College Football Rewind: Most important games from 2003 season

NEW ORLEANS - JANUARY 4: Head coach Nick Saban of the Loiusiana State Tigers holds up the Bowl Championship Series Trophy after his team defeated the Oklahoma Sooners in the Nokia Sugar Bowl National Championship on January 4, 2004 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Tigers defeated the Sooners 21-14 to win the National Championship. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /

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College football’s 2003 season reintroduced the nation to BCS chaos and gave us something we will never see again: a split national championship.

As hard as it is to believe, the SEC was not always the undisputed best conference in the country and LSU was not always a powerhouse.

The 2003 season saw LSU emerge as a national championship contender with Nick Saban as the head coach and the SEC start to take a hold on the title as the best conference in the country, with LSU, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee all posting 10-win seasons and playing in big bowl games.

Another traditional power started to re-emerge in 2003 and that was the USC Trojans. Pete Carroll was in his third season at Southern Cal and already had won a BCS game with the Trojans the year before, but he had his sights on an even bigger prize in 2003.

Bob Stoops was looking to get the Sooners back in the national championship game after missing out the previous two seasons and he was relying on future Heisman Trophy winner Jason White to get him there, but to do that, they would have to navigate a tough Big 12 that wound up having four teams with double-digit win seasons.

This episode of College Football Rewind is going to take a look back at the five most important games from the 2003 season.

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