Sugar Is Icing on Their Cake

We heard all week about the lack of respect accorded No. 2 Virginia Tech in its quest to upend No. 1 Florida State for the national title in tonight’s Sugar Bowl at the Superdome.

It prompted a flashback:

Call it deja voodoo.

On Jan. 1, 1994, a Big East team from the “Virginias” marched into the Big Easy to take on a floor wiper from the “Floridas.”

That Big East team was unbeaten, had roughed up Rutgers and Temple en route, and its fans were outraged that media types did not consider it a worthy opponent for a Florida school.

The matchup then was No. 3 West Virginia (11-0) and No. 8 Florida (10-2).

What happened? Florida took West Virginia to the backwoods shed, 41-7, amassing 482 total yards, proving talk was as cheap as moonshine.

If you subscribe to the theory that any great team from Florida is better than any great team from a Virginia, Florida State will tattoo Virginia Tech.

To the tune of 41-7? Well, let’s not go there. Unlike West Virginia in ‘94, Virginia Tech actually may be a legitimate contender.

The problem is, we don’t get to find out until now.

The Hokies led the nation in scoring at 41.4 points a game, and in scoring defense, at 10.5 points a game, but played the 53rd-toughest schedule in Division I-A.

Even Coach Frank Beamer acknowledged 10 or 12 schools might have gone unbeaten against the Hokies’ schedule.

And Virginia Tech needed a last-second field goal against West Virginia to make it to the national title game.

Still, the Hokies are here, fair and square, under bowl championship rules.

We’ll acknowledge to this: They are intriguing. The X-factor is redshirt freshman Michael Vick, about as good a young quarterback as you’ll find. He has great touch on deep passes and, as a runner, is tailback fast. He does things that even give him pause.

“I keep rewinding the tapes to see what I did,” Vick says. “It’s all reaction. But sometimes I do look at the film and say, ‘How do I do that again?’ ”

But Vick is a freshman.

How will he respond tonight when they turn on the bright lights?

“It takes a lot to get to me,” Vick says. “Nobody has really gotten to me yet. I haven’t really played like a freshman, and hopefully I won’t.”

Sometimes, you get a feel for a game by the actions and body language of players and coaches.

That said, Virginia Tech has acted like a team tasting fame for the first time.

“Bowl trips are great,” Beamer says. “If you just didn’t have to play the games.”

He has held a loose leash on his players and they’ve taken advantage, mostly in gambling parlors.

Shane Beamer, the coach’s son and the team’s long snapper, says he lost all his money on blackjack the first night, won it back on roulette and hasn’t been back.

He said there’s no telling how much money defensive end John Engelberger has dropped.

“He’s addicted to the casinos,” Shane said. “He’s up $500, down $500.”

Then there’s the curious case of Corey Moore, the Hokies’ All-American defensive end, who helped us chronicle Virginia Tech’s feel-good season by dropping F-word bombs on reporters at media day and declining all further interviews.

If it was a ploy, a la the late Jerome Brown of Miami’s storm-out at that Fiesta Bowl--”Did the Japanese sit down . . . “--it was not nearly as endearing.

“You can say what you want, but there’s not a person on this football team with his heart more into this football team than Corey Moore,” Beamer, the coach, not the snapper, says.

We’ll see.

Florida State has taken more of a brown-bag approach. This is the Seminoles’ third appearance in the national title game in four years.

After losing the title to Florida in the 1996 Sugar Bowl, and 1998’s to Tennessee in the Fiesta a year ago, you can almost sense the Seminoles’ urgency.

“I’ve been ready to play for two days,” linebacker Tommy Polley said Sunday. “I’ve seen everything New Orleans has to offer. This is a business trip. We lost last year. We came here in ’96 and lost. This is a chance to redeem yourself. We need to win a national championship.”

Florida State has been beset with off-field problems this season, but the week in New Orleans has been relatively quiet, save three players missing curfew--a story that got more ink than it deserved.

“You forget, I had 103 that didn’t break curfew,” Coach Bobby Bowden said Monday.

Florida State is playing for posterity and for Bowden, who seeks his first undefeated season.

The Seminoles won 108 games in the 1990s, but have only a 1993 national title to show for it.

Bowden flirted with the brass ring several times before breaking through.

“It was a big relief,” he said. “He finally won a national championship. Now, seven years later, it’s ‘Oh, he’ll never win two. What a shame, a guy that old has never won two. How much longer will he live?’ ”

With a win, Bowden can help to remove the “buts” that have shadowed his legendary career.

With a win, he takes the next step up into the pantheon.

And Bowden will win.

Virginia Tech is fast, but Florida State is faster.

Virginia Tech is deep, but Florida State is deeper.

Virginia Tech is quick; Florida State quicker.

“Everybody’s saying Virginia Tech’s hungry and Florida State’s not,” Bowden says. “Forget that. People did not see these kids after the Fiesta Bowl crying and stomping in the locker room floor. That’s not fun. Don’t fall for that hungry stuff. We’re both hungry.

“I ain’t got a boy on my team with a ring on his finger.”

Wednesday morning, Florida State can call a jeweler.