Sugar Bowl

66th Annual
Sugar Bowl/
BCS Championship
January 4, 2000

---

#1 Florida State 46 (Final: 12-0, #1)
#2 Virginia Tech 29 (Final: 11-1, #2)

---

---

---

Official Game Stats – PDF

---

Warrick and Florida State Prevail Over Vick and Virginia Tech in Thrilling Championship

How Florida State and Virginia Tech Met in the 2000 Sugar Bowl

Bonus Feature: Bowden’s Legendary Career Highlighted by 2000 Sugar Bowl  by Stewart Mandel, SI.com, Fall, 2008

25 Years Ago: An Oral History of the 2000 Sugar Bowl, January 1, 2025

---

The first Sugar Bowl of the new millennium was a kaleidoscope of mesmerizing football, fitting for the first BCS Championship in New Orleans.

With a backdrop of a Superdome filled to the rafters with a festive and raucous crowd, Florida State’s Peter Warrick caught six passes for 163 yards and two touchdowns while also returning a punt 59 yards for a score. On the other side, Michael Vick, Virginia Tech’s dazzling redshirt freshman quarterback, guided his team to 503 yards, most ever in a losing Sugar Bowl effort.
 
There was seldom a moment for anyone to catch their breath.
 
Warrick helped stake the Seminoles to a 28-7 lead in the first half; however Vick galvanized the Hokies to a stupendous comeback. Virginia Tech managed to pull ahead 29-28 at the end of the third quarter, but then Warrick and Florida State took over again.
 
In a game that spent the energies of fan and athlete alike, Vick began lighting the fuse to blow up Florida State’s No. 1 dream from the opening kickoff, driving the Hokies to within hailing distance of the Seminole end zone three times, only to come up empty. Most costly was a lost Tech fumble at the FSU 1 on the Hokies’ first drive.

Warrick, who was held to one catch for seven yards in the 1997 title game, erased that memory quickly. After a Tech threat was quelled, he opened the scoring by grabbing a 64-yard touchdown from Chris Weinke.
 
Until that moment, Virginia Tech had outgained the Seminoles 123-8.
 
“I’ve never been so focused before a game in my life,” the 5-foot-11 Warrick mused afterward. “I was just going to go into this game to do what I’ve done all season – go out and make plays.”
 
Then Tech yielded another quick touchdown to FSU when the ‘Noles blocked a Hokie punt, and Jeff Chaney grabbed the bouncing ball and ran into the end zone from the 6-yard line. All of a sudden, the Sugar had the appearance of a rout-in-the-making until André Davis latched onto a 49-yard pass from Vick with 30 seconds left in the first quarter to get the Hokies on the board.
 
Weinke delivered another long scoring strike, this time for 63 yards to Ron Dugans to make it 21-7 – the 21 points to that point were more than the Hokies had allowed in any full game all season.
 
And Warrick still had some magic to weave.
 
Early in the second quarter, standing on the FSU 40, Warrick raised his arms in the air – then raised the roof. Fielding a punt on the bounce, Warrick dodged one defender, blew past two more, then sprinted down the sideline for a 59-yard touchdown that ratcheted the Seminoles’ lead to a very comfortable 28-7.

The fireworks, though, were just beginning.
 
Vick sidestepped Seminoles all across the Superdome floor, disappearing like smoke as they zeroed in on him. Dashing right, then left, Vick gained 43 yards to reach the Seminoles’ 19-yard line. Four plays later, the dazzling speedster was in the end zone to make it 28-14 with 37 seconds remaining in the half.
 
The 19-year-old virtuoso continued his display of excellence in the third quarter. Scrambling so much as to make the FSU defense dizzy, Vick kept breathing life into his bunch of underdogs and pushing the Hokies all the way to a stunning one-point lead with two minutes left in the third quarter. Vick had energized his Hokies enough to drive them to four touchdowns in five possessions.
 
This was the moment of truth for the Seminoles. “All the hard work in the offseason,” FSU nose guard Corey Simon reflected. “It all came down to this. We couldn’t quit when they got ahead.”
 
And FSU didn’t, reclaiming control and blowing open the game with 18 unanswered points in the fourth quarter – with Warrick giving Florida State fans something to remember him by, a juggling catch in the end zone for a 43-yard touchdown, despite obvious interference by a defensive back.
 
The two teams combined for 10 touchdowns, a Sugar Bowl record 75 points, 862 yards, and Virginia Tech scored the most points by a losing team in the Sugar Bowl. Something to think about was Vick’s 322 total yards of offense – despite being sacked seven times.
 
Bobby Bowden finally joined his sons Terry and Tommy by completing his first perfect season in his 40 years as a head coach.

The Seminoles found a little notch in history, too. They became the first team to go wire-to-wire as the top team since the preseason rankings began in 1950. Before 1950 there were two regular season wire-to-wire champions, Notre Dame in 1943 and Army in 1945.
 
Now there were three, in no small measure because of the determination of Warrick, who knew he had something to atone for.
 
“When I leave Florida State,” he said, “I want people to think of me as a good person, on and off the field. I went out as a champion. This is the national championship. No one can ever take this away from me.”

Recap excerpted from the book “Sugar Bowl Classic: A History” by Marty Mulé, who covered the game and the organization for decades for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

2000

Louisiana Superdome
Att: 79,280
ABC Rating: 17.5

Virginia Tech	7	7	15	0	–	29
Florida State	14	14	0	18	–	46

SCORING SUMMARY
FSU: Peter Warrick 64 yd pass from Chris Weinke (Sebastian Janikowski kick), 3:22 (1st)
FSU: Jeff Chaney 6 yd blocked punt return (Janikowski kick), 2:14 (1st)
VT: Andre Davis 49 yd pass from Michael Vick (Shayne Graham kick), :30 (1st)
FSU: Ron Dugans 63 yd pass from Weinke (Janikowski kick), 13:45 (2nd)
FSU: Warrick 59 yd punt return, 11:40 (2nd)
VT: Vick 3 yd run (Graham kick), 0:37 (2nd)
VT: Graham 23 yd field goal, 7:54 (3rd)
VT: Andre Kendrick 29 yd run (Vick pass failed), 5:57 (3rd)
VT: Kendrick 6 yd run (Vick pass failed), 2:13 (3rd)
FSU: Dugans 14 yd pass from Weinke (Warrick pass), 12:59 (4th)
FSU: Janikowski 32 yd field goal, 10:26 (4th)
FSU: Warrick 43 yd pass from Weinke (Janikowski kick), 7:42 (4th)

Virginia Tech	Team Stats	Florida State
24	First Downs	15
52-278	Rushing	23-30
15-29-0	Comp-Att-Int	20-34-1
225	Passing Yds	329
81-503	Total Offense	57-359
88	Return Yards	80
6-29.3	Punting	7-44.3
3-3	Fumbles-Lost	2-0
6-65	Penalties-Yds	7-59
36:25	Time of Poss.	23:35

Rushing
VT: M. Vick 23-97 TD, A. Kendrick 12-69 2 TD, S. Stith 11-68, And. Davis. 1-16, E. Johnson 1-12, N. Sorensen 1-7, J. Ferguson 1-5, C. Hawkins 1-4, S. Graham 1-0
FSU: J. Chaney 4-43, T. Minor 9-35,  Team 3- (minus 7), C. Weinke 7 – (minus 41)

Passing
VT: Michael Vick 15-29-0, 225 yards, 1 TD
FSU: Chris Weinke 20-34-1, 329 yards, 4 TDs

Receiving
VT: And. Davis 7-108 TD, C. Hawkins 2-49, A. Kendrick 2-27, E. Johnson 1-23, B. Wynn 1-7, J. Ferguson 1-6, D. Carter 1-5
FSU: P. Warrick 6-163 2 TD, R. Dugans 5-99 2 TD, M. Minnis 2-25, T. Minor 2-23, R. Morgan 2-10, J. Chaney 2-5, A. Boldin 1-4

Miller-Digby Award recipient: Peter Warrick, Florida State receive