To a world wider than suburban Rocky Top, the sorting out of the college football championship may seem not quite as compelling as finding a cleared parking space, yet Tennessee and Florida State did their duty and settled the question anyhow, long after most had lost interest in why it was asked.
Tennessee removed whatever doubt endured in the long vacancy between the bowl-slapping of Kansas State and the kickoff of the Greater Tostitos (Salsa Extra) Fiesta Bowl on Monday night.
“It’s been 47 years since we got one of these,” crowed Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer, hoisting the official national title hardware, “and we’ve got a special place for it. We’re No. 1.”
He will get no argument there. In an arena festooned for the glory of the snack nacho, on a temperate night lit by shameless, tasteless and relentless commerce, in a football game only slightly less ugly than the surroundings, student/athletes paid back their books and tuition by enriching strangers.
This is what the Bowl Championship Series is designed to do, while incidentally establishing the best college football team in the land, though there may be a few left in Ohio who will still never be convinced.
I lean that way myself and would take Ohio State over either of these teams and give the points. Come to think of it, I’ll take Ron Dayne against either of these teams and let the rest of Wisconsin stay home.
Well, all that sort of debate is over, thanks to the energies and self-interest of the Bowl Championship Series. Tennessee is No. 1 and Florida State is an afterthought.
“All year long we’ve been called a team of destiny,” Fulmer said, “and our team took heart from that and found a way to win. It wasn’t always pretty, it wasn’t always easy, but it was always good.”
Tennessee was not necessarily better than Florida State, but it was more poised and more effective, or, to put it another way, Tennessee was Peerless and FSU was not.
Peerless Price, the Tennessee receiver actually named from the dictionary definition, was wherever he was needed, running under thrown balls by quarterback Tee Martin for catches totaling 199 yards, one of those for 72 yards, setting up the first Tennessee touchdown and a Fiesta Bowl record of 79 yards for Tennessee’s last touchdown.
“I was a little unhappy I got caught from behind on the first one,” Price said. “I made sure I wasn’t going to be caught on the second.”
Martin thus was able to bring to Tennessee what Peyton Manning could not, a national title. Martin may not now nor ever be Peyton Manning, but with Price as a target, he does not need to be.
“I think we proved to all our doubters that we were No. 1 in the nation,” Martin said.
Doubters? Tennessee has been No. 1 since Nov. 8. They had nothing to prove to anyone, except, it seems, themselves.
“Hey, maybe we could have three of these,” Fulmer said. “We came just a little short the other two times. I look at the glass as half-full.”
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Florida State’s quarterback, a scout-team third-stringer until the Seminoles lost their first two starters to injury, played down to his pedigree. Marcus Outzen made his choices two ways, bad and early, often both.
“They were able to get the ball to their threat (Price),” Bobby Bowden said. “We had trouble getting the ball to our threat (Peter Warrick.) They deserved to win. They are the national champs.”
The first BCS final keeps the bar very low for the next one. The game had 21 penalties, seven fumbles, four interceptions and all the intrigue of watching silver tarnish.
“We were a very rusty football team and they were too,” Bowden said. “We were both off for a whole lot of days.”
The Fiesta Bowl to Florida teams has been like a ball bearing to a molar. The Seminoles are the third of their state to lose the national title here. Jimmy Johnson’s No. 1 Miami lost to Penn State in 1987 with Vinny Testaverde throwing five interceptions. And Steve Spurrier’s No. 2 Gators lost to Nebraska in ’96.
“It’s been kind of bleak for Florida teams in big games out here,” Bowden opined. Tempe awaits the arrival of Central Florida.
While the BCS will take credit for producing a single, unanimous, pastel-hued national college football champion, there is no question that Tennessee would have been as much under any system, including meenie, minee and moe.
Any season that produces a single, bowl-winning, undefeated major-college team, not including Tulane or places where cosmetics is a declared major, does not need a formula, merely a notary.
So all the twists and teases of the first BCS season were so much pointless twaddle, hype and spice to the obvious, misleading upon reflection and dispensable upon projection, except for breaking a few hearts in Manhattan, Kan.