Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The Chick-Fil-A Bowl! Teams. Florida State Seminoles (9-4) vs. South Carolina Gamecocks (9-4).
Particulars. Today, 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: South Carolina (–3)
Patron Saint: Confederate veteran John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola, who initially began experimenting with patent medicines containing coca and cocaine in response to his own war-born addiction to morphine. Pemberton initially sold an alcoholic version of Coca-Cola in the 1880s as an all-purpose cure for addiction, headaches, jitters and pretty much anything else. He produced a non-alcoholic version of the drink after Atlanta went dry in 1885, but died in 1888, well before his concoction was marketed as anything beyond a "valuable brain tonic."
• Locale. In addition to hosting the Atlanta Falcons, the Georgia high school championships, the season-opening Kickoff Classic, the SEC Championship, the summer Olympics, two Super Bowls, two Final Fours and an upcoming WrestleMania, the Georgia Dome has played home to the last seven editions of the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international showdown of hundreds of high school robotics teams from around the world. Students are asked to build robots weighing up to 120 pounds to complete a specific task, which changes each year. This year's directive: Build bots that can guide soccer balls into goals, traverse "bumps" in the field, suspend themselves and each other on towers, and/or go through a tunnel located in the center of the field. Here are you winners.
• Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
• Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
• Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl
• Dec. 21: Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl
• Dec. 22: Maaco Bowl Las Vegas
• Dec. 23: Poinsettia Bowl
• Dec. 24: Hawaii Bowl
• Dec. 26: Little Caesars Bowl
• Dec. 27: Independence Bowl
• Dec. 28: Champs Sports Bowl
• Dec. 29: Texas Bowl
• Dec. 29: Alamo Bowl
• Dec. 30: Pinstripe Bowl
• Dec. 30: Music City Bowl
• Dec. 30: Holiday Bowl
• Dec. 31: Sun Bowl
• Dec. 31: Liberty Bowl
• Tradition. The Peach Bowl began in 1968, and has featured a solid ACC-SEC matchup every year since 1993 – the first year the Georgia Dome took over hosting duties from Fulton County Stadium – with alarmingly streaky results: The series began with three straight wins by the ACC from 1993-95, followed by five straight by the SEC from 1996-2000, followed by another four straight by the ACC from 2001-04, followed by another four straight by the SEC from 2005-08. Virginia Tech's 37-14 rout over Tennessee in last year's game put the ball back in the ACC's court, evening the series at nine games apiece since the tie-in was initiated.
• Swag. I nominate the Chick-Fil-A for "Best Swag" of the 2010-11 postseason, on three fronts: a) The gift bags include a $250 Best Buy gift card, already established as the pinnacle of bowl swaggery; b) They're diverse, also including a Fossil watch, a knit cap, a travel bag and a commemorative football; and the piece d'resistance, c) A gift card for free, delicious Chick-Fil-A chicken. Depending on the amount of the card (undisclosed), you really couldn't ask for anything else without the NCAA getting involved.
• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. The week's event schedule included a milkshake party, an afternoon at Andretti Karting and Games and a visit to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Hospital, which produced this photograph with a gaggle of Gamecocks and Miss Georgia USA, Kaylin Reque, who is keeping her distance from errybody in there:
Maybe she's self-conscious because of her height, or maybe she just wasn't feeling well from the night before.
• This year's match-up. South Carolina and Florida State went into the final weekend of the regular season bearing their highest December rankings in years, both on the cusp of validating conference championships – and subsequent BCS bids – for the administrations of coaches Steve Spurrier and Jimbo Fisher. Then they were both run out of the respective stadiums by the true overlords in the ACC and SEC, Virginia Tech and Auburn. The Chick-Fil-A Bowl isn't a bad consolation, but for the loser, a potentially special season will have melted into just another unranked, five-loss dalliance with mediocrity.
If there's any certainty, it's pain for two quarterbacks who have already endured their share of it: Both defenses rank in the top 10 nationally in sacks, with a pair of all-conference pass rushers (Brandon Jenkins and Devin Taylor) and seven guys between them who notched at least four QB takedowns for the year.
• Star power. The overall offensive numbers are strikingly similar, but where Florida State's attack has been a strict committee approach – six different Seminoles had at least 500 yards from scrimmage for the year – South Carolina was clearly headlined by one of the most dynamic ground/air combos in the country: Altogether, Marcus Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery racked up 2,949 yards, 28 touchdowns, more than 20 plays covering more than 20 yards and dominant single-game efforts against Georgia (Lattimore), Auburn (Jeffery), Alabama (both), Kentucky (Lattimore), Vanderbilt (Jeffery), Tennessee (Lattimore), Florida (Lattimore) and Clemson (Jeffery). You can take one of them away, but don't count on bottling up both.
Final rating: out of five.
South Carolina hasn't won 10 games since 1984 or finished in the top 20 since 2001, under Lou Holtz; even Florida State is now six years removed from its last top-20 finish, and seven years from hitting 10 in the win column. The winner gets both distinctions, while the loser likely falls out of the polls altogether and chalks up another year of just coming close.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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