Florida State's Corey Simon returns for his senior season aiming for a national title.

As a returning all-American on the consensus No. 1 team, Simon could be expected to pattern himself after another former FSU defensive star, a guy who anointed himself "Prime Time." A guy who adorned himself in enough gold to sink a pirate ship.

Simon is different. Simon is disciplined. Florida State's nose tackle gets to class without being dragged, and is fastidious about keeping his apartment clean. He gets his hair cut every week, and attends church every Sunday.

On the football field, though, the 6-foot-2, 290-pounder revels in chaos, much of it of his own making. He's returned for a senior season many thought -- be it because of injury or the lure of the NFL -- that he would never see. And he's done so with one goal in mind -- winning a national championship.

"This will be my fifth year and I've been waiting and waiting," Simon said wistfully. "This is the last go-round ... I thought I'd have least two titles by now."

Perhaps as a method of compensation, Simon punishes opponents with an evangelical zeal. He is recognized as one of the top defensive players in the country after a season in which he led FSU with 16 tackles for loss and 65 total stops.

It was his first injury-free year since he was a redshirt freshman, when current NFL Rookie of the Year Randy Moss was his roommate.

But just last week Simon suffered an ankle sprain during the team's first workout in pads, which left him questionable for the Aug. 28 opener.

Last year he won the Atlantic Coast Conference's Brian Piccolo Award, named for the Wake Forest and Chicago Bears running back who died of cancer, for overcoming the injury string.

	AROUND THE ACC
	Clemson Duke Florida St. Georgia Tech Maryland N.C. State	North Carolina Virginia Wake Forest

On Saturdays this fall, Simon will have the wild-eyed look of a prophet. But away from the game, he is calm and soft-spoken, his words carefully chosen, for emphasis as well as meaning.

"There have been hurdles, I wouldn't call them setbacks," Minor said of the surgical procedures that have been as much a part of his college career as two-a-days. "At one time, I tried to put all the eggs in my basket into football and that was a mistake.

"It was a humbling experience for me. God was preparing my heart and my mind. It was his way of getting my attention. But to go through all the things I did, and have the season I had last year, I would do it all again."

Simon wears humility well. But the fit was not to his liking on a certain January night in Tempe, Ariz.

In the national championship loss to Tennessee, Florida State was hit with 12 penalties for 110 yards. Making Florida State's penalties seem worse was that many were illegal procedures, the type that are simply indefensible.

It forced him to swallow his pride, one of the few things he does not do gracefully.

"We were just undisciplined," Simon said. "You can't play a team like that and make those kinds of mistakes and expect to win. The fact is that we came up short.

"It's something you want to put out of your mind, but you know it's something you'll never forget. You look back on in the weight room training and on the field running sprints. It's not bitterness, it's become motivation."

Make no mistake, this is a player, and a team, that expects to win. The lingering taste of the Fiesta Bowl defeat is a bad one. But it created a legacy that has become Simon's singular competitive purpose.

It's been a tremendous driving force," he said. "We have the maturity on this team that knows what it takes to work hard and get better every day. As long as we come together and stay together as a team, that national championship is not very far away."