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As previous matchups have shown, the only thing that's certain when the two top-ranked teams in the country play one another in a bowl is that the winner will emerge as the national champion
Editor's note: This story originally appeared in Sports Illustrated's December 25, 1995 issue, as a preview to the climactic 1996 Fiesta Bowl between No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2 Florida. To find out what happened in that game, click here. One second remains in the 1994 Orange Bowl, and No. 1 Florida State leads No. 2 Nebraska 18-16. Seminole sophomore linebacker Todd Rebol stands on the field, spent, waiting. The ball is on the Florida State 28-yard line, and the Cornhuskers' Byron Bennett is getting ready to attempt a 45-yard field goal that could give Nebraska, a 17-point underdog, a remarkable victory and its coach of 21 years, Tom Osborne, his first national championship.
Simplicity is the rarest of qualities in college football, in which the NCAA recruiting manual is as arcane as tax law and the national champion is usually decided by two unscientific polls. The rankings have all the integrity of ward politics, and if this process sometimes creates interest, it also can be maddening. On the day following Florida State's victory over Nebraska, Notre Dame lobbied for the national title because it had beaten the Seminoles during the regular season. The Irish had no shot: In college football, when the No. 1-ranked team plays the No. 2-ranked team in a bowl game, the winner becomes the national champion. The Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2 between top-ranked Nebraska and second-ranked Florida will be the 11th 1-versus-2 bowl game since the Associated Press writers poll was initiated in 1936 (the United Press International coaches poll, which was the forebear of the current USA Today/CNN coaches poll, started in '58). The first such game was the 1963 Rose Bowl, in which USC beat Wisconsin; the most recent was that '94 Orange Bowl. And the importance of a matchup between the two top-ranked teams has changed dramatically. When the Trojans played the Badgers on New Year's Day 33 years ago, victory in the Rose Bowl was far more significant than winning the mythical national title. "It just happened to be Number 1 and Number 2," says Pat Richter, who caught 11 passes for Wisconsin in the Badgers' epic 42-37 loss that day and is now the school's athletic director. "There was no talk at all about the national championship." The demand for a national championship game has grown steadily since then, with the bowl alliance, which was instituted this year, designed to significantly increase the possibility of such a test. Michigan's upset of second-ranked Ohio State on Nov. 25 cleared the way for unbeaten Nebraska and Florida to meet, with the winner guaranteed the final No. 1 rating. But other than that postgame reward, there is little else that these two teams can be sure of as they prepare for their showdown. There are no common themes when No. 1 plays No. 2, no promises—only slices of history to be sampled.
Next: Everybody remembers these games
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There is an odd calm, a blessed pause. "Twenty-two guys, and
nobody was saying anything at all," Rebol recalled recently.
"All I could think was the whole game had been a blur, so fast,
and all of sudden there's a break and you have this time to
think. You think, This is it, right here. Wow! This is really
it." Bennett's kick hooks left, into the mist. The Seminoles
celebrate their first national title.