The last time Oklahoma and Florida State squared off on the football field they were playing for all the marbles. The Seminoles had a Heisman trophy winner and the Sooners had a massive chip on their shoulders. The end result was a defensive slugfest and a very frustrated Bobby Bowden.
"We simply could get nothing going offensively," Bowden said. "They did a great job of confusing us defensively."
Orange Bowl MVP Torrance Marshall was using his mouth to get inside FSU Chris Weinke's head at the coin toss and then used his play on the field to back up his words. Making good on his comment to Weinke that playing against the Sooner defense was going to hurt, Marshall's crew frustrated the Heisman winner into his worst game of the season by forcing him into three turnovers and keeping him from throwing a touchdown pass for the first time that year.
It was Weinke's third turnover, when he was stripped of the ball by Rocky Calmus, proved to be the most costly to the Seminoles because it set up Oklahoma's only touchdown of the night and put the game out of reach with a 13-0 lead.
The Sooners went up 3-0 midway through the first quarter and then doubled it in the third on Tim Duncan's second field goal of the night. Carrying that 6-0 lead into the fourth quarter it was then that Calmus helped seal the deal with his strip of Weinke. Two plays later Quintin Griffin high-stepped into the end zone and the rest, as they say, was history.