NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Now that Charlie Strong has his Louisville Cardinals in a BCS bowl, of course fate would have it that his team’s opponent is Florida, a program with which he won a pair of national titles.
Sugar Bowl officials announced on Sunday night that this season’s game will pit the Cardinals of the Big East against the Gators of the Southeastern Conference on Jan. 2.
“It’s a program of excellence and I really enjoyed my time there,” said Strong, who was the Gators’ defensive coordinator from 2003-2009. “I watch that program every week.
“I’m just happy for this program to get to a BCS bowl game. I don’t know if it really matters who we play,” Strong added. “I’m just so happy for our players.”
Despite finishing behind Georgia in the Southeastern Conference East Division, No. 4 Florida (11-1, 7-1 SEC) got the Sugar Bowl bid because the winner of Saturday’s SEC title game, Alabama, is headed to the BCS championship, while Georgia, which beat Florida and won the SEC East, was left with two losses after falling to the Crimson Tide and had a lower BCS ranking than the one-loss Gators.
While critics of the bowl system argued Georgia deserved a bowl on par with that of a Florida team they beat, Gators coach Will Muschamp hardly sounded sympathetic to that point of view.
“We started the season understanding the rules of engagement,” he said. “These are the rules we started the year with and so be it.”
Muschamp added that the Gators were “jacked-up” to be in the Sugar Bowl, despite the disappointment still felt from their lone loss to Georgia in their annual meeting in Jacksonville, a result which snuffed out their hopes of contenting for a BCS title.
“We had our opportunity in Jacksonville and didn’t quite get it done to get into the national championship game, but we’re going to play in the Sugar Bowl to represent our conference,” Muschamp said. “We have great motivation for this game regardless of the circumstances.”
No. 22 Louisville (10-2, 5-2 Big East) finished in a tie for Big East championship but earned its invitation to a BCS bowl thanks to having the highest BCS ranking of any team in the league. The Cardinals opened the season 9-0 before falling to Syracuse and Connecticut, but then beat Rutgers to lock up their league’s BCS bid.
This will be Florida’s ninth appearance in the Sugar Bowl. The Gators have won three of their previous eight appearances, including a 51-24 win over Cincinnati in the 2010 game. The Gators won a national title in the Sugar Bowl with a 52-20 victory over Florida State following the 1996 season.
Louisville will be playing in its first Sugar Bowl, making the Cardinals the fourth first-time participant in the game in the past six years.
Louisville and Florida have met twice before, with the Gators winning both in 1980 and 1992.
Florida won this year primarily with a rushing attack which averaged nearly 195 yards per game and was led by Mike Gillislee, and a highly rated defense that allowed only 12.9 points per game, the third-lowest average in the country.
Louisville rode a passing offense led by sophomore quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, which averaged nearly 296 yards per game. Bridgewater was beat up by the end of the season, but tough enough to play a crucial part-time role against Rutgers with a broken wrist and sore ankle. Strong now hopes that with a few weeks rest, Bridgewater will be in much better condition by the time his team lines up against the Gators.
“Our medical staff did an unbelievable job to get him ready for the Rutgers game, so now they have enough time,” Strong said. “We’ve got to be smart on how we handle it.”
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