COLLEGE FOOTBALL SPOTLIGHT : ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, HE’D RATHER BE AT ROBBIE
With a 31-26 victory over Notre Dame, Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden won the last Orange Bowl game in the Orange Bowl before the game moves next year to Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium. But he has no sentimental feelings for the venerable (read: crumbling) stadium.
One reason is that he has to keep going there, including once next season. Miami, a regular on the Florida State schedule, will continue to play its home games there.
Another is that he has not been particularly successful in the stadium over the years. Despite his .785 winning percentage in 20 years at Florida State, his record in the Orange Bowl stadium is 6-9. Of course, he has not been playing a bunch of Central Floridas and Middle Tennessee States there. Besides Notre Dame and Miami, the only teams he has met there are Oklahoma and Nebraska.
“We got the big one here,” Bowden said of the 18-16 victory over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl game at the end of the 1993 season that gave him his only national championship. “But our failures here cost us maybe three national championships.”
In three seasons, 1979, ’88 and ‘92, the Seminoles’ only loss came in the stadium.
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