Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 31, 1994 TAG: 9501030052
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GAINESVILLE, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
Discussions on moving the Hokies' scheduled Oct.7 game at Navy to Jacksonville's renovated, 81,000-seat Gator Bowl fell through last week.
Navy athletic director Jack Lengyel told his Tech counterpart, Dave Braine, that the NFL expansion Jaguars didn't want the Gator field being used with the possibility of an NFL game on the same grass the following day.
Braine said Tech will play in Annapolis, Md., at 30,000-seat Navy-Marine Corps Stadium for a $100,000 guarantee, one of six road dates for Frank Beamer's club next season.
The consideration to move the game was based on the large Naval population in the Jacksonville area. Tech was intrigued by the idea not only for recruiting aid in the Sunshine State, but also because the move could have meant a $250,000 guarantee to the Hokies.
WAHOO QUEEN: During Thursday night's Gator Bowl Parade in downtown Jacksonville, some Hokie fans began booing when the Gator Bowl Queen rode past.
Seems word had spread through the crowd that Gator queen Virginia Norton is a 1994 graduate of the University of Virginia. Norton, a Gainesville resident now and a first-year law student at Florida, laughed about the state-rivalry reaction.
A Jacksonville native, Norton lived on the prestigious Lawn during her UVa years. She also sang in the Roanoke Civic Center in July 1993, as Miss Peanut Festival in the Miss Virginia Pageant.
Norton, a finalist in Glamour magazine's Top 10 College Women of the Year contest, is a lifetime trustee at UVa.
``I think it's great how many Tech fans came down for the game,'' Norton said. ``But Virginia did beat them this year, right?''
DINOSAUR: The Gator Bowl was place-kicker Ryan Williams' last game for Tech, and his departure could leave Division I-A without a conventional-style booter for the first time in history.
Williams has been the only straight-ahead kicker in I-A football the last three seasons, but he also continued a Tech trend. The Hokies haven't had a soccer-style booter as the primary placement man since Tom Taricani in 1985.
Morehead State soccer-style transfer Atle Larsen, who kicked three extra points and three field goals in two September games when Williams was injured, figures to become Tech's kicker in 1995.
Williams leaves Tech as the Hokies' career scoring leader (254 points), and perhaps as the last of a vanishing species. As recently as 1979, 70 straight-on kickers tried field goals in Division I-A.
It was the previous season when the sidewinders passed the number of conventional kickers in I-A.
SEC BOWLS: The Southeastern Conference ended its third-team tie Friday night with the Gator Bowl, which starting next season back in Jacksonville will get the second picks from the ACC and Big East.
The SEC has completed its future bowl commitments. The league will send its champion to the new alliance and the runner-up to the Florida Citrus Bowl. The third and fourth SEC bids will be to the Hall of Fame (replacing the ACC's fourth team) and Peach bowls, respectively.
The league hasn't yet lined up a fifth bid. The 1994 SEC lineup is Sugar (Florida), Citrus (Alabama), Gator (Tennessee), Peach (Mississippi State) and Carquest (South Carolina).
GATOR BITES: The TBS cable telecast of Friday's game was blacked out within 35 miles of Florida Field, but the game was aired back to regular Gator home Jacksonville ... Florida quarterback coach John Reaves took the passing game coordinator's job at South Carolina being vacated by Rickey Bustle, who is returning as Virginia Tech's offensive coordinator ... Tennessee's perennial bowl trips get started in November. In a stunning statistic, the Vols are 37-1 in November games since 1985, the only loss a 34-29 setback to top-ranked Notre Dame in 1990 at Neyland Stadium ... Ben Hill Griffin Stadium's seating capacity of 82,223 above Florida Field makes the Gator site the largest stadium in which the Hokies have played a football game ... The Hokies started two Sunshine State players in the Gator Bowl, tailback Dwayne Thomas (Fort Myers) and rover Torrian Gray (Lakeland) ... The Florida Field end zones were specially painted for the Gator teams. one end zone was Maroon with a ``VT Hokies'' in orange and white. The other end zone was painted in Tennessee's familiar orange-and-white checkerboard used at Neyland Stadium.
by CNB