Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020050
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
While thousands of Techies are shelling out $30 for a Gator ticket, they really owe North Carolina State for a $1.5 million Hokie holiday later this month.
So said a couple of executives of the Jacksonville, Fla., bowl when the Gator's road show passed through their coalition club's campus Thursday.
Although the Carquest was at least a sure thing for the first back-to-back bowls in Hokie history, Tech was the football team the Gator wanted to play Tennessee or Mississippi State - until the Hokies' 42-23 loss to Virginia at Lane Stadium.
Six days later, UVa fumbled at least a Gator berth when N.C. State upset the two touchdown-favored Cavaliers 30-27.
In news that has to infuriate Wahoos bound instead for Shreveport, La., and the Independence Bowl, Tech lost the game, but subsequently won the Gator. For the second straight year, the UVa-Tech loser got the better bowl bid.
Scott McCaleb, past Gator president and chair of the bowl's selection committee, bolted the UVa-Tech scouting mission in the third quarter. His notion on a potential invitation had changed, Gator president Carl Cannon said Thursday in Blacksburg.
McCaleb arrived with the impression he'd be watching one Gator entrant - the Hokies.
``We thought Tech would beat Virginia and go 9-2,'' Cannon said.
When that didn't happen, the Gator got back on the phone and continued talking. Gator executive director Rick Catlett said the bowl had mailed prospectus information to seven potential coalition invitees.
Those schools were Tech, Boston College and West Virginia from the Big East, and UVa, State, North Carolina and Duke from the ACC. Already several weeks earlier, Catlett said Cannon told other Gator execs that the Hokies were at the top of that list.
``When Tech lost to Virginia, it brought Tech back to the rest of the pack,'' Catlett said. ``We knew in our [selection] position in the coalition we could get a team from the Big East, ACC or Southwest Conference, and we ruled out the SWC.
``It would be fair to say Virginia had climbed to the top of our list. We weren't sure we could get Virginia, because we thought Virginia would beat N.C. State, be 9-2, and go to the Fiesta Bowl.''
The Gator was so sure it didn't have a shot at the Cavaliers then that it didn't scout the N.C. State-Virginia game. Tech was helped in four ways that weekend.
The Hokies (8-3) didn't play. UVa (8-3) lost. North Carolina (8-3) played in the Gator last year, so the bowl wanted a different team. State (8-3) was there in 1992 and UVa in '91.
The Gator didn't really want an ACC team for a fourth straight year, Catlett said. Then, had Virginia been 9-2 and available, it would have been the oh-so-obvious choice.
``After Virginia beat Virginia Tech, we thought it was a very good possibility we'd get Virginia,'' Cannon said. ``I wouldn't say we would have taken them for sure, but I will say they would have been very, very difficult to pass on.''
It also didn't hurt that the Gator had become very impressed with Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese.
Tech's first footsteps toward the Gator were taken during negotiations to match second-choice teams from the Big East and ACC in the Gator's future, positioned with the Citrus Bowl right behind the new Fiesta-Orange-Sugar alliance that begins next season.
Even after Tech lost to Virginia and BC fell to West Virginia, Tranghese and Tech athletic director Dave Braine kept lobbying Catlett. Braine said Thursday in introducing Gator officials that this bowl bid was ``the best thing to happen to the Virginia Tech football program - ever!''
Braine is not always so brainy, even if he was schmoozing smooth when surrounded by several Gators.
The biggest deal in Tech football history was its admission into the Big East for football. Without that tie, there's no way the Hokies would be playing in the 50th edition of the nation's sixth-oldest bowl game.
Later, Braine properly praised Tranghese, as did the Gator men.
``Mike had a lot to do with how we now feel about the Big East,'' Catlett said. ``When you're from the South like we are, you look mostly at SEC football.
``We knew about the ACC, and now we know about the Big East. Not many people know this, but teams in those leagues have won [or shared] seven of the last 13 national championships.''
When it was time for the Gator to choose who would play Tennessee, Cannon liked Tech's state-border proximity to the Volunteers.
``The final choices, in order, were Virginia Tech, N.C. State, Virginia and then West Virginia,'' Catlett said. ``We just kept coming back to Tech.''
by CNB