JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The list is long, but not too long.

Ask anyone who covers college football, is around the game in a professional capacity or even just the better-than-casual fan to name some of the best coaches in the country.

Oklahoma's Bob Stoops will be mentioned.

Invariably, Butch Davis, who leads North Carolina, will come up at some point, too.

And Bobby Bowden, who has the second-most number of wins in Division I with 388, has to be pushed into the conversation.

There are other names, to be certain, but those three are on a not-too-lengthy list.

Know what else those three men have in common?

If everything goes as planned for West Virginia in the Gator Bowl today against Florida State, Mountaineers coach Bill Stewart -- sometimes maligned by his own fan base and questioned, at length, as to whether he is the right man for the job -- will have beaten all three of them at the end of a college football season.

As interim coach in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2, 2008, Stewart's Mountaineers team -- ranked 11th and still reeling from the departure of Rich Rodriguez -- ripped through No. 3 Oklahoma, 48-28.

Scouting report

Matchup: No. 18 West Virginia (9-3) vs. Florida State (6-6), 1 p.m. today, Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, Jacksonville, Fla. The Mountaineers are favored by 3.

TV, Radio, Internet: KDKA-TV; WWVA-AM (1170) and Mountaineer Sports Network.

West Virginia: Comes in having won three of it past four games, even as the Mountaineers have not scored more than 24 points in any of those contests. ... Florida State has won both former meetings between the two schools, at Gator Bowls in 1982 and 2005. ... Is 3-9 in bowl games against Atlantic Coast Conference teams. ... Has won four consecutive bowls, two of them BCS bowls. ... RB Noel Devine (12 rushing, 1 receiving) and QB Jarrett Brown (11 passing, 5 rushing) account for the bulk of an offense that has scored 40 touchdowns this season.

Florida State: Is appearing in its 28th consecutive bowl, the nation's longest streak. ... Will start backup QB E.J. Manuel, who started the last three games of the season because of a shoulder injury to usual starter Christian Ponder. ... Gained at least 400 yards in nine games and surpassed 500 yards in three games this season. ... Has one common opponent with the Mountaineers -- South Florida. Both teams lost to the Bulls; West Virginia lost, 30-19, and Florida State went down, 17-7.

Hidden stat: The Big East Conference is 14-4 in its past 18 bowl games and 2-0 this season as Pitt and Rutgers have won. Cincinnati also plays today, with South Florida and Connecticut playing in bowls tomorrow.

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It was a win that Stewart parlayed into getting the full-time job a few hours later, in the middle of the Arizona night.

In Stewart's first full year on the job, he edged Davis' Tar Heels in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, 31-30.

And at 1 p.m. today, Stewart has a chance to sour the going-away party for a legend, when the Mountaineers play Florida State in Bowden's final game in the Gator Bowl.

Stoops, Davis and Bowden have a combined 575 college wins, with Stewart 19-7 in his two seasons and that bowl win against Oklahoma.

So, what of this chance to go 3-0 in bowl games and beat three really good coaches along the way?

The answer was typical Stewart -- deflecting all the attention away from him.

"If we play fast, hard and strain, and we stay focused, I think we can win," he said. "The key to winning bowl games has been having healthy young men, it isn't about Bill Stewart. It is about players, not this old guy."

This Gator Bowl, surely, has been about someone else: Bowden.

Which is why, even though Oklahoma went into that game a few seasons ago pegged at No. 3 in the country and the Seminoles are just 6-6, this could be just as tough of a matchup.

From front to back of this town, from Jacksonville's swankiest restaurants to its bucket-of-beer dive bars, all the talk -- even with a horde of Mountaineers fans descending on this place -- has been centered on Bowden.

Just yesterday, in the middle of a private banquet inside a Hyatt ballroom, Bowden excused himself to use the restroom down a hallway.

When he went in the restroom (flanked by security) there were just a few people outside milling around.

In the less than five minutes it took for him to emerge and make his way back into the ballroom, dozens of autograph seekers had lined his route, hoping to get a moment with the coach.

More than 300 former Florida State players are expected to attend today's game; Bowden will walk through a gauntlet of an expected few-thousand fans from his team bus to the stadium.

On the other side, all through this week of preparation, there has been Stewart, quietly, unassumingly, marching his team along.

"I told Bill [Stewart] a few times that I apologize to him for all of this," Bowden said, explaining the pomp that has surrounded Florida State all week even as West Virginia has a 9-3 record. "I knew this was the way it was going to be here. They are all trying to pat me on the back and [West Virginia] is bringing in a ballclub that was better than we were this year."

Stewart has spoken, a few times heading into this game, about how playing second-fiddle to Bowden is just fine by him.

"This is all about a legend," Stewart said. "[Bowden] does things the right way. I am just a drop in the bucket to him."

And, perhaps, another very good coach he defeats in a bowl game.

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