Fiesta Bowl having trouble living up to all of the hype

Tickets are plentiful for tonight's game

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Tonight's Fiesta Bowl matchup between Tennessee and Florida State is supposed to be college football's version of the Super Bowl.

No. 1 vs. No. 2 for the national championship. Prime time national television. Two of the nation's premier college programs during the '90s. Rocky Top vs. Chief Osceola.

Bowl Championship Series Fever. Catch It.

But guess what? The folks here in Tempe are hardly in a fever pitch mode for tonight's matchup between the No. 1 Vols (12-0) and No. 2 Seminoles (11-1).

Although the game is officially a sellout, tickets are still plentiful for those who really want to get into Sun Devil Stadium for the contest. It's doubtful that Tennessee quarterback Tee Martin or Florida State QB Marcus Outzen will take nearly the beating tonight that local ticket scalpers will get from tonight's game.

A stroll down Mill Avenue on Sunday afternoon, about two Sebastian Janikowski kickoffs away from Sun Devil Stadium, found numerous "fans" trying to unload their extra tickets with little success.

"It's amazing," said Daniel Williams, a Florida State fan from Orlando, Fla., who had spent 45 minutes standing outside a Hooters restaurant trying to unload an extra $100 end zone seat for face value without any success. "Back in Florida, you can't get a ticket to the Florida-Florida State game for any price. I may end up just keeping this as a souvenir."

A block away another man in his mid-50s, who asked not to be identified, held out a dozen $135 tickets in the lower end zone that he waved at passing motorists.

"I'm asking $75 for these and the price is dropping," he said. "The market is really going down."

It is believed that those fans patient enough to wait until just before tonight's kickoff may be able to get good seats for 25 cents on the dollar.

Meanwhile, the so-called Super Bowl of college football found itself playing second fiddle to the Arizona Cardinals in the Arizona Republic newspaper on Sunday.

The Republic devoted over the top-half of its front page to Arizona's "Texas-size upset" of the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday. The football talk dominating the local airways was not about tonight's Tennessee-Florida State matchup but instead whether Jake "The Snake" Plummer and company could pull off another miracle this Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings.

* WHO'S NO. 1?: Tennessee may be undefeated and rated No. 1 in both major polls, but once-beaten Florida State is a 5 1/2-point favorite with the betting public.

That fact hasn't gone unnoticed by Vols head coach Phil Fulmer.

"That has been our ammo all year," Fulmer said Sunday. "This team has a lot to prove. ... Florida State has been here before and certainly their last several games were very impressive. If you look at our common opponent, Florida, they beat them worse than we did. Because of that, people say that Florida State should be favored, but that's the M.O. that we've operated under pretty good this year, so that doesn't bother me. The game is played for 60 minutes (tonight) and won between the chalk lines and whatever we say today doesn't amount to a hill of beans."

* TRASH TALKING: At least two Tennessee players, wide receiver Peerless Price and defensive back Dwayne Goodrich, have grown tired of the questions about Florida State and especially Seminoles' All-American wide receiver Peter Warrick this week.

"I'm tired of hearing about him and what he's (Warrick) going to do in this ball game," Price said. "I'm just going to show everybody what I'm about on Monday night. I'm ready to play."

Goodrich, when asked about what other aspect of the Florida State offense, besides Warrick, his Tennessee team needs to prepare for, came up with a rather startling four word answer on Sunday.

"Nothing," he said. "I mean nothing."

* A MAJORS SNUB: One man surprisingly not pulling hard for the Orange and White of Tennessee tonight will be former Vols head coach and Heisman Trophy runner-up Johnny Majors.

Majors, who finished second to Notre Dame's Paul Hornung in 1956 Heisman balloting, still is bitter over the way he was moved out as head coach of the Vols for Fulmer in 1992.

Majors, 63, now a special assistant to the chancellor and athletic director at the University of Pittsburgh, believes that Fulmer underminded him while he was recuperating from heart bypass surgery. He said he had reached a verbal agreement with Vols' athletic director Doug Dickey on a seven-year contract extension and was to sign a contract the following day.

But shortly after the conversation with Dickey, Majors went for a previously scheduled check-up. He had felt a twinge in his chest and thought that heart medication he was taking needed to be altered. Instead, he was told he needed immediate heart bypass surgery.

In his absence, Fulmer took over and coached the Vols to a 3-0 record, including big wins over Florida and Georgia. When Majors returned, Tennessee lost three games, including a pair of one-point upset losses to Arkansas and South Carolina.

When the season ended, Majors not only didn't get his contract extension, he lost his job to Fulmer.

Majors, who eventually agreed to a $600,000 buyout from the school, pointed the finger at Fulmer for the loss of his job. His sister-in-law publicly accused Fulmer of a "closed-door mutiny" against Majors. Adding fuel to the fire was a Knoxville News-Sentinel report which disclosed that Fulmer had made 26 phone calls to a key member on the university's board of trustees over a two-month period.

"While I was recuperating, an assistant coach who had been with me for 12 years, walked the sidelines in my place and, in view of the circumstances that later developed, he apparently grew fond of the limelight," Majors would later write in a college football magazine.

"I don't really get into that," Fulmer said when asked about Majors' allegations this week.

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