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BRIAN LANDMANIt built a reputation vs. top teams, but the BCS and a tougher ACC have changed things.
TALLAHASSEE - Just six years ago, Florida State faced a nonconference schedule akin to a pitcher staring at the heart of the 1927 Yankees' Murderers' Row:
Texas A&M, Southern California, Miami and Florida. Of that quartet, only the Hurricanes were unranked at game time. The Seminoles won all four games, which enabled them to overcome an early-season loss and reach the Bowl Championship Series finale.
Coach Bobby Bowden, in fact, established FSU as one of the nation's elite by taking on anyone, anywhere.
"As you look back at what you thought was your Achilles' heel, a tough schedule, ended up being the best thing that happened to your football program," he said. "We got our reputation off of that."
Times have changed.
Besides the annual regular season finale with the Gators, the Seminoles' nonconference slate this year features Syracuse and Alabama-Birmingham, Saturday's opponent.
The Orangemen have a rich tradition but haven't won a league title since 1998 - quarterback Donovan McNabb's final season - and haven't made it to a bowl since 2001. UAB is still a relative babe in the college football world; it didn't start its program until 1989 and only moved to Division I-A in 1996.
Ruth, Gehrig and company they're not.
Seminole fans, get used to it.
"You have to use some common sense in who you're taking on," Bowden said.
When the Seminoles joined the ACC in 1992, they were far away the top team. They rolled to a 70-2 league record in the first nine years, winning the title outright or sharing it each year.
But as Bowden expected and the rest of the league long hoped, the Seminoles' presence helped the other teams to improve or forever be mocked as one of the eight dwarfs.
Each school started pumping more money into football facilities to lure more blue-chip prospects but also former NFL coaches such as Al Groh (Virginia), Ralph Friedgen (Maryland), Chan Gailey (Georgia Tech) and John Bunting (North Carolina). The addition this year of perennial national powers Miami and Virginia Tech have raised the ACC to new heights.
"We've always tried to get an attractive schedule, but I do think with the conference getting stronger it's about attractive enough as it is," Bowden said. "You don't hardly need to make it more attractive."
Of late, that has been and will continue to be the guiding principle as the Seminoles seek one non-onference game for each of the next six years (2005-10) now that Miami is an annual ACC showdown.
"My point to Bobby is this: I know how the program was built and I applaud it, but we've got to put more common sense now into our scheduling approach," athletic director Dave Hart said. "For years, we played our ACC schedule and were absolutely dominant and then we'd go outside and play cross-sectional games against Top 10 teams. I know that's what our fan base has grown with and is accustomed to, but you have to take into consideration where postseason football is."
Teams that hope to reach the BCS finale better not lose more than once, if that. The chances of that happening increase if you line up against ranked teams week after week.
"Having said that, I don't think we should load up with nonconference games anymore against Top 10, Top 15 or even Top 25 teams," Hart said. "As you look across the landscape of college football and look at the Top 10 teams in other conferences, quite honestly, they've been doing that for a long time."
That means more teams like an Eastern Michigan or a UAB, almost always in Tallahassee.
That's not to call UAB a cupcake.
Bowden doesn't do that with any opponent, even the ones that are loaded with frosting. He knows that no team that nearly upset Georgia last season, losing 16-13 in Athens, and is fresh off a resounding win against Baylor is an automatic W that comes to town merely to collect a few hundred thousand dollars.
"We've come a long way," Blazers coach Watson Brown said. "We were in the days when we got checks and it was important. Then we've gone through where we needed image and the only way to get image (is to take games at an FSU)."
Like the Seminoles once did.
"I remember when I first came to Florida State. We'd sneak up and beat Nebraska when nobody thought we could," Bowden said. "Southern Miss did that (Saturday). ... People say, "What the heck is he worried about UAB for?' The same reason Nebraska had to deal with Southern Miss."
But that still seems a more favorable matchup than say Southern California. So, get used to it. The times have changed.