Oklahoma football: Where does OU-Florida State rank this bowl season?
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football will be making its 56th bowl appearance all-time and for the 24th consecutive year when the Sooners play Florida State on Dec. 29 in the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando, Florida.
OU and Florida State have played each other seven times. The Sooners are 6-1 against the Seminoles, and three of those wins have come in bowl games.
Oklahoma lost to Florida State 36-19 in the Gator Bowl in 1965, the very first meeting between the Sooners and the Seminoles. OU has won all six of the subsequent matchups with FSU, including the 2001 BCS Championship game played in the Orange Bowl. The Sooners won that game 13-2 and claimed the school’s seventh national crown in football.
The two teams played in back-to-back years in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day 1981 and 1982. Oklahoma won both games: 24-7 in 1981 and 18-17 in 1982.
With the exception of the 1965 Gator Bowl, all of the postseason meetings between OU and FSU have been major bowls. That will not be the case this season, but because of the football pedigree of both Oklahoma and Florida State, there probably will be higher fan interest than might otherwise be the case if other teams were playing in the game.
Several media sources have filled the news void during this slow time in the college football season a couple of weeks ahead of the postseason bowl lineup by ranking the 41 bowl games based on fan interest and how good the various games might be to watch.
The College Football Playoff semifinal and championship game matchups along with the other New Year’s Six bowl games naturally have the highest interest, but where does the OU-Florida State game fall in the December bowl lineup?
College Football News lists the Cheez-It Bowl with OU and FSU as the seventh-best game to watch this bowl season. CBS Sports ranks the game at No. 11. Yahoo Sports, on the other hand, has the OU-Florida State matchup as the 20th best game out of the 41 bowl games this season.
I even saw another ranking out of Los Angeles that had the Cheez-It Bowl as 35 out of 41.
Based on the history between the two teams — and not necessarily their records this season — the Oklahoma-Florida State game on Dec. 29 has the makings of what could be a pretty good game, of course that assumes that good OU and not bad OU shows up for the game.
“Whatever happens,” writes Tom Fornelli of CBS Sports, “I feel confident the final score won’t be 13-2.”