Orange Bowl notebook: Bowden: Maybe we were overconfident

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001 | 10:30 a.m.

MIAMI -- During the pregame press conferences leading up to Wednesday night's Orange Bowl, Florida State's players seemed much more relaxed and laid back while Oklahoma's appeared to be tense and all-business.

At the time, some in the media wondered if the Sooners might be a little too tight for the national title decider. But after Wednesday night's 13-2 victory by Oklahoma, Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden came up with another theory.

"I really think we were overconfident to a degree," Bowden said. "I thought we played offensively especially like we had been reading our press clippings too much. That's the way it looked and I am probably correct on that."

Bowden also felt that winning the Heisman Trophy may have contributed to quarterback Chris Weinke's subpar performance.

"I remember when Charlie (Ward) won the Heisman and had to go (to New York) while we were practicing," Bowden said. "He has to go there. He doesn't have time to look at film. He misses practice. We didn't do that bad with Chris because we remembered that. But he might have missed enough film study and some stuff that kept him from being as good as he could possibly be."

And after the Sooners' 13-2 butt-kicking of Bobby Bowden's squad, the Hurricanes got an unexpected supporter of that argument.

"When I look at it now, it probably should have been Miami and Oklahoma," Bowden said.

"I didn't think we looked like we belonged out there. I thought Miami looked a lot better the other night than we looked. I thought that we deserved to be here, but it didn't look like it."

Bowden gave Oklahoma a lot of credit for that last statement.

"It could be that Oklahoma is just so good that whoever they'd play would have lost, too," Bowden said. "They beat Kansas State twice; that is kind of hard to do. They beat Nebraska. They just might be a super ballclub."

A number of NFL stars who played for Bowden at Florida State also were on the sidelines including Bengals wide receiver Peter Warrick, Jets linebacker Marvin Jones, Tampa Bay running back Warrick Dunn and Buffalo linebacker Sam Cowart.

But Marshall didn't feel any sympathy for the hometown folks after helping lead Oklahoma past Florida State and thereby denying the local favorite Miami Hurricanes a possible share of the national title.

"It feels good to be back home playing in front of a lot of people that have not seen me play in a while," Marshall said. "I'm just glad we were fortunate to win.

"As far as the Hurricanes, I don't have nothing to say. I'll just let the (national championship) hat and the rings speak for itself. That's about it."

It will mark the first time the BCS title game has been played at the Rose Bowl.