JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- West Virginia, with a 9-3 record, has half as many losses as the unranked, 6-6 Florida State team it is going to play Friday in the Gator Bowl.

Florida State went through a stretch this season in which it lost three consecutive games and comes into this Gator Bowl with virtually no momentum, losing its regular-season finale by 27 points to Florida and never enjoying a span where it won more than twice in a row.

The No. 18 Mountaineers, conversely, won two in a row to end the regular season -- including a victory against arch-rival Pitt, a top-10 team -- and were also 6-1 at one point.

On the face of it, West Virginia should ride past this .500 team. It could happen, but it is just a matter of, quite simply, which Florida State team shows up.

The game

• Matchup: West Virginia (9-3) vs. Florida State (6-6).

• When: 1 p.m. Friday

• TV: KDKA.

• On the Web: Join Colin Dunlap at 1 p.m. for his chat from the Gator Bowl at www.post-gazette.com.

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"Is it going to be the Florida State team that took Georgia Tech to 49-44?" West Virginia coach Bill Stewart asked, referring to the Seminoles' Oct. 10 narrow loss.

"Is it going to be the Florida State team that went to Provo? How many of you have ever been to Provo? I've been to Provo. It's the Death Valley of the West. It's a very difficult place to play. [Florida State] dismantled a top-20 [Brigham Young] team and made them look bad. My friend, [BYU coach] Bronco Mendenhall, was very displeased that day. Now, is it going to be the team that beat North Carolina [30-27] in Chapel Hill? I hope not."

A deeper look into the statistics yields a claim some of the West Virginia people have been making: Florida State is one of the best 6-6 teams in a long time.

Consider this: The Seminoles have scored more points than West Virginia (358-319), have amassed 33 more first downs (258-225), have put together more offense (5,063 yards against 4,579) and, in that, have thrown for almost 1,000 more yards (3,345-2,377).

Perhaps the most frustrating part of all for Bobby Bowden, as he gets set to conclude his coaching career, is that he recognizes how close this season was to being something more than 6-6.

"I mean this: There has been one play in just about all of those six losses where, if it had gone the other way, things could have been different," Bowden said. "I am not saying we would have won those games, but there was one play, in all of those games, where had it gone a little bit different, we would have been in a situation where we could have won."

But the Seminoles did not. And, to a large degree, West Virginia has become second banana this week (mainly because of the Bowden story line) to a .500 team.

The local media coverage, partially because Florida State is playing within its home state, has a Seminoles-centric feel.

The front windows of sports merchandise stores are teeming with Florida State apparel.

The local newspaper has been running a house advertisement the past few days, trumpeting a special section devoted to Bowden that it plans to publish Friday.

As for the West Virginia players, some seem oblivious to the hoopla and are just ready to play a football game against whatever team is on the other side.

"We don't look at anybody's record," West Virginia fullback Ryan Clarke said. "Honestly, we are just going to go out and play them with the same intensity, with the same force, and we are just going to try to destroy them in the bowl game."

West Virginia quarterback Jarrett Brown was a tad more reserved.

"They are inconsistent at times," he said of the Seminoles. "We don't know what team we are going to get. The one that played BYU, or the team that played Florida."

But there is one variable West Virginia can control.

"All we can do is come out the way we know how," Brown said. "We just have to do what we do and worry about the West Virginia team that shows up."

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