Florida State suffered a worse defeat – 24-7 to North Carolina State – than did Ohio State in its lone loss (28-24) to Michigan State.

But a deeper study confirms Bobby Bowden's Seminoles deserve the "championship game" slot opposite Tennessee on Jan. 4 in the Fiesta Bowl.

Although the Seminoles' dominance of the Atlantic Coast Conference was interrupted briefly by the Wolfpack, they reached 11-1 with clear nonleague wins over 11-2 Texas A&M, 8-4 Southern Cal, 8-3 Miami and 9-2 Florida. The Seminoles took on the best they could find and prevailed. They also throttled two 9-2 ACC rivals, Georgia Tech (34-7) and Virginia (45-14).

Ohio State inserted Toledo between non-Big Ten toughies West Virginia and Missouri, thus conceding nonleague strength-of-schedule honors to Florida State. The Buckeyes had two other quality wins, against Penn State and Michigan, losing to Michigan State and not playing two upbeat members, Wisconsin and Purdue.

All 10 OSU victories were by 15 points or more. But even if this Buckeye team happens to be superior to Florida State, as may be the case, all the vital criteria pointed to Florida State. In fact, considering the Buckeyes' Big Ten schedule, you also could make an argument Florida State's league competition was at least comparable to OSU's.

Another bonus for Illini

The financially-pinched UI athletic budget received a boost for the third straight year when Ohio State was selected over 11-1 Kansas State and Arizona teams for one of the four Bowl Championship Series events (against Texas A&M in the Sugar Bowl).

As a result, Illinois will receive a Big Ten share that could be close to $500,000 – far more than the UI would clear by qualifying itself for a lesser bowl game.

P.S. – To the expert who called Wisconsin the "worst-ever" Big Ten representative in the Rose Bowl: Don't forget, the league once had a no-repeat rule, which was revoked in the 1970s just ahead of the decision to allow more than one Big Ten team to go bowling. Several who didn't belong in Pasadena got there.

The answer we'll never know is if Wisconsin would have been chosen for the Rose Bowl if Ohio State had qualified for the Fiesta Bowl. If the Buckeyes were picked for the title game, the Rose Bowl committee would have been freed from its obligation to the Big Ten and could have chosen Kansas State to play UCLA in a more attractive matchup.

Wisconsin's trip to Pasadena is colored the same way as Northwestern's excursion three years ago: Neither played OSU in tying for the title. In each case, there was probably a 75 percent chance of the Buckeyes winning if those teams had met.

These Badgers slipped through a nonleague schedule of San Diego State, Ohio and UNLV, squeezed past Indiana (24-20) and Purdue (31-24), absorbed their mandatory 27-10 whipping from Michigan, and posted one impressive win in a 24-3 finale with Penn State. The Rose Bowl hosts have a right to complain when they see New Orleans nabbing the Buckeyes and the more attractive Kansas State powerhouse going unwanted.

Snyder used scheduling as tool

Except for a 42-35 loss to Northern Illinois in 1990, Bill Snyder's Kansas State Wildcats have started 3-0 every season in this decade (they're 26-1 in the first three games).

They did it by following the Hayden Fry plan of playing shamefully weak nonleague opponents and building team strength on early successes, this during the early 1990s while Oklahoma joined other struggling members of what then was the Big Eight.

The scheduling plan was the key to Snyder's emergence, and the Wildcats steadily increased their talent level. By 1995, they rolled shutouts of Akron (67-0) and Northern Illinois (44-0) into a 30-0 blanking of Missouri and on to a 10-2 season. In 1997, they defeated Northern Illinois, Ohio (a scary 23-20) and Bowling Green before running afoul of Nebraska 56-26.

Now there is hue and cry emanating from Manhattan, Kan., over the Wildcats falling all the way to the Alamo Bowl.

The answer is simple: Play somebody.

If the master plan for getting to the big bowl was to avoid quality teams wherever possible, don't complain about not meeting another member of the "top eight" when you've spent the decade manipulating schedules to avoid them.

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette.