It’s Four Quarters Of Overtime Florida, Florida State Hit New Orleans After Tying 31-31 In November Thriller
From humble beginnings as a series inspired by the threat of legislative action, the rivalry between Florida and Florida State has evolved into one of the most spirited in college football.
Their late-season meetings usually have national championship implications, which is why the Gators and Seminoles have a bittersweet feeling about facing each other in tonight’s Sugar Bowl.
Florida (10-1-1) began the season ranked No. 1 and looked unbeatable before running into Auburn a week after Florida State, which won its only national title a year ago, had its hopes of repeating squashed by Miami in October.
“All you see on ESPN now is Nebraska and Penn State,” Florida center David Swain said of the teams that headed into their bowl games undefeated and with a shot at finishing on top of the final Associated Press poll.
“It hurts knowing that could be us,” he added, “especially since we feel like we could beat those teams.”
Florida State (9-1-1) will also finish the season wondering what might have been had quarterback Danny Kanell, who matured enough by the last regular-season game to rally the Seminoles to a 31-31 tie against Florida, hadn’t been yanked after falling behind Miami.
The improbable arrangement that brings the Gators and Seminoles together in New Orleans was made possible by FSU’s 28-point fourth quarter in Tallahassee on Nov. 26, plus Florida’s victory over Alabama in the Southeastern Conference championship game.
“That just goes to show you what we’re capable of, how things change from week to week,” Florida defensive lineman Ellis Johnson said.
“We’re not playing for the national championship because we’ve got a loss and a tie. Alabama was unbeaten just like Nebraska and Penn State, and they couldn’t beat us. We had three bad quarters and we’re not playing for No. 1. I guess that’s the way the ball bounces.”
When Florida State accepted an invitation to New Orleans, coach Bobby Bowden did so thinking the Seminoles probably would wind up playing Alabama, which faced Florida the following week with the SEC’s automatic berth in the Sugar Bowl on the line.
“I thought Florida might have the better team, but I wasn’t sure they’d be able to recover from our game,” said Bowden, who elected not to try for a potential gamewinning 2-point conversion with less than 2 minutes remaining in the earlier meeting.
No problem. The Gators not only bounced back, but bucked a trend of coming up short in close games by erasing a fourth-quarter deficit to beat Alabama 24-23 and set up this highly anticipated rematch.
“We actually got over that first game a lot quicker than a lot of people wanted us to,” Florida coach Steve Spurrier said. “Some people wanted to make us feel like we choked or folded at the end, which is fine. That’s just part of the game. There was nothing we could do but keep playing and learn from it.”
The lesson, the Gators said, was it takes a 60-minute effort to defeat a quality team. That’s what they promise tonight.