MESSAGE TO THE WHINERS: FSU EARNED THEIR PLACE IN THE ORANGE BOWL

I've been told several times today some version of, "I'm sorry, I don't want to be mean, but #22-ranked Florida State just has no business being in the Orange Bowl with #3 Penn State."

Hey look, polls don't drive the big bowl games anymore. It's all about conference championships. And we won the Atlantic Coast Conference (a very STRONG conference) fair and square. Three teams ended up with two losses, Miami, Virginia Tech, and Florida State. And FSU beat both of the other two.

Yes, we're a young, inexperienced team with a true freshman quarterback. None of our family expects a stellar performance against the Nittany Lions tonight; they're big, strong and VERY experienced. Our team has made multiple mistakes all year, lost games we should have won, won games no-one expected us to win. But after our humiliation at the hands of our arch-rivals (tied with Miami) the U. of Florida Gators, we never could have projected we'd end up here.

But nobody voted us in. We won by the rules of the BCS. We beat then-#3 Virginia Tech to secure the conference championship. And it would be real nice if the whiners who used to complain so much about the AP and Coaches' polls determining the invitees to the major bowl games would acknowledge that fact.

I'll only be posting tonight if the game gets embarrassing.

UPDATE: I should mention that my family counts nearly 70 Florida State alums (including me, The Sage, our son, a sister and brother), so I'm entitled to a little wishful thinking. At our mom's 80th birthday celebration a couple of years ago, a cousin of mine stood up and played the FSU fight song on the trumpet, and we counted more than 80 members of the family on their feet (a few didn't actually go to FSU, they're just supporters). Bobby Bowden was a pallbearer at my favorite uncle's funeral in Tallahassee. So be kind -- wish us some luck.