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Several days after the loss to Georgia Tech, [Jim Copeland] reached an informal agreement to play in the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz. But on Tuesday, Arizona voters rejected a referendum to make a state holiday of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. On Wednesday, National Football League commissioner Paul Tagliabue recommended pulling the 1993 Super Bowl out of the Phoenix-Tempe area, and the political fallout quickly shifted to the Fiesta Bowl.

Don Meyers, Fiesta team selection chairman, has suggested the Fiesta change its date. That would allow officials to invite a Big Ten or Pac-10 team -- probably the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game. Under present rules, no Big Ten or Pac-10 team will accept a Fiesta invitation because it is played the same day and at about the same time that the Rose Bowl is played.

New Orleans is more convenient for most Cavaliers fans than Tempe; the Sugar is a more traditional bowl than the Fiesta, where Virginia's most likely opponent would have been the SEC runner-up; the Sugar pays $3.25 million per team, the Fiesta $2.5 million, which, after Atlantic Coast Conference revenue sharing, translates to $375,000 extra gross payout for Virginia.