't weigh later games any more heavily than earlier games, and one-loss Nebraska came out ahead of two-loss #3 Colorado and one-loss, #2 Oregon. Some fans chanted "number 4" at the title game held at the Rose Bowl.
Florida State did not win the ACC championship for the first time since joining the conference in 1991, losing out to Maryland. Steve Spurrier left the Florida Gators at the end of the season to coach the Washington Redskins, accepting what was then the largest salary for an NFL head coach.
The season had one of the more competitive Heisman Trophy races with Eric Crouch of Nebraska winning by only a small margin over Rex Grossman of Florida. All of the five finalists played the quarterback position. Two of the finalists were coached at some point by Oregon offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford. Indiana quarterback Antwaan Randle El earned first-team All-America honors from the FWAA after becoming the first NCAA Division I-A quarterback to throw for 40 touchdowns and rush for 40 touchdowns in a career. He also became the first player in NCAA I-A history to record 2,500 total yards from scrimmage in four consecutive seasons.
The Big West Conference stopped sponsoring football after the 2000 season, concluding a pattern that had been started by many of its previous members of the past decade. Its remaining football playing members left to join other conferences for the 2001 season: Boise State joined the WAC, Arkansas State, New Mexico State and North Texas joined the Sun Belt Conference, which sponsored football for the first time in 2001. Idaho also joined the Sun Belt, but as a football-only member. Utah State would stay in the Big West, playing football as an Independent.
The newly formed Boise State/Fresno State rivalry would be a major factor in the race to be the "BCS buster" for several seasons.
Troy State joined Division 1-A football this season.
The Aloha Bowl and Oahu Bowl lost funding after Chrysler Corporation, which owned the former bowl's sponsor of Jeep, was acquired by Daimler-Benz and became DaimlerChrysler. The Aloha Bowl moved to Seattle and became the Seattle Bowl.
The New Orleans Bowl began play, the host team being the Sun Belt champion. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NCAA_Division_I-A_football_season.

Final Stats:

Rank	Team	Coach	Top NFL Player drafted in 2002
1	Miami (FL)	Larry Coker	DB Ed Reed
2	Oregon	Mike Bellotti	QB Joey Harrington
3	Florida	Steve Spurrier	DE Alex Brown
4	Tennessee	Phillip Fulmer	DT John Henderson
5	Texas	Mack Brown	DB Quentin Jammer
6	Oklahoma	Bob Stoops	DB Roy Williams
7	Louisiana State	Nick Saban	WR Josh Reed
8	Nebraska	Frank Solich	G Toniu Fonoti
9	Colorado	Gary Barnett	G Andre Gurode
10	Washington State	Mike Price	DB Lamont Thompson
11	Maryland	Ralph Friedgen	C Melvin Fowler
12	Illinois	Ron Turner	QB Kurt Kittner
13	South Carolina	Lou Holtz	DB Sheldon Brown
14	Syracuse	Paul Pasqualoni	DE Dwight Freeney
15	Florida State	Bobby Bowden	DB Chris Hope
16	Stanford	Tyrone Willingham	G Eric Heitmann
17	Louisville	John Smith	WR Deion Branch
18	Virginia Tech	Frank Beamer	WR Andre' Davis
19	Washington	Rick Neuheisel	DT Larry Tripplett
20	Michigan	Lloyd Carr	LB Larry Foote
21	Boston College	Tom O'Brien	T Marc Colombo
22	Georgia	Mark Richt	LB Will Witherspoon
23	Toledo	Tom Amstutz	RB Chester Taylor
24	Georgia Tech	George O'Leary	LB Nick Rogers
25	Brigham Young	Gary Crowton	DE Brett Keisel