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Miami jumps to No.2, Florida State falls to 3 and Florida rises to 4 as BCS shake-up continues.
By BRIAN LANDMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 14, 2000
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida State coach Bobby Bowden wasn't panicking or demanding a recount after learning the tabulation of Monday's new Bowl Championship Series standings.
As he expected after a lackluster win against lowly Wake Forest, his Seminoles fell from the coveted second spot to third, trailing Miami by a 0.48-point margin.
"Good," Miami coach Butch Davis said. "The world is as it should be."
Undefeated Oklahoma remained No.1, while Florida and Washington rounded out the top five.
The top two teams will meet for the national title in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 3. But the Seminoles and the Gators have a chance Saturday to make another move, perhaps the decisive one.
They meet at Doak Campbell Stadium in what could amount to a national semifinal game. Miami plays at Syracuse on Saturday, then closes the regular season against Boston College, neither of which is ranked. Florida still has the Southeastern Conference Championship game to further bolster its BCS standing.
"I don't think it's cut and dried, but Florida being ranked No. 4 and us being No. 3, whoever wins that ballgame, it looks like it may be hard to keep them out of (the national title game)," Bowden said.
That would surely leave the Hurricanes more than miffed. They beat FSU 27-24 in October and were disappointed to find themselves behind the Seminoles by 0.39 points in last week's BCS standings.
So how did the 'Canes do it?
Well, they needed Kansas State to beat Nebraska and they had to beat Pittsburgh.
The Hurricanes sawed off 0.43 points from their computer average; they trailed Nebraska in six of the eight BCS computer polls, but now are behind in just one. FSU's computer average remained unchanged. Miami also saw its schedule rank improve (by 0.04) facing a quality opponent, while one-win Wake Forest hurt FSU's significantly (0.40) for another 0.44 swing.
"When Florida State jumped by us, there was really nothing we could do," Davis said. "We'll just try to win games and hope the rest takes care of itself."
Bowden is confident the system will work once all the numbers have been tallied.
"I think the BCS is good," he said. "To me, the BCS is good because you keep the human element out of it.
"I vote for us; I'm for us and he's for him. The only way to solve that thing, other than having foreign votes coming in, is do it with a computer. It doesn't have a conscience. It's already been fed how you're going to declare. I think it's good. I think it's the best we can do right now."
"I would think a win over Florida next week could get us back up there," Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke said after Saturday's game. "The ball is in our court now."
Oklahoma has 2.52 points: 1 for poll average, 1 for computer rank average, 0.52 for strength-of-schedule and zero for losses. The Sooners have games remaining against Texas Tech and Oklahoma State before a probable Big 12 title game against Kansas State.
Washington (9-1) moved up one spot to fifth, followed by Virginia Tech (9-1) and Oregon (9-1). Oregon State (9-1) is ninth after Nebraska, followed by Kansas State, Notre Dame, Mississippi State, Ohio State, Texas and Texas A&M.
The BCS was created two years ago to come up with a national title game without instituting a playoff. After the top two teams are decided, the remaining BCS games -- the Rose, Sugar and Fiesta bowls -- select from the remaining pool of qualified teams.
Champions of six conferences -- the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC -- qualify for a BCS game, and two at-large teams are selected to fill out the field.
-- Information from other news organizations was used in this report.