Volunteers Get Caught in a Title Wave

TEMPE, Ariz. —  And so the final game ended like every weekend in this splendid college football season has ended.

A prize hanging in the air. Everybody waiting and watching and wondering.

Who would get it? Which way would it fall? Would it make sense when it did?

On this cool, fiery night in the desert, the jewel was not a computer ranking, but a football.

Standing underneath it was not some rhetoric-spewing coach, but one 22-year-old college kid.

The pass soared across the field and drifted down toward Tennessee’s Peerless Price as he stood one step ahead of Florida State’s Mario Edwards.

Would he catch it? Would this be the play that would make this craziest season make sense?

He did, and it was, and it was perfect.

Price lunged ahead of Edwards, grabbed the ball inside the Florida State 40-yard line, ran untouched into the end zone with 9:17 remaining Monday to score the clinching touchdown in Tennessee’s 23-16 victory for college football’s first unified national championship.

Now, is everybody happy?

Everybody should be.

“I was just trying to make a play, and the ball just came floating down to me,” Price said.

As the right ending came floating down to us.

At the end of a long season of decimal counting and finger pointing, the best team won. The undefeated team won. Jeff Sagarin had nothing to do with it.

Things are as they are supposed to be.

This first title game was sometimes silly, often sloppy. The teams had been inactive for far too long--Florida State had not played in more than six weeks--and tried far too hard.

There was not the expected Super Bowl-type hype. The stands and streets and field was filled with mostly small-town southerners. Many TV viewers probably paid as much attention to Keith Jackson as Dexter Jackson.

The entire deal felt less like a big game and more like a barbecue.

A four-game playoff is still needed, if only to hold the teams’ and nation’s interest. The bowl championship series process was the equivalent of a four-month trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. It needs as much off-season tuning as Florida State’s quarterback.

“Coming into the game, we had a chip on our shoulders,” said Tee Martin, the Tennessee quarterback.

Didn’t we all?

But shortly after 10 p.m. here Monday, the player who had caught that floating pass sent his helmet into the air with the knowledge that his catch had made him a national champion.

This morning, Price’s 13-0 team is the final, undisputed No. 1 team in the nation.

Everything worked.

“Winning the national championship, that is grounds for respect,” Martin said.

For once, respect from everyone.

There can be no cries from Columbus, or whining in Wisconsin, or even one peep from those nice people of Tulane.

Sure, Tennessee got lucky against Syracuse, could have lost to Florida, should have lost to Arkansas.

It doesn’t matter. They won all their games, then beat the best defensive team in the country to finish it off.

For the first time in college football, the chants of “We’re No. 1” that rocked Sun Devil Stadium were not bragging.

They were fact.

“All year long, we’ve been called a team of destiny,” Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer said. “It wasn’t always perfect, wasn’t always pretty, but found a way to get it done.”

Particularly in the final moments Monday.

This could have different. The inferior team could have won.

Florida State could have pulled this out, and if that happens, it is Ohio State fans who are sticking their fingers into the snowy air, and we have another season ending in another nasty debate.

Thank you, Bobby Bowden.

One of the most puzzling late-game coaches in football history--perhaps one reason that he has won only one national championship in 22 years at football-rich Florida State--played true to form again.

Florida State had pulled to within seven points with 3:42 remaining in the game. The Seminoles had all three timeouts.

They could have kicked off, held Tennessee deep in Volunteer territory, and then taken the ball with a good chance to win.

Instead, Bowden decided to try an on-side kick. The ball hit kicker Sebastian Janikowski before it went the required 10 yards, and Tennessee was given the ball.

“We thought we’d fool them with it,” Bowden said. “But the referees made the right call. I thought they’d miss it, but they didn’t.”

Two minutes later, with Florida State having three timeouts, it recovered Travis Henry’s fumble at its 10-yard line.

But on the Seminoles first play, quarterback Marcus Outzen threw deep into double coverage, and the ball ended up in Volunteer Steve Johnson’s hands for an interception, and that was that.

Why go for it all when you had time to take it piece by piece?

“Don’t say that play can’t work, because we have been beaten with it by Florida,” Bowden said.

Whatever. His quarterback was unsteady. His team was foolish, racking up more penalty yards (110) then rushing yards (108).

Tennessee is definitely No. 1, but Florida State is definitely not No. 2.

But the ball floated down, and Peerless Price was there, and who cares?

“You dream about this growing up,” Tennessee’s Dwayne Goodrich said of winning a truly undisputed national championship.

You can now.