Sports: Stress no less for low ranking

Stress no less for low ranking

By BRIAN LANDMAN

TALLAHASSEE -- For the first time since 1992, Florida State trails Florida and Miami in the Associated Press preseason poll.

So is the pressure off the No. 6 Seminoles?

Hardly.

"People would like to say, and I wish we could use it but we can't, the pressure's off," coach Bobby Bowden said Sunday during the team's media day. "You've been ranked preseason No. 1, 2 and 3. Now all of a sudden, you're sixth. Isn't that awful. I feel so bad about that. Gosh, it's just a complete failure. So, the pressure's off? The heck it is.

"We haven't lost out there (Doak Campbell Stadium) since 1991. You think we want to lose now? We've had 14 straight years of 10 or more wins. Fourteen straight years of Top 5 (finishes). Three national championship games. That's pressure. These kids don't want to be the first team that breaks that. Now that's pressure."

CHASING THE BEAR: With 315 career coaching wins, Bowden needs nine to surpass his idol, Paul "Bear" Bryant.

Easy, right? Bowden's Seminoles haven't won fewer than 10 games since 1986 and have failed to win nine just six times in his 25 years in Tallahassee. But Bowden isn't making any big plans for that memorable win.

"The first thing I think of is Coach Paterno last year," he said. "Joe needed seven. Can you picture Penn State not winning seven? And he didn't get it. So, I'm not going to get into it. I'm scared to get into it. I don't know how we're going to do this year. Now if it did happen, I'd just have to thank my players because they would have to make it happen."

TEAM SLOGAN: This season's mantra, which is on the players' T-shirts, is "Hold the Rope." Bowden said that comes from a story about someone hanging from a cliff, facing a 500-foot drop, and asking his players whom among their teammates they would want holding on to that lifeline.

"We've emphasized to them when they would be willing to accept any one of them, then they'll be a team," he said.

NUMBER GAME: Redshirt freshman quarterback Chris Rix, who entered two-a-days slightly ahead of Anquan Boldin as the starting quarterback, switched his uniform number from 15 to 16, the number he wore throughout Pop Warner and high school. That happened to be Chris Weinke's number.

"It's not that I'm trying to be Chris Weinke," Rix said. "From what I understand, I kind of have his blessing. In the spring game, he said some good things and thought I would carry on the number well. I just hope I can do that."