Bowden Won’t Give Janikowski the Boot

After all those years in which missed field goals cost Florida State national championships--”Wide Right I, Wide Right II”--you didn’t really expect Coach Bobby Bowden to suspend Sebastian Janikowski for a curfew violation, did you?

“Unless he has a heart attack, or unless I have one, Janikowski will kick the ball off,” Bowden said Monday.

Janikowski is no ordinary kicker, and maybe he knew that when he bolted from the sheets to Bourbon Street over the weekend.

Janikowski is a two-time winner of the Lou Groza Award, given to the nation’s top college kicker. He averaged 2.1 field goals a game this season and did not miss inside of 45 yards.

Bowden joked that because Janikowski is from Poland, he is subject to a different code of conduct.

“I do have a Warsaw rule in,” Bowden said. “If he’s sick or alive, he will kick off that day.”

Bowden did say that because of a curfew violation, junior Roland Seymour will not start at defensive end. It is not a big deal, he said, because the Seminoles use a platoon system that employs as many as 25 players on defense during a game.

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Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer said there is a chance senior receiver Ricky Hall will play tonight. Hall, the team’s leading punt returner and the Hokies’ second-leading receiver, broke a small bone in his left foot in practice over the weekend.