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Seminoles won't settle for second
Posted: Monday December 20, 1999 09:35 PM By Tim Peeler, Special to CNN/SI Maybe this is a lot to put on one game, but when you've sniffed the sweet smells of a national championship and come home hungry as many times as Florida State has in the last decade, maybe it's not. The Seminoles, the top-ranked team in the nation since the preseason, want nothing short of a victory and the school's second national championship out of this year's Sugar Bowl against No. 2 Virginia Tech. Unlike the Hokies, who have their first chance to win the national title, this will be the fourth time in seven years the Seminoles are playing in a bowl game with hopes of a national championship. Only once, in 1993, has Bobby Bowden's team come home with the trophy, beating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Bowden, who just turned 70, wants his second title if only to match sons Tommy and Terry by finishing the season with a perfect record. Neither Tommy (12-0 at Tulane last year) nor Terry (11-0 at Auburn in 1993) won the national championship, so dad has a chance to improve on their accomplishments. "Gee whiz, nobody has had the opportunities we have had for national championships, maybe other than Nebraska," Bowden said. "I remember playing Tom Osborne in 1993 and we were the oldest coaches to have never won a national championship. We were fixin' to play each other and one of us was fixin' to get one of them. Well, we got it, and I felt so sorry for Tom. "But I don't feel sorry for him any more, because he won three out of the next four." Bowden hasn't been particularly pleased with the way his team has played this year, as it never really dominated the way such an experienced team probably should have. But given the off-the-field troubles of Peter Warrick, Laveranues Coles and Tay Cody, Bowden feels fortunate that his team didn't trip up somewhere. So if things don't work out in the Big Easy, Bowden says he won't be too upset. "When you get there, you hope you can win the doggone game. But you must realize that every time you get to a national championship game, you're playing the best in the country," Bowden said. "I don't apologize for losing to the best in the country, you know? If I was playing a team ranked 17th in the nation, OK, I'll apologize. This is a dadgum debate over who's best, Florida State or Virginia Tech. "If we lose this game, the season will not be a failure, but I'll be disappointed. All Seminoles will be disappointed. Some, the ones who are sane, will realize it's only one game. For that percentage of un-sane ones, they'll want me to cut my throat."
Non-traditional power baseWho would have thought a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference would face a team from the Big East for the national championship? It wouldn't have happened a decade ago when Florida State and Virginia Tech were college independents, but the expansion craze of the early 1990s has paid off for both the schools and the conferences in this restructured world of college football.Bowden, for one, is tickled to death, despite perhaps an exaggerated sense of history. "I hate to break everybody's heart, but the Big East and the ACC have the two best teams in the country," Bowden said. "I hate to hurt the SEC's feelings, and I hate to hurt the Big Ten's feelings, because they've been a conference for hundreds of years. "People look back on history. How come Texas is not in this game? Where's Southern Cal? That's how much football has changed, and I don't think it's going to go back the other way, either. We're in a parity sport where everybody is getting good players and nobody can monopolize anymore."
A postseason statementClemson hasn't been in a final Top 25 poll since the last time it won a bowl game, beating Kentucky in the 1993 Peach Bowl in Tommy West's debut game. For Tigers fans, that six-year wait is more than long enough.The Tigers (6-5) hope they can turn the heads of a few voters in the Dec. 30 Peach Bowl by beating a Mississippi State team with a much more respectable record (9-2). Someone thinks the Tigers can do that, since they go into a pre-bowl Christmas break with an unusual label: three-point favorites. First-year coach Tommy Bowden, the ACC's Coach of the Year, is a little mystified as to why that has happened. "We don't have any part of our offense or defense ranked as high as theirs," Bowden said. "They're from the football conference, the SEC. We're from the basketball conference, the ACC. Why would we be favored? We won six games. They won nine. Now can anybody figure that out?" Bowden admits that he would like to see his team, ranked in the lower-half of the ACC standings in the preseason, ranked among the nation's best at the end and believes that beating No. 15 Mississippi State could do the trick. "That's a pretty good motivating factor," Bowden said. One thing Bowden hasn't decided is who will be the Tigers starting quarterback. Senior Brandon Streeter has recovered from the dislocated hip he suffered Nov. 13 against Georgia Tech. Since Streeter is the better passer of Clemson's two quarterbacks, he could replace the run-oriented Woodrow Dantzler. That would be a good idea since Mississippi State has the top-ranked run defense in the nation. "You're not going to have a lot of running opportunities, therefore the execution of the forward pass is going to be very important," Bowden said. "Both of those guys have proven they can do it.
Postseason awakeningIt's been seven long years since Wake Forest has been to a bowl game, and Kelvin Moses has toiled for the Demon Deacons for six of them. So it's little wonder he would like to end his marathon career with a victory over Arizona State.Many football observers consider this matchup in the Christmas Day Aloha Bowl to be the least attractive of the 23 Division I-A post-season games. That doesn't matter to Moses. "Every team that I played with since 1994, we all tried to get to a bowl game," said Moses, an oft-injured, once-quick linebacker who is the school's first player to ever be granted a sixth year of eligibility. "After all of the ups and downs of the seasons in the past, to be able to pull one out the way we did this year, it's just unreal." The Deacons needed an upset of nationally ranked Georgia Tech in the final week of the season to become bowl eligible. Now, Moses and company would like to finish the season with a winning record. "I'm not a guy who is saying, 'Whether we win or lose, we're going to Hawaii,'" Moses said. "I want to win. I want to win my last game wearing this uniform representing this university. "So it's important for me that we win this game."
Coaching futuresAt least two ACC assistants have expressed an interest in the vacant N.C. State job: Florida State assistant head coach Chuck Amato, who is a former Wolfpack player and assistant coach, and Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen, who recently won the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant. The Wolfpack, however, are seeking a Division I-A head coach and are apparently willing to wait until after the bowl season to hire Mike O'Cain's successor. O'Cain was fired the day before Thanksgiving, after compiling a 41-40 record in seven years as head coach. In an unusual twist, O'Cain has been interviewed on several occasions by North Carolina coach Carl Torbush, who himself was nearly ushered out the door after the season was over. Instead, Torbush kept his job after the Tar Heels' disastrous, injury-filled 3-8 season, while O'Cain was fired after going 6-6. Torbush and O'Cain are friends and both gave public endorsements of each other during the final week of the regular season. Torbush opened three positions on his staff when he fired offensive coordinator Steve Marshall, running backs coach Ken Mack and quarterbacks coach Jim Hofher two weeks ago. Torbush said he has interviewed several candidates for the job, including O'Cain. Tim Peeler covers the ACC for the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record.
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