College Football
Thursday, December 30
List of great players long at FSU
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Peter Warrick may be the main man in Florida State's corps of receivers, but the rest of that group has enough talent to keep Virginia Tech's defense honest in their national championship Sugar Bowl showdown.

"I've always liked the fact all year that Pete's got all the attention," wide receivers' coach Jeff Bowden said Thursday. "I hope they focus a lot on Pete because the offense doesn't revolve just around him."

Ron Dugans, Marvin Minnis, Germaine Stringer and several other Seminoles are potential big play receivers for the Seminoles in Tuesday night's game. Miami, Florida and Virginia can attest to that.

Stringer caught six passes for 160 yards, including a 48-yard touchdown, helping Florida State to wins over Miami and Wake Forest when Warrick was suspended for the two games for his role in a shopping mall scam.

"There are a lot of great players on this team," said Warrick, who still caught 71 passes for 934 yards and eight touchdowns. "We need that from the young guys. We need guys to step up and make the plays."

With so much attention being focused on Warrick and Hokies quarterback Michael Vick this week, Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster said both teams can't forget the talent around those two.

"If people put too much attention on one guy, we've got the other guys that can hurt people," he said. "It's kind of like with Peter Warrick. If you put too much attention on him, they've got a couple other receivers they can go to."

Besides the two games that Warrick missed, the Seminoles were also without their other starting wideout, Laveranues Coles, who was kicked off the team in midseason after the mall affair.

Minnis' 27-yard TD catch at Florida sealed the Seminoles' 30-23 victory at Gainesville, Fla. in November. He had two other touchdown catches among his 19 catches.

"That was very important for me coming into a big game like this," Minnis said. "That game was just like this game, same atmosphere. It builds my confidence up so maybe I can do the same thing."

Dugans, the biggest receiver in the group at 6-foot-2, has always been a reliable target, catching 105 passes for 1,520 yards and seven touchdowns in his career.

Dugans would have been the main man this season if Warrick had gone pro after last year as most people anticipated.

"That was hard," said Dugans, who caught 43 passes for 644 yards this season after missing the first two games with an injury. "Because I'm a competitor. But I've taken it pretty good because when they give me the ball I just try and do what I can do with it."

Bowden, who celebrated his 40th birthday Thursday, has had 10 different wide receivers catch passes during the season including sophomore Talman Gardner, who returns to his hometown for the game.

"These guys can make plays," said Bowden, the youngest of coach Bobby Bowden's four sons. "I don't think they can just focus on Pete. If they want to, that's fine."

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