JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There is one thing you can say with some certainty this morning. West Virginia’s 33-21 loss to Florida State in the Gator Bowl was its worst loss of this decade.

Unless you want to count the basketball team’s 77-62 loss at Purdue.

Either way, Friday was a miserable day to be a Mountaineer.

The shame of it was that there were two West Virginia players who went mostly unrecognized but deserved a better fate. We’re not talking here about Noel Devine, who was the Mountaineers’ most valuable player in the Gator Bowl with 168 rushing yards, including a school record 70-yard run that was the longest ever in a bowl by a WVU player.

However, maybe we should talk about Devine right here and now, for there’s a strong possibility we have seen the last of him, at least in college. He’s eligible to head to the NFL and, to be honest, about the only thing he can gain from another year at WVU is a degree, and while that is an important item, his ultimate destination is the NFL.

Devine swears at present that he has not made any decision.

“I’m going to have to research it,” he said, knowing he has until Jan. 15 to request the NFL to tell him what it believes his status is in the draft.

But with three children and a far brighter football future than most graduates have these days in the business world, it would make sense to make an end run around that senior season and begin working toward building a career that could take him to Canton, Ohio, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Devine, however, is a subject for another day. Today, instead, it is best to focus on a pair of defenders who left their mark — and quite a few bruises — on the few Florida State ball carriers who were tackled during the day — sophomore safety Robert Sands and senior middle linebacker Reed Williams.

You could not measure Sands’ performance in this game with anything less than a seismograph for tackle after tackle that he recorded registered 5.0 and up on the Richter scale. True, he did not separate any Seminole runners from the football, but there were a whole lot of them who were separated from their senses as he delivered sledge-hammer blows.

Defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel suggested that the problem with the WVU defense, which gave up 30 points for just the first time since the South Florida loss, was that Sands had to make too many tackles from his safety position.

“No,” Sands corrected, “I didn’t make enough.”

While that probably is a terrible misstatement, Sands is the kind of player who you believe can make every tackle. Some of things he did on this day were truly unbelievable as he ranged from sideline to sideline, a literal tackling machine.

Not that he pleased himself.

“I could have played harder,” he said. “When you come up short you always feel like that.”

If he had played any harder, Gov. Charlie Crist would have had to have declared the FSU locker room a disaster area.

Sands has been a project this season. For whatever reason, after he turned in an impressive freshman season, Coach Bill Stewart choose not to start him in the first four games, saying he had not done enough to earn a starting role.

Not one to cut off his nose to spite his face, Stewart would get him into the game on the third series and let him play most of the rest of the way, but he managed to deliver a message for Sands season turned around in the fifth game when he was put in the starting lineup.

“After I got my starting spot back you could see the difference,” Sands said.

He was driven and it showed in his play as each week he became a bit more daring, a tad faster, more aggressive.

And now?

“I can’t wait for next year to start,” he said, his voice raising an octave. “I’d like next year to start right now. I can’t wait for the next game.”

He’s one of the lucky ones. Reed Williams isn’t sure there is a next game.

Williams went out with a big effort, finishing second to Sands’ 11 tackles with 9.5 of his own, many of them just as punishing.

Now, he admits, he needs a break, time to let his ouchy shoulders heal.

It has been assumed those shoulders, which kept him out last year after surgery, would not allow him to pursue an NFL career, but there’s something in every athlete that won’t let him accept that the end has come.

“It’s a weird feeling,” Williams admitted. “I don’t think I’m finished yet. The competitor in me tells me that I’d be cheating myself if I quit now.”

And so Williams will give it a shot, the odds being against him, but the thing is in the world of sports, you never really know what lies ahead.

Do you think Bobby Bowden thought he’d be coaching at 80 when he got his first job?

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.