TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State may have fallen from the Associated Press Top-25 poll Tuesday, but that’s not to say the Seminoles have fallen out of favor, at least in the eyes of veteran coach Bobby Bowden.
Bowden never gets much sleep after a loss, and FSU’s exasperating 38-34 defeat to rival Miami Monday night at Doak Campbell Stadium was enough to keep Bowden tossing, turning and wondering what-if. Yet, he remains optimistic about a team that helped put an exclamation mark on the opening week of the college football season.
Fans actually needed the Labor Day drama in the Florida Panhandle. In a weekend when most of the marquee games failed to deliver — and another delivered a sucker punch to the chin — with a pall coast over the BYU win, thanks to the Sam Bradford injury, FSU-Miami showed that a good time can still be had by all as summer advances into autumn.
Of course, it was the Seminoles who had to swallow hard and search for a silver lining after they tumbled to the Hurricanes on the game’s final play less than 24 hours earlier. That’s when quarterback Christian Ponder’s pass on third-and-goal from the 2 was a tad low — but it could have been caught — by receiver Jarmon Forston in the end zone. An open Forston was unable to hold on to the ball as he tried to scoop the pass near the ground.
“You watch the game and there are just so many times you could have won it,” Bowden said Tuesday.
“I guess they could say the same thing. The first ball game, we looked at it and we see mistake after mistake after mistake. We probably out-mistaked them.”
Clock management was one of those mistakes for the Seminoles in a game that featured seven lead changes and 72 total points, 32 scored in the fourth quarter. FSU could have benefited by saving a few more seconds on the final drive. It also needed the timeout it had burned earlier in the fourth quarter to set up a two-point conversion after the kicking team sprinted out on the field.
With a crowd of 81,077 whipped into an emotional frenzy, 36 seconds remained in the game when Ponder hit tight end Caz Piurowski for an 8-yard gain to the UM 4. The Seminoles, however, lined up incorrectly on the next play as the clocked ticked down. UM, shuffling in personnel, called time out with 23 second remaining. Thirteen ticks were lost.
The Seminoles were forced to use their final timeout after Ponder, on the option, lost a yard to the UM 5 with 17 seconds left. Not even a pass interference call on the Hurricanes that gave FSU first-and-goal from the 2 with 14 seconds helped the Seminoles. Ponder fired three incomplete passes to end the game, the last on a rollout to his right as UM blitzed.
“Boy, we would have used that timeout,” Bowden said.
UM coach Randy Shannon agreed.
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Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden, center, runs the sidelines trying to get the attention of an official during an NCAA college football game against the Miami Hurricanes, Monday, Sept. 7, 2009, in Tallahassee, Fla. Miami won 38-34.(AP Photo/Phil Coale)
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