http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/sports/ncaafootball/rose-bowl-game-florida-state-seminoles-oregon-ducks-fortunes-reputations.html 2014-12-30 20:55:35 Florida State and Oregon Football Programs Find Roles Reversed Before Florida State returned to prominence, Oregon was regularly derided as a symbol of college football’s ruinous excesses. The two teams will meet on Thursday in a national semifinal. === LOS ANGELES — Florida State’s resurrection as a college football power, culminating in a national championship last season and one of four berths in the inaugural playoff system this season, has been tainted by a string of arrests and investigations surrounding more than a dozen of its players. So it was no surprise that the Seminoles arrived in Southern California ahead of Thursday’s Rose Bowl match against Oregon typecast as the villain. Coach Jimbo Fisher confronted questions about his program — “We feel like we do things right, so we just got to keep doing it,” he said Monday. Last year’s Heisman Trophy winner, Jameis Winston, who has faced How quickly roles change in the fast-moving tide of college football. Before Florida State came back to prominence, Oregon was regularly derided as an apocalyptic sign of college football’s ruinous excesses, a toxic mix of money and scandal. Five years ago, a football program that rose from obscurity by brazenly embracing its “ Mark Helfrich, Oregon’s second-year coach, was a Ducks assistant under Chip Kelly at the time. They tried to keep control of the antics and the program’s souring reputation. “Those things are always interesting in terms of the level of notoriety some things gain,” Helfrich said Monday. “But we absolutely want to do the right thing on and off the field 100 percent of the time. And our guys know that, our coaches know that, our recruiting department knows that.” In the past few years, Helfrich said, Oregon renewed its effort to recruit players it could trust not to create problems — “Being able to say no to that guy, and not going, ‘Comma, but he’s a really good football player,' " Helfrich said. “That doesn’t matter.” Immunity is never certain. Oregon will face Winston and the Seminoles without the star cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, out with a knee injury. That puts pressure on the veteran cornerback Troy Hill, who in December 2013 was arrested and faced charges of assaulting a girlfriend (one charge was for strangulation). He was suspended indefinitely and missed last season’s Alamo Bowl, and said Monday that he was thankful to be reinstated for this season after accepting a plea deal. “I don’t want to be that type of person,” Hill said Monday. “I ain’t really that type of person.” But perception is reality, as Winston said of his own diminished reputation. On the Seminoles, he is among at least a dozen players A rape allegation became public in 2013, as Winston led Florida State to an undefeated season. A questionable investigation found a lack of evidence, clearing Winston’s name, legally, shortly before he won the Heisman. Earlier this month, a student-conduct hearing at Florida State Last spring, Winston was caught shoplifting $32.72 worth of crab legs and crawfish from a grocery store. (He denied initial reports that he stole butter, saying that he put it back because he did not need it.) He earned a citation, 20 hours of community service and became the subject of He also has a 27-0 record as a starter and is expected to contend with Mariota to be the first overall choice in this spring’s N.F.L. draft. The Rose Bowl is just the start of what might be a long rivalry between the two. For now, Mariota is portrayed as the good guy in the flawless-versus-lawless story line. Even driving 88 m.p.h. in a 55-m.p.h. zone at 12:46 a.m. in November did not taint that perception. On Monday, Mariota did not entertain the story line with Winston and certainly did not consider him a “bad guy,” as a questioner put it. “I don’t think about it that way,” he said. “My interactions with him have been good, and that’s not my opinion.” Winston more playfully combated the query. “At the end of the day, we’re both pretty good players on the football field, and that’s what we focus on,” he said. “He’s a great guy. And I’m a great guy, too.” Even Oregon’s reputation for audaciously upsetting college football norms, long criticized by traditionalists, has softened. Stabs at attention — including the 2001 Helfrich tempers the brashness with cheerfulness and good humor. Mariota, especially, has helped bring a nice-guy perception to the Ducks. Relatively scandal-free, it can be easy to view the Ducks as the good guys. But reputations change, and the one that Florida State has forged does not seem to bother the Seminoles. Fisher believes it will shift again. “We feel like our program is as good as anybody’s in America,” Fisher said. “We have great kids. We have better kids than we have players in our program.” Fisher recently signed an eight-year contract, through 2022, that will pay him about $4 million per year, plus incentives. If the contract is like the five-year deal it replaces, signed just last January, Fisher can earn up to $75,000 for his team reaching various academic standards. But he would receive $200,000 for winning Thursday and another $200,000 for winning the national championship game — plenty of incentive to “keep doing it.”