• It wasn’t quite a sellout but the 72,202 probably will be the fourth largest bowl crowd. The Fiesta and Cotton bowls drew more Tuesday and Thursday’s Rose Bowl will have 100,000 or so.
• Did he or didn’t he? No, Lee Greenwood didn’t lip-sync “God Bless the U.S.A.” in his pregame performance.
• The winning and losing coaches were . . . well, winners and losers. FSU’s Bobby Bowden was bouncing around, while Tech’s Frank Beamer looked like he had been in a street fight. Bowden: “This ship is heading in the right direction.” Beamer: “I don’t know how it happened.”
• The Gator Bowl Association honored two past presidents who died recently — Russ Godwin and Billie Nimnicht Jr. — and also gave a halftime salute to its several hundred volunteers, who circled the field to throw small footballs into the stands. Two FSU players who came out early to loosen up got into the spirit and started tossing the footballs, too. The volunteers will get further thanks later this month when the Association thanks them with a big dinner at a downtown hotel.
• Several corporations had pregame parties in the corporate hospitality area at the adjacent Fairgrounds and the toughest ticket was to the Allstate Financial gathering in the big tent just outside the West entrance to the stadium. That’s where the official parties from each school gathered along with local biggies.
• Predictably, traffic was tough. Reasons: the many tour buses and the fans who didn’t know where to go. It was in sharp contrast to Jaguars crowds: rarely is there a tour bus and almost everyone knows exactly where to park.