Maybe it’s best to start this celebration of Rivalry Week, and what we’re thankful for as a college football community, with a rare moment that will never, ever, be duplicated.
The Choke at Doak.
We’re 30 years this week from that magical day in Tallahassee, when Florida State came back from a 31-3 deficit in the fourth quarter to tie Florida 31-31. A year later, the NCAA instituted overtime play.
And 30 years later, there’s not a sane person on the planet who doesn’t think the Seminoles would’ve converted a two-point play in the closing seconds had it tried to win the game instead of tie it.
Even Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, who made the call to kick the conversion and tie the game in the first place.
Years after the fact, Bowden told me although he never regretted kicking the extra point, he too knew what would’ve happened had the Noles attempted a two-point conversion.
“Yeah, they’re on their heels,” Bowden said. “(We) probably would’ve scored, too.”
Welcome, everyone, to Rivalry Week. The joyous occasion of throwing every record and rhyme and reason out the proverbial window because, well, the hates runs deep, baby.
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Despite what seems like a tsunami of change in the sport, and some classic rivalries abandoned or moved off the final week of the regular season, there is no other week on the college football calendar quite like this one.
More to the point with the current state of the sport: there are numerous games with College Football Playoff implications — despite the doom and gloom predictions that the final few weeks of the sport would be minimized by the new 12-team format. If anything, the new system has enhanced Rivalry Week.
We begin with Michigan and Ohio…
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