Interesting note near the end of Staples mailbag today-Influential Week 1 game since 2000

quote:

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2008 Alabama-Clemson

Tommy Bowden’s Tigers were supposed to be the best team in the ACC. Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide had welcomed a highly touted recruiting class, but would a team that lost to Louisiana-Monroe really be that much better?

Apparently, yes. Alabama crushed Clemson 34-10, and the game didn’t feel that close. The Crimson Tide would win 11 more before falling to eventual national champ Florida in the SEC title game. It was clear that night that Saban would do exactly what Alabama had hired him to do — make the Crimson Tide a national power again.

The loss was the first step toward a midseason firing for Bowden, but it was the decision Terry Don Phillips made after the firing that altered the course of college football history. He elevated receivers coach Dabo Swinney to interim head coach and gave Swinney the full-time job after the season.

Saban and Swinney would be college football’s two best coaches the following decade. They would meet four times in the College Football Playoff — three times in the national title game. If Saban had taken it a little easier on Bowden, perhaps his top foil might never have been identified.

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- announced Alabama on the scene as a national player again
- ended Tommy Bowden's career, effectively
- led directly to Dabo Swinney's career


His other was Appalachian State/Michigan, both because of the magnitude of the upset win of a 1AA school over a Top 10 program (and massive brand) like Michigan AND because it was the first EVER game played on Big Ten Network. Most people didn't have Big Ten Network and the game immediately made people realize it existed and that they wanted it, which was the start of the conference TV networks getting a foothold.