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This is it

FSU and Florida have one last chance to save disappointing seasons in what traditionally is the biggest game of the season for each team.

[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]

[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]

Coaches Ron Zook, left, and Bobby Bowden know what a victory means: bragging rights and reprieve from booster-club doubters.

By BRIAN LANDMAN nd ANTONYA ENGLISH
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 30, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- If you were to ask Florida State fans which game they think is a must-win, they would need little time for contemplation.

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Their answer: the annual matchup against the Florida Gators.

"That's the game of the year," said FSU booster Errol Stafford of Tallahassee. "There's no other game that matters to most FSU fans. It's the most important game we could possibly win."

You think you would get a different answer from a Florida fan? Sure, Tennessee and Georgia are traditional rivals and potential stumbling blocks in the Southeastern Conference, but come on.

Neither is FSU.

"I think it does mean a lot, and I think it means a lot to both programs," first-year Florida coach Ron Zook said. "It means a lot to our players, it means a lot to our seniors. It means a lot to our coaching staff, the fact that it gives us an opportunity to win 10 games in the first year in here. Once again, it means a lot more to our football team than people might think."

That's probably more accurate for tonight's meeting than in recent memory.

Both teams have at least three losses, which hasn't happened since 1986 (Florida won 17-13) when FSU was 6-3-1 and Florida was 5-5. Both are absent from the Associated Press Top 10, which also hasn't happened since '86: At least one has been in the Top 5 the previous 13 seasons.

Although the No. 23 Seminoles (8-4) won the Atlantic Coast Conference title and will play in a Bowl Championship Series game, most likely the Jan. 1 Sugar Bowl, they haven't lived up to preseason hype. They started the season No. 3.

The No. 15 Gators (8-3) have fared slightly better, winning four straight, including an upset of No. 5 Georgia. Still, the Gators began the season in the national championship race at No. 6 with a Heisman Trophy-favorite quarterback, Rex Grossman. The offense has sputtered and the Gators finished behind Georgia for the SEC East title, leaving them with a likely postseason stop in Orlando or Tampa.

"When you're having what I call a bad year, there's nothing that will spruce it up like a win over Florida," said FSU coach Bobby Bowden, whose team has lost four games for the second straight season, something that hadn't happened in his 27-season tenure. "If you can get it. Same for them."

How did it come to this?

The Seminoles defense has looked shaky from the start, especially against the pass. The defense has improved in the past month and players have seemed more enthusiastic, but the offense has been hit hard by injuries.

Tailback Greg Jones suffered a season-ending knee injury against Nov. 2 Wake Forest, and his backups, Nick Maddox and Willie Reid, are questionable for tonight's game. Even if they were healthy, the offensive line isn't. Center Antoine Mirambeau and guard Montrae Holland may miss a third straight game.

Then there's the quarterback controversy. After a 34-24 loss to Notre Dame the locker room turned ugly, as many players turned on quarterback Chris Rix.

"It wasn't a revolt," Bowden said. "We had ... three, four, five guys yell out. It wasn't a revolt."

He nonetheless made a change at quarterback, and Adrian McPherson led the team to three straight wins. But he played poorly last weekend against North Carolina State and might have lost his starting job even if he had not been dismissed from the team Monday. He was arrested Wednesday and charged, a felony and a misdemeanor, with being involved in the theft, forgery and cashing of a check.

The Gators have had their own controversy, most revolving around Zook, who faced the unenviable task of replacing a legend, Steve Spurrier. Even with Grossman's return for the season, the offense seemed nothing like the Fun 'n' Gun. After a humbling 41-16 loss to Miami Sept. 17 at the Swamp, angry alums flocked to Web sites to blast the coach.

The Gators rebounded with a win over Ohio and an upset of then-No. 4 Tennessee in Knoxville, which silenced Zook's detractors for a while.

Florida's 17-14 loss to unranked Mississippi in Oxford stunned the Gators and sent fans into a tizzy. A week later UF suffered its worse home loss in more than a decade, 36-7 to LSU. Disgruntled fans, the ones still around, booed the Gators.

It didn't help the offense that a suspect line was hit by injuries. Center Mike Degory, center/right tackle David Jorgensen and left tackle Jonathan Colon have missed time with back injuries. Offensive tackle Shannon Snell suffered a shoulder injury that kept him out the second half of the Ole Miss game and all the LSU game.

But the Gators hung together and, while garnering no style points, have won four straight.

"It's important for so many reasons," said Snell, a former Tampa Hillsborough star. "We want our seniors to go out one more time with a big win. We haven't won up there since 1986, and everybody's been down on us all year. We still have some goals that we can achieve, and this is a big, big part of that."

More salve. For the winner, that is.

"It means the same to me (as always) because I know what happens if we lose it," Bowden said. "You have to explain it all over the state next year, and that sure is hard to do. The booster dinners are a whole lot better when you win. I'm sure it's the same for them. It's still got that kind of pressure on the coaches and the players and the fans."

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