Football: Irish will face Wolfpack in $1.6M Gator Bowl
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
What seemed certain after Washington State won Saturday became official Sunday.
The BCS passed over Notre Dame for an at-large berth, giving the Gator Bowl first crack at the 10-2 Irish. They leapt at the chance, and Notre Dame will play No. 17 North Carolina State Jan. 1.
For Notre Dame, the Gator Bowl gives the Irish an opportunity to erase the nightmarish memories of a 44-13 loss to USC two weeks ago that ultimately killed any chance the Irish had at squeaking into the BCS.
"Now we can channel a lot of our anticipation and aggression toward somebody," safety Gerome Sapp said. "Walking off the field at USC, it was kinda like, `When are we going to find out who we're playing and where we're playing.' Now its actually tangible."
Before Saturday, the best scenario for Irish fans would have involved Washington State losing to UCLA Saturday, which would have meant USC would clinch the Pac-10 title, freeing an at-large berth for the Irish.
But Washington State won, clinching a berth in the Rose Bowl. The Orange Bowl then selected 10-2 USC, who earned an automatic at-large berth by finishing fourth in the final BCS standings, and 11-1 Iowa.
Had the Irish qualified for a BCS berth, the school could have received up to $13 million.
Instead, Notre Dame will earn $1.6 million from the Gator Bowl.
However, if the Irish were disappointed, they didn't show it. A few players said they didn't watch the Washington State game Saturday nor the BCS selection show Sunday afternoon, only learning they qualified for the Gator Bowl at a team meeting later that night.
"We do have that opportunity to get that bad taste out of our mouth, to try to eliminate that season-ending loss to USC," said Irish coach Tyrone Willingham, who worked as an assistant at North Carolina State from 1983-85. "You always want to win at the end of the year, and this game provides us the opportunity to go out and win."
Notre Dame's national fan base and its dramatic turnaround under Willingham failed to convince BCS officials the Irish were worthy of an at-large berth in the BCS.
Now, Tyrone Willingham will lead the Irish onto the Gator Bowl field exactly one year after he was named Irish head coach.
During that span, the Irish doubled their win total from the previous season, beat four ranked teams and have a chance to finish in the top 10 for the first time in nine years.
"To have an opportunity to have Notre Dame play in a bowl game, any bowl in America would be absolutely standing on their head to make that happen," Gator Bowl president Rick Catlett said. "Some other bowls decided not to take a 10-2 Irish [team], and we're happy they made that mistake."
The Irish, who haven't won a bowl game since the 1993 season, will face a stiff challenge from the 10-2 Wolfpack. After winning their first nine games, North Carolina State lost their next two before beating Florida State 17-7.
Their offense is led by Philip Rivers, who has thrown for an average of 240 yards a game. Yet the Wolfpack defense isn't to be taken lightly, for it has allowed an average of just 17.8 points per game.
"The little knowledge that I do have, and it's just from seeing them on nationally televised games," Willingham said, "is that they are a very potent football team … This is an exciting and challenging team for us to play."
For the first time in it's four-year history, BCS selections came and went with very little controversy. The only two Division I-A undefeated teams, Miami and Ohio State, will meet Jan. 3 in the Fiesta Bowl for the national championship.
Meanwhile, Washington State will play Big 12 champ Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl, SEC champion Georgia and ACC champion Florida State will meet in the Sugar Bowl and the two at-large teams, USC and Iowa, will play in the Orange Bowl.
Still, not all were happy with how the bowl scenario shook out. West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, whose team was bumped from the Gator Bowl to the Continental Tire bowl, blasted Notre Dame's relationship with the Big East bowl arrangements, at one point saying Notre Dame should either "get in or get out."
Under the arrangement Notre Dame has with the Big East, a bowl can select Notre Dame based on how it would have finished in the Big East standings. In Notre Dame's case, the Irish bumped the Mountaineers, who would have earned a Gator Bowl invitation typically reserved for the second-place team in the Big East.
"I don't know if slighted is the right word," Rodriguez said. "But I do question sometimes what is Notre Dame's affiliation with our league."
"That relationship both pre-dates Coach Willingham and myself," Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White responded. "… We've been a proud member of the Big East conference in everything else, and when this opportunity was afforded to us to be a participant of a so-called secondary package, we agreed to it in good faith."
Notre Dame's practice schedule is still not completely finalized. With most of the coaches on the road this week recruiting, Willingham said the players might hold a practice of their own during the week and then the team will practice for a few days before finals. After finals, Willingham said he expected the Irish to practice for a few days and then go home to spend time with families.
The Irish have to report to the Gator Bowl on Dec. 26.
"At the start of the season, nobody gave us a chance, losing like we did to SC has a lot of people doubting again," Sapp said. "Going out and playing a great game this game is really going to make a statement toward the program and toward the people in this program."
All Sports Stories for Monday, December 9, 2002
