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Inside College Football
By creating a three-way logjam in the ACC, Florida State got a chad up on a BCS bid By Ivan Maisel
That could also be known as the Florida State Rule because the league first adopted a similar tiebreaker in 1996, for the then Bowl Alliance, to ensure that its highest-ranked team (i.e., the Seminoles, who have finished in the top five of both polls in each of the last 14 seasons) would get the league's best bowl berth. Before that, the ACC allowed a bowl to pick between co-champions. In 1995, for example, Florida State and Virginia tied for the title after the Cavaliers upset the Seminoles 33-28. Florida State, 9-2 and No. 8 at the close of the season, was chosen by the Orange Bowl over Virginia, 8-4 and No. 18, which went to the Peach Bowl. This season, if the current rankings were to stand, the Seminoles would be invited to a BCS bowl instead of the Tar Heels, who humiliated Florida State 41-9 on Sept. 22. If Florida State loses one of its last four games, including a Nov. 17 match at No. 4 Florida, the Seminoles will finish 8-3; if North Carolina wins out, it will finish 9-3. So the ACC representative in the BCS could come down to how far Florida State falls in the polls. Complicating matters is the fact that Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, whose Tigers lost 38-3 to North Carolina on Oct. 20, has a vote too. "Until John Bunting puts me in his will," says Tommy, a son of Bobby, "the vote will go to Florida State." Issue date: November 5, 2001
For more Inside College Football see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, October 31. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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