Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Florida Rolls As Nebraska Showdown Looms

Associated Press

Steve Spurrier still wants a playoff system, but this will do just fine.

Second-ranked Florida secured a Fiesta Bowl showdown with No. 1 Nebraska by disposing of Arkansas 34-3 in the Southeastern Conference championship game Saturday night. After all the furor over the new bowl alliance, college football has a true national championship game.

“It just happened to work out,” Florida coach Spurrier said. “The two teams that are undefeated get to play. If Ohio State doesn’t lose, then we fight about who’s this, that and the other. We could have been like Penn State (was in 1994), win every game and not be champs.

“This is as close as we can get without an actual playoff.”

Danny Wuerffel, making one last bid for the Heisman, threw for 276 yards and two touchdowns and Ben Hanks gave the over-looked Florida defense a score of its own with a 95-yard fumble return as the Gators rolled over No. 23 Arkansas.

It wasn’t an unexpected result; Florida was a 24-point favorite. But the Gators truly seemed to savor their third straight SEC title and fourth in five years, racing around the field after the game while the predominately blue-and-orange crowd chanted “SEC! SEC!”

“This one is just as special as any of them,” Spurrier said. “We put them all right up there together. Now we can try to win four in a row next year.

“We’ll have a team capable of doing it.”

But for the first time, Spurrier’s “Fun-n-Gun” team can actually win something bigger than a conference title.

“We’ve never had a game that meant so much,” Spurrier said. “Our whole season was on the line tonight. If we lose this one, we’re not even in a big bowl. Now we have a chance to play Nebraska to see who’s No. 1.”

Arkansas (8-4), a surprise winner of the SEC’s Western Division, will have to settle for a spot in the Carquest Bowl against North Carolina.

Wuerffel, who pushed his name back into contention for the Heisman with a 443-yard performance against Florida State the previous week, completed 20 of 28 passes, including touchdowns of 22 yards to Chris Doering and 29 to Ike Hilliard, who had seven catches in all for 125 yards.

Wuerffel, the game’s MVP, extended his own SEC record to 35 touchdown passes this season. Only a junior, he also became the leading TD passer in conference history with 75, surpassing the mark of 74 set by former Florida quarterback Shane Matthews, and finished the regular season with a pass efficiency rating of 178.4 - the highest in NCAA history.

Still, Wuerffel’s performance, in the face of almost constant blitzing by the Razorbacks, might not be enough to overcome Heisman favorites Tommie Frazier of Nebraska and Eddie George of Ohio State and the perception that Wuerffel’s numbers are aided by Spurrier’s pass-oriented system.

“We’ve said since the beginning of the year we don’t care about individual stats,” said Wuerffel, who has been invited to New York City for next Saturday’s trophy ceremony. “I’m not even sure how that goes or who votes or anything. But it’s certainly an honor even to be mentioned for that award.”

Arkansas needed to play a perfect game and actually scored first, driving 65 yards in 16 plays on its opening possession to set up Todd Latourette’s 36-yard field goal. But that was about the only highlight for the Razorbacks, who were leading the SEC with a turnover ratio of plus-13 but gave the ball up four times.

It also didn’t help that sophomore Madre Hill, who had rushed for more than 1,300 yards, went down with a knee injury early in the game.

“The turnovers killed us, not Madre being out,” Arkansas coach Danny Ford said. “We had to play perfect to have a chance and we didn’t come close to it.”