Tallahassee, Fla. – Miami and Florida State. Separated, the two names represented college football power in its highest form in the 1990s. For 17 consecutive seasons, from 1986 to 2002, one or both were in the hunt late for a national title.
Tied together with a hyphen, Miami-Florida State often represented the biggest game of the year, a clear path to the national crown riding on the outcome.
But tonight’s Miami-Florida State game at 82,300-seat Doak Campbell Stadium may not represent the biggest game of the Labor Day weekend.
While current No. 9-ranked Miami fell to 11th in last season’s final Associated Press poll, Florida State’s fall has been more pronounced over a longer period of time. Since winning the 1999 national title and finishing fifth in the 2000 poll, the Seminoles have not ended up in the top 10, finishing 15th a year ago. They started this year ranked 14th.
“The last four years our program have really, definitely been going in the wrong direction,” said Peter Tom Willis, a Florida State quarterback in the late 1980s and now a radio analyst.
Tonight’s game also may not pull anyone from their barbecue, because it’s not usually a rivalry when one team has won six straight in the series, as Miami has, and is favored by three points to make it seven.
“Quite honestly,” Willis said, “we haven’t had the quarterback play the last three or four years.”
Thirty-year FSU coach Bobby Bowden once preferred not to start a quarterback who wasn’t at least a redshirt junior. That guideline has gone by the wayside in recent years as attrition hit that spot like few others.Starting tonight for the Seminoles will be Drew Weatherford, a redshirt freshman who played one snap a year ago.
If Weatherford fails, Bowden must turn to Xavier Lee, another redshirt freshman. If they fail, a Seminoles nation slowly losing patience will continue to barbecue offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden, Bobby’s embattled son. Despite the losses of top assistants in recent years such as Mark Richt to Georgia and Chuck Amato to North Carolina State, Florida State continues to recruit well.
“This year will be an interesting measuring stick – and Jeff knows this – to determine where exactly he is in the maturation process as an offensive coordinator,” said Keith Jones, a former Florida State safety and now a TV analyst with Sun Sports. “He’s handicapped this year because starting is a redshirt freshman.
“But Wyatt was an overachiever,” he said, referring to Wyatt Sexton, last year’s starter, who is sidelined because of Lyme disease. “He was as good as he was going to get.”
Willis isn’t so kind. He said Bobby Bowden has been too insistent in trying to find another Charlie Ward, the 1993 Heisman Trophy winner, who could run and throw.
“I really believe what we should go after is someone who can drop back and throw the ball accurately with the intangibles of being smart, who can read defenses,” Willis said. “We’ve gotten away from that.”
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
