Fiesta Bowl : Nebraska-Florida State a Near Dream Matchup

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden’s football team lost to Miami by one point, and he blamed himself, and he tossed and turned and said, several weeks later, “I don’t think I slept straight through on any night for a month, thinking about that game.”

Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne’s team lost to Oklahoma by 10 points, and he wondered if it was his fault, and with no more chance at the national championship, he said, “I didn’t think I was going to live.”

Football coaches do not take their losing lightly, just as football fans do not take losing their coaches likely. No more proof of the latter is necessary than the reaction down here, around the campus of Arizona State, to Coach John Cooper’s decision to defect to Ohio State, which has headlined the evening TV news ahead of anything Ronald Reagan or the stock market might have been up to.

Cooper’s resignation seemingly sent shock waves through the Grand Canyon State, all but razing Arizona. Even Evan Meachum, the give-’em-hell governor, hasn’t been able to divert attention from the Cooper affair this week. He’s strictly Page 3 these days. After all, there’s a coaching job to fill.

Meanwhile, the games go on. Today’s Fiesta Bowl, at 10:30 a.m., PST, at Sun Devil Stadium, will pit Florida State against Nebraska, as well as Bowden against Osborne, both of whom are feeling better now.

There is life after Miami and Oklahoma.

OK, so Florida State versus Nebraska is not for the national championship. OK, so this football game is for . . . what? Maybe the right to yell: “We’re No. 3!”

At least that’s something.

Things could be worse. Things could be Kansas. Things could be Wisconsin. Things could be Columbia.

The folks back in Tallahassee, Fla., can recall when things were just as rotten. Before Bowden showed up, the Seminoles were not even semi-tough. They had a 4-29 record to show for the three seasons before Bowden’s arrival. FSU was a fixture in the national rankings--but, unfortunately, the poll was the Bottom Ten.

As Bowden himself remembered: “When I was at West Virginia, all I heard was: ‘Beat Pitt.’ When I was at Alabama, all I heard was: ‘Beat Auburn.’ When I got to Florida State, their bumper stickers said: ‘Beat Anybody.’ ”

Since taking the job, Bowden’s teams have played 140 anybodies. They have beaten 100 of them.

Nebraska, of course, is not just anybody. With a 10-1 record and a fine tradition behind them, the Cornhuskers present a considerable challenge to the Seminoles (also 10-1) in today’s game. The only teams good enough to conquer them were the two who will be playing in tonight’s Orange Bowl game for the national title.

Possibly those defeats hurt as much as they did because both of these state-capital schools, Florida State and Nebraska, had their opponents right where they wanted them--at home. The Seminoles fell to Miami, 26-25, at Tallahassee, and the Cornhuskers lost to Oklahoma, 17-7, at Lincoln, Neb., and that sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.

So, the coaches and their players have had to change their priorities since then, forgetting dreams of glory and concentrating instead on making the most of what’s left.

But these are fine football teams, and here’s a snappy rundown on them:

THE QUARTERBACKS--Nebraska’s is Steve Taylor, “definitely the most dangerous quarterback we’ve faced,” according to Bowden. “He killed us in 1986.”

FSU’s is Danny McManus, who comes armed with some advice from another quarterback, Joe Theismann. “Joe visited our practice one day, and he said something that made a lot of sense to me. He said a quarterback can’t win a football game by himself, but he can lose one.”

THE RUNNING BACKS--Two of the best, tailbacks Keith Jones of Nebraska and Sammie Smith of FSU, both placed among the nation’s top 10 rushers.

THE DEFENSES--Nebraska has loud, proud Broderick Thomas, All-American, at defensive end, but he will face one of the best blocking tight ends there is, FSU’s Pat Carter.

Florida State is led by linebacker Paul McGowan, a Dick Butkus Award winner as the country’s top linebacker, and cornerback Deion Sanders, a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award that goes to the nation’s best defensive back.

As for the Fiesta Bowl itself, it is shaping up as a success. Although it has attracted only half the media it did for last season’s Miami-Penn State game, it once again is a sellout, with a waiting list of 5,000. A Fiesta Bowl luncheon Wednesday at Civic Plaza drew 4,400 people.

The parade, too, lured a huge audience, even though the baton twirlers and pageant beauties had goose bumps from the frigid weather.

Florida State’s Bowden isn’t crazy for the weather, either. “We want hot!” he said, laughing. “They promised us heat in Arizona! Bring on the hot!”

This will be the 18th Fiesta Bowl. The first one, in 1971, featured the home team, Arizona State, pulling out a last-minute 45-38 victory over . . . Florida State.

That was back when Florida State could almost beat anybody.