A Scent of Roses Sweetens Air for Spurrier, Alliance Process

OK, Steve Spurrier, here’s what happened while you were out watching a movie--Bobby Bowden’s latest hits?--with your Florida Gators, pretending not to care about the outcome of the Rose Bowl:

Joe Germaine threw a four-yard touchdown pass to David Boston with 19 seconds left, No. 4 Ohio State beat No. 2 Arizona State, 20-17, making this the luckiest New Year’s Day of your brilliant life.

Like a scene from a George Romero movie, hundreds of Gator fans spilled out of their rooms at the downtown Hyatt Regency after Boston’s touchdown, snapping their jaws and hugging each other like it was VJ day.

So who says this alliance doesn’t work?

All it took was one, brilliant last-minute drive by Ohio State to suddenly transform tonight’s Sugar Bowl into more than just a blood feud between intrastate rivals.

Ohio State’s win took the dreaded alliance off the hook--at least for the moment--and turned the Sugar Bowl into a winner-take-all national championship game between No. 1 Florida State (11-0) and No. 3 Florida (11-1).

It also handed Spurrier a second chance he could not have dreamed possible after losing to Florida State in Tallahassee on Nov. 30.

Suddenly, a Florida victory tonight at the Superdome would almost assuredly propel the Gators into national champions, although Ohio State will no doubt try to butt in on the conversation.

Spurrier, of course, was saying all week that denying Florida State the national title was enough inspiration.

That was just Gator bait.

Spurrier was dying for this chance at redemption, not just for Florida State, but for last year’s debacle against Nebraska, a 62-24 loss in the Fiesta Bowl with the national title on the line.

Knowing what might be at stake, Spurrier turned Sugar Bowl week into a verbal sparring match, with the Florida coach supplying most of the jabs.

Spurrier’s allegations of late hits in the first game dominated the headlines and kept Bowden, the kindly, 67-year-old Florida State coach, on the defensive.

Bowden admitted he was “taken aback” by Spurrier’s intimations that his pass rushers were taught to hit opposing quarterbacks “through the echo of the whistle.”

Spurrier has been feeding the story since Nov. 30, when Gator quarterback Danny Wuerffel was sacked six times and knocked down several times more in Florida’s 24-21 loss.

Bowden hoped to smooth things over with Spurrier at the annual New Year’s Eve Sugar Bowl party.

‘We chatted,” Bowden said. “Briefly . . . In a dark corner.”

Bowden said Spurrier explained his position but nothing was resolved.

‘I didn’t say he retracted anything,” Bowden said. “Have you ever heard Steve retract anything? I don’t remember any kind of an apology. Didn’t expect one, either.”

Bowden and Spurrier also shook hands again Wednesday, during an official Sugar Bowl photo shoot. Bowden, however, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting with officials, sending his assistant, Chuck Amato.

Spurrier, as promised, attended, and came away having won the spin.

“We’re all happy with the rules,” he said.

Spurrier conceded his bowl-week gamesmanship has strained relations with Bowden.

“I don’t think it’s forever,” Spurrier said of the hard feelings. “Nothing’s forever. You get mad at your wife sometimes, you get over it the next day.”

With Florida State and Florida, and Bowden versus Spurrier, this is a case of familiarity breeding contempt.

This will be the sixth meeting in four years between the schools, the teams having also met in a Sugar Bowl rematch two seasons ago.

Bowden, seeking his second national title since 1993, clearly did not want to play Florida again.

When the Seminoles won in Tallahassee, Bowden figured he would have a year to gloat. Things were said after the game that would not have been said knowing the teams would meet again a month later.

It was in the Tallahassee aftermath that Spurrier seized on the comments of a couple of Florida State players who said they were trying to knock Wuerffel out of the game.

“We might have said a couple words after the game,” Florida State James Colzie said.

Florida players did not appreciate the manner in which Florida State players celebrated their victory at Doak Campbell Stadium.

“They were dancing around, smoking those cigars,” linebacker James Bates said. “Shoot, they have a no-smoking policy in the Superdome. We’re going to make them adhere to that.”

Bowden dreaded a rematch, figuring the losing team in the first game would have more incentive, yet his fears were realized on Dec. 7, when Texas upset No. 3 Nebraska in the Big 12 Conference Title game.

That bumped Florida up from No. 4 to No. 3 in the polls, forcing the Sugar Bowl into making a Gator-Seminole rematch. The Sugar Bowl couldn’t match No. 2 Arizona State against Florida State because the Rose Bowl is not yet a member of the alliance.

The stakes were large enough before Arizona State’s loss.

Bowden has a chance to post his first unbeaten season ever.

And Seminole junior quarterback Thad Busby, 11-0 as a starter, has a chance of losing his job next year with a poor showing.

Busby completed only 12 of 32 passes for 124 yards in the first meeting.

“He needs to be more productive in this ballgame,” Bowden said.

The heat is on Spurrier, too. While the Gator coach likes to talk of his four consecutive Southeastern Conference titles, Spurrier is 2-5-1 against Florida State, and 2-3 in bowl games, including last year’s humiliating loss to Nebraska.

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Second Time Around

Bowl games that were rematches of regular-season contests:

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YEAR REG. SEASON BOWL 1943 Texas A&M; 28, LSU 13 (Orange) LSU, 19-14 1956 Iowa 14, Oregon St. 13 (Rose) Iowa, 35-19 1959 LSU 7, Mississippi 3 (Sugar) Mississippi, 21-0 1965 Michigan St. 13, UCLA 3 (Rose) UCLA, 14-12 1975 Ohio St. 41, UCLA 20 (Rose) UCLA, 23-10 1978 Nebraska 17, Oklahoma 14 (Orange) Oklahoma, 31-24 1982 UCLA 31, Michigan 27 (Rose) UCLA, 24-14 1987 Michigan St. 27, USC 13 (Rose) Michigan St., 20-17 1994 Florida 31, Florida St. 31 (Sugar) Florida St., 23-17 1995 Toledo 49, Nevada 35 (Las Vegas) Toledo, 40-37 (OT) 1996 Florida St. 24, Florida 21 (Sugar)

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