A Step Down From That Other Game

Welcome to the Runner-up.com Bowl.

Hey, that’s supposed to be a compliment. What we have here is Nebraska (11-1), ranked No. 3, against No. 6-ranked Tennessee (9-2) in tonight’s Fiesta Bowl, the best teams not playing for the national championship Tuesday in the Sugar Bowl

Or maybe it’s the Weusedtobethechampions.com Bowl.

Tennessee won a national championship here last year, capping a 13-0 season with a 23-16 victory over Florida State. Nebraska won a national championship here in 1996, beating Florida into total surrender, winning Tom Osborne a title, 62-24. The last time these teams played, Nebraska smashed Tennessee, 42-17, in the 1998 Orange Bowl and the Cornhuskers sneaked away with a share of a national title, joining Michigan as co-champions.

Let’s bring Barbra Streisand down from her New Year’s Eve Vegas extravaganza for a halftime rendition of “The Way We Were.”

So welcome to the Fiesta Bowl, where everybody is putting on a brave face and pretending that they couldn’t be happier to be here.

“Everybody knows we’re two good teams and we both had potential to be in the national championship game,” Tennessee defensive end Will Overstreet says. “Our kids have worked very hard,” Nebraska Coach Frank Solich says. “I think you’ll get the feeling that they are excited about this football game.”

Brave words for public consumption.

But there is an undercurrent. Mumbled comments. Internet grumblings. Rolled eyes and sad head-shaking whenever there is a mention of Virginia Tech.

You just know that if you could get the Nebraska players and the Tennessee players in a soundproof room and ask them if they belong in Tuesday’s Sugar Bowl against Florida State instead of Virginia Tech, unbeaten partly courtesy of an unworthy schedule, these Cornhuskers and Volunteers would point to their own chests and say, “We belong.”

There is no soundproof room. The theme instead is Secondbestgameofbowlweekend.com.

“We’re preparing to win a football game,” Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer says. Yes, it might have been a little more fun last year when history was going to be made, when the Volunteers were going to finish 13-0 and win more games than any Tennessee team in history. “There’s not as much hype,” Fulmer says. “But there is a lot of motivation to win this football game. There really is. It’s a chance to cement yourself as one of the best in the country.”

One of the best is not as good as the best. But one of the best the winner will be.

For Tee Martin, the charismatic Tennessee quarterback who was joking with President Clinton last spring while Tennessee was being honored as the 1998 national champion, “it is a different perspective this time.”

“We’re playing for different things this year,” Martin said. “It’s a little bit a feeling of deja vu here, being back in the same place but without all the hype. But this is still a big deal.”

Martin, a senior, is 22-2 as the post-Peyton Manning starting quarterback and his 2,317 passing yards this season is sixth-best in school history. Martin is the heart of Tennessee in the same way Manning was and there was a shiver of fear through the Volunteer camp when Martin came back from Christmas with a nasty viral infection that kept him shivering and sick in his hotel room here for two days.

But Wednesday Martin returned to practice. He was smiling and he said that for the week of his illness, “all I did was watch film of Nebraska. I know them better than I’ve known any team.”

For Eric Crouch, the Nebraska quarterback, the football field is still a proving ground. The sophomore started the season as backup to Bobby Newcombe and had grown disenchanted enough to have gone home to contemplate his future as a Cornhusker. Crouch had even tried playing wide receiver, catching a touchdown pass from Newcombe.

When Solich drove to Omaha, where Crouch was staying with his mom, and asked Crouch to come back, “that made me feel good, like I was needed,” Crouch says. Shortly after, Newcombe volunteered to become a receiver; Crouch has started the last 10 games. He is second in the country among quarterbacks in rushing yards (889) and first in the nation among quarterbacks in rushing touchdowns (16) and he has also completed 83 passes in 160 attempts for 1,269 yards and seven more touchdowns. Texas Coach Mack Brown called him “the best option quarterback I’ve ever seen.”

One suspects that Martin and Crouch will set the tone tonight. One suspects that all thoughts of being in the runner-up bowl will flee at the moment of the first hit, the first missed tackle, the first completed pass. One suspects that both the winner and the loser will be planning ahead for next year.

One suspects that it would not be a surprise to see the winner and the loser playing again next year. For the national championship.