Tennessee Secures Fiesta Bowl Berth, With a Hopeful Florida State Waiting in the Wings

Was that the greatest day in the history of college football or what?

UCLA losing a heartbreaker to Miami.

Texas A&M; rallying to stun Kansas State.

No. 1 Tennessee holding on to defeat Mississippi State.

And those poor Arizona players, sitting on couches in Tucson praying UCLA might make one play--just one!--on defense.

And, of course, there was Saturday’s slam-bang kicker: the day’s biggest winner--Florida State--didn’t take one center snap.

It may have been the most mind-boggling, hair-raising and confounding college football Saturday since Lee Corso roamed the sidelines at Indiana.

After Texas A&M; beat Kansas State in double overtime, reporters buzzed like gnats around the press box at the Trans World Dome.

“It’s a good thing there was chaos in the press box today,” Texas A&M; Coach R.C. Slocum said. “No one gave us a chance for it to be that way.”

So, as UCLA defenders did all afternoon, let’s cut to the chase.

* Florida State, which needed two of the three unbeatens ranked above it to lose, received a wonderful early Christmas present.

By virtue of losses by UCLA and Kansas State, Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles have earned a back-door trip to the Jan. 4 Fiesta Bowl and a come-from-nowhere shot to win the national title.

None of this can be etched in stone until the release of today’s bowl championship series rankings, but it appears certain that 12-0 Tennessee and 11-1 Florida State will play in the Fiesta Bowl.

The Seminoles entered Saturday No. 4 in the BCS rankings. Two of the schools ahead of them lost. It’s a lock, right?

Texas A&M;’s dramatic, double-overtime win all but sealed Florida State’s Fiesta Bowl fate.

“Nobody can mess it up now, can they?” Bowden told the Associated Press moments after the Aggies’ victory. “I mean nobody behind us can go ahead of us, right?”

Well, as always, we’ll have to first check with Jeff Sagarin, but . . .

Bowden watched Saturday’s games while planted on a white couch in his family’s living room in Tallahassee. His phone rang the second Texas A&M;’s Sirr Parker scored the winning touchdown against Kansas State.

“And it didn’t quit ringing,” Bowden said.

Bowden has had several runs at the national title since 1986, but has won only one, in 1993.

“I went so many years where people said I couldn’t win a national championship,” Bowden said. “It’s been five years since we won ours and now we get another shot at it.”

It was also a great day for Ohio State. It could have been greater had Mississippi State toppled Tennessee, which could have vaulted the Buckeyes all the way to Tempe, but it was good enough.

There was talk entering the weekend that one-loss Ohio State might get snubbed from a $12-million BCS game, but events of Saturday changed that picture.

With the Rose Bowl no longer having to use an at-large pick to select Arizona, which now likely goes to the Holiday Bowl instead of the Rose, a second at-large slot opened up for Ohio State.

It figures now Ohio State and Texas A&M; will meet in the Sugar Bowl. The Orange Bowl might match Syracuse versus 9-2 Florida. Or, it could take a flier on 11-1 Kansas State, which travels in groups of 40,000 to bowl games.

“I’d like to think we’d still be in the picture,” Kansas State Coach Bill Snyder said after his team’s gut-wrenching loss. “But I don’t think anything right now can ease the pain of these young people.”

If Kansas State doesn’t get a BCS bowl bid, the Wildcats would normally slide to the Cotton Bowl in the rotation, but the Cotton reportedly is sold on taking Texas. If the Holiday Bowl picks Nebraska, as planned, is it possible mighty Kansas State could fall all the way to the Alamo Bowl?

Which brings us to Arizona. The Wildcats were denied their first-ever trip to the Rose Bowl when Miami rallied to defeat UCLA. It also caused a domino effect with Pacific 10 bowl teams.

The Bruins’ loss likely pushes Arizona to the Holiday Bowl. Oregon had struck a deal with the San Diego game, but it was contingent on the Pac-10 losing UCLA to the Fiesta Bowl.

Now, UCLA is set to play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl--gee, Bruins, remember the days when this game wasn’t a consolation prize?--meaning Arizona likely will knock Oregon to a bowl game in Hawaii, and USC remains in the Sun Bowl.

What else did Saturday mean?

Amazingly, impossibly and perhaps improbably, the much-maligned BCS worked.

The Fiesta Bowl, as feared, was not settled by some quirk in Jeff Sagarin’s quartile, or some inexplicable burb or blip emanating from the New York Times’ computer.

The Fiesta Bowl fight was settled on the field, of all places.

The BCS would have faced untold scrutiny had No. 1 Tennessee, No. 2 UCLA and No. 3 Kansas State all won Saturday. Since only the top two schools in the BCS advance to the Fiesta Bowl, one of the three would have been eliminated by possibly fractions of a point.

But, alas, the first-year BCS rankings, a four-pronged formula to pick the top two teams, got off the hook.

More than that, you could argue the drama involving the five schools--five if you count Ohio State for those few seconds Mississippi State was leading Tennessee--in the national-title chase dealt a short-term blow to proponents of a national playoff.

Could a playoff be any more exciting than Saturday?

Texas A&M;’s Slocum says yes.

“There is no perfect way to do this,” Slocum said. “In basketball, there’s a 64-team tournament, but there are still guys that are going to be left out. I do think we are moving in more of a direction toward a playoff.”

Slocum thinks the BCS got lucky this year.

Who’s No. 1?

“I don’t think the formula we have now is poised to determine that,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s inclusive enough to determine that.”

At least for Saturday, however, the BCS was a hoot.