TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: FLORIDA STATE v TENNESSEE

January 4, 1999

Bobby Bowden

Marcus Outzen

Corey Simon

COACH BOWDEN: We congratulate the University of Tennessee for their National Championship that they deserve. They just made more big plays than we did tonight. They were able to get the ball to their threat. We had a hard time getting the ball to our threat. They deserve their win. I don't know how much more I can say.

COACH BOWDEN: Threw deep or are you talking about the on-side kick?

COACH BOWDEN: When we threw the interception, we thought that would be a pretty good call on an early down, a curl and go. Don't say it don't ever work because we got beat with that play last year by Florida. We didn't execute it.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, they just did a good job. I think when they intercepted their pass for touchdown, it probably intimidated us a little bit. They took him out. We tried to get the ball to him some, but we couldn't get it to him. They just did a heck of a job in that regard. That's why our other receiver was most valuable player on the other side. They did a good job taking him away.

COACH BOWDEN: No, no. The discipline -- discipline wasn't very good. Discipline, we mean little things. When we needed -- I thought a very big series in the game was when they were ahead of us maybe 14-9, and we had the ball down around their 40 or maybe around their 30, they ended up knocking us all the way back where we couldn't even try for a field goal. That was a very, very crucial thing. But I thought momentum was creeping into our favor. We were a very rusty, rusty football team. But they were, too. Both of us laid off way too long. We laid off 40-something days. They played two weeks after us, I believe, but I'm talking about that that didn't help either one of us.

COACH BOWDEN: What kind of frustration?

COACH BOWDEN: I don't think so. It was played like a pro ballgame. I mean, we just kept hanging in there, hanging in there. They'd make a mistake, we'd get it, then we'd make one back. We felt like turnovers were going to be such a big thing. Protecting the ball was going to be such a big thing. They probably protected it better than we did. I don't guess they got as many penalties. Our penalties were probably more crucial than theirs. We just didn't look very good to me.

COACH BOWDEN: It was frustrating getting down there and having an opportunity to do it and not doing it. Then it was frustrating the way we came off of our goal line a lot. Did we ever have good field position? Did we ever get the ball on their side of the 50 the second half of the game? If we did, I bet we scored. We were always backed up. That's where they beat us. We backed them up, and they got out there twice. They beat us on that part. Doesn't take but one of those to win a game. If we do it and they don't do it, we win it.

COACH BOWDEN: That's not the way we got to where we are. No doubt about it. As I said, I thought we were a very sloppy football team tonight. They were, too, at times. I mean, a lot of that, being off a month and a half, you know, probably could have done a little bit better if we hadn't been off quite that long.

COACH BOWDEN: What was your question about them?

COACH BOWDEN: Did Price catch both of those long ones? His ability to get the ball to Price was maybe the difference in the game. You can think of all the things that happened. You can say if that hadn't happened, maybe we would have won, or maybe if that hadn't happened, maybe we would have won. If he couldn't have got the ball to Peerless, like we had a hard time getting the ball to.

COREY SIMON: You have a game like this one, the whole game is being centered around the front four, our defensive line, and their front six or seven on their offensive line, it's going to be a physical game. We expected that. You watch them on film and you see that they're a very good team up front. You can't have the success running the ball as they've had in the past and not have a great offensive line. We expected them to come right out at us. I think we did a fairly good job at handling that.

COACH BOWDEN: We might have hit it twice or something, didn't we? We kicked it, it hit us, then it went down there and we got it. I think the call was accurate. They could have missed the call, but they spotted it. We felt like we could really get that on them. We'd worked on it. We felt like we could get it. We thought with three minutes to go, if we didn't line up in an on-side kick, they would figure we'd go deep with it. But they didn't, but it still caught them by surprise. If the ball hadn't had hit him, but somehow it hit him, not like he jumped on it too soon -- it hit him -- maybe he ran by it or something, I don't know. If he hadn't, I think it would have been okay. The call was good by the officials.

MARCUS OUTZEN: He was always on the upbeat actually. He was getting pumped up, wanting us to go out there. He was never giving up. He definitely showed frustration in the locker room. He has the right to. He wanted it as much as everybody else did. He didn't get the ball very much. He didn't get the ball enough for Florida State to win the ballgame tonight.

MARCUS OUTZEN: We had a deep route called. It's been a good play for us. If the corner squats, usually converts. Usually a lot of times your tackles are in the way sometimes of the defensive back, not taking nothing away from him. Probably should have converted possibly. If he had that good of a break on the ball, that means he probably wasn't bailing at all. If he was sitting on it, we usually convert to a fade. He got that break, and we misread it. I threw it out there, trusting that he had backed off a little bit. Made a real good break on the ball, made a touchdown.

COACH BOWDEN: We got to the point where we had to throw it to win the game because of time, and they knew we had to throw it. So we went ahead and got into the shotgun. With Marcus at quarterback, we're probably better off in the regular I-formation where we can fake one run and then throw the ball. At that point of the game, they knew we had to throw the ball to beat them; so we went into the shotgun.

MARCUS OUTZEN: Again, not to take anything away from Tennessee and how well they played tonight, think of us Seminoles tonight would say we killed ourselves with penalties. I can remember a few times, even myself, ran all the way down near the goal line, turned around, 40 yards back, there's the yellow flag sitting on the ground. I think that really hurt us tonight. Turned a lot of things; second and 40 I think we had one time, actually almost made that. I think we may have made a long one like that, then got another penalty. We really hurt ourselves tonight in that aspect.

COACH BOWDEN: Explain that again.

COACH BOWDEN: That was a big play. That was a big play. I know exactly what happened. We had what we call a switch call where two adjacent linemen are trying to block the two here. They twist, and one of our guys picks it up, and he's supposed to switch. The other guy didn't switch. It was a free shot. That was a killer. That was a killer.