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FSU’s Rolle hopes to bowl over rival

By Staff | Dec 27, 2008

ORLANDO (AP) – Florida State junior safety Myron Rolle remembers the bruises he suffered while facing Wisconsin Badgers tailback P.J. Hill when they were in high school.

Rolle says the 236-pound Hill was nearly as big back when the two played for New York City area schools.

“I understand what kind of running back he is,” Rolle told the Wisconsin State Journal while preparing for Saturday’s Champs Sports Bowl. “He tore us up in high school. Hopefully, I don’t let that happen again.”

The powerhouse teams Hill played for at Brooklyn’s Poly Prep handily defeated Rolle’s team at The Hun School in Princeton, N.J., twice.

“It was tough to bring him down, me and a lot of my teammates,” Rolle said, “but their field was awful in Brooklyn. If you talk to him, tell him, Poly Prep needs to get their field better.”

Rolle and Hill won’t be the only rivals with a history when Wisconsin (7-5) takes on Florida State (8-4) Saturday. The Badgers’ Jay Valai and Seminoles’ Christian Ponder have been friends since they met in sixth grade in Texas, but this is the first time they meet on the field.

“I’ve got to get into his head,” said Valai, UW’s starting strong safety. “That’s always been my job to get into his head. It’s going to be fun.”

Ponder is in his first season as the Seminoles’ No.1 quarterback.

“He’ll bring the wood,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of Valai. “He comes downhill fast and he’ll hit you, but that’s always how he has been.

“I think he carries a chip on his shoulder – we always joke about how short he is – and I think he tries to make up for that. He has had a heck of a season.”

Valai finished the regular season fifth on the team with 53 tackles and first in forced fumbles with three. His hit on Minnesota tailback Shady Salamon, which sent Salamon’s helmet decal flying, is on YouTube.

“When you’ve made YouTube you’ve finally made it,” said Valai, who’s listed at 5-foot-9 and 192 pounds.

Valai and Ponder consider themselves friendly rivals, and a little smack talk about Saturday’s game has already been exchanged.

“There was always a little rivalry, who was the better athlete and stuff,” Ponder said. “I was always the better athlete.”

Not in middle school, Valai said.

“He was a corner,” he said. “He was too terrible to play quarterback in sixth and seventh grade. Now he is good enough.”

Saturday’s bowl game will be Rolle’s last college match. He recently won a Rhodes Scholarship and will forgo his final year at Florida State to study in Oxford, England.

Rolle is second on the team with 57 tackles and expected to be instrumental in the Seminoles’ attempts to stop UW’s power running game. The Seminoles had problems during their 27-17 loss to Boston College, which was probably the closest comparison they’ve had this season to what they will face against the Badgers.

“That was just a bad game,” Rolle said. “We didn’t tackle well. The size issue with B.C., I don’t think that affected it too much. It was more about what we didn’t do to win that game. We’re going to change that this weekend. I think we’ll do a lot better.”