Administrators at other Florida universities have heard the triumphant news from Tampa and have contracted pigskin fever. Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton will field its first football team in 2001. Its head coach, Howard Schnellenberger, is a proven winner. He helped Don Shula coach the 1972 Miami Dolphins to a 17-0 season, and he took the University of Miami Hurricanes to a national championship in 1979. Officials will ask the state Board of Regents, during the next three months, to approve their plan for a team.
Football does something for a university nothing else does.
Predictably, many FIU faculty scorn football. Meanwhile, in another part of the nation where football is king, University of Oklahoma President David Boren echoes the sentiments of his counterparts at Florida Atlantic, Florida International and South Florida. It's wrapped up in the spirit and self-consciousness of the state. Strictly in terms of football, Seminoles fans had good reason to wring their hands over the fate of Warrick. His loss would have been the university's loss.