Hurricanes, 'Noles Take Week 1 by Storm

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 ballgame, 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 timeout with 23 seconds 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.

"One thing that saved us is the timeout situation for Florida State," Shannon said Tuesday. "They didn't have a chance to call timeouts - they had the one run, had to call timeout, then that was the last one. So the next opportunity they had to throw the football. That was a big part of the plan - when it came down to those last seconds we knew they had to throw it, not run it."

Bowden also believed there was still on second left on the clock following Ponder's pass to Forston. A TV replay showed there was one second left with the ball on the ground, but the whistle had not yet blown. The whistle stops the clock.

"We thought we had a second left on the clock when that ball hit the ground," Bowden said. "But the officials said no, we didn't."

Bowden also called it a "game of quarterbacks," with good reason.

Ponder, who ran for 144 yards in last season's win at UM, completed 24 of 41 passes for 294 yards and two touchdowns. (He completed 15 of 20 for 175 yards in the first half). Bowden says it's the most settled FSU has been at quarterback since Chris Weinke.

UM's Jacory Harris, in just his third career start, threw for 386 yards, the most by a UM quarterback since Ken Dorsey had 422 yards against West Virginia in 2002, and the most ever by a UM quarterback against FSU. Harris also completed 7-of-9 passes for 122 and a touchdown after he was leveled by a hit in the second half that led to an interception for a touchdown and left him clutching his arm to his body as he made his way to the sidelines.

"Our guy could have won it as easily as their guy did. I need to hand it to their guy," Bowden said.

Harris helped make sure FSU was left to pick up the pieces, while UM is determined to build on its effort. Shannon reiterated on Tuesday that one victory doesn't make a season and he warned about pronouncing the once-proud program as being "back." Up next for the Hurricanes is 13th-ranked Georgia Tech, followed by 15th-ranked Virginia Tech and 14th-ranked Oklahoma.

"It's one win,'' Shannon said.

"We got coming up Georgia Tech, which is going to be a tough stretch for us. This now becomes like an NFL season. You've got to do certain things. You can't wear them out in practice. You've got to make sure the guys are healthy.

"[Are] we back as far as beating Florida State? Yes. Coming in the first game, which is good for us. They're still a young football team but we've got some veterans stepping up to carry the load for us. We're back in that instance.''

Since UM visits Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium every other year, the Hurricanes next trip isn't until 2011. That means Monday night's game could have been Bowden's last home game against UM. It seems likely that Bowden will have stepped down after two years; his expected successor, FSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, has a deal that says he'll be due $5 million if he isn't the coach after the 2010 season.

Shannon, for one, appreciates his pregame handshakes with Bowden.

"He's always been good to me, even when I was an assistant coach," Shannon said.

"Before the game I said 'How you doing, coach?' He said, 'Well, another one of these games, football, ESPN, nationwide TV.' He said, 'You can't get better than this.' We talked Miami-Florida State rivalry and good times. After the game he said `Gosh, I've never been around a game more exciting than this - maybe one or two others.' We wished each other good luck. We always say whatever we can do to help each other we will, and that comes from him and his coaching staff. A lot of coaches on his coaching staff I know very well, too. We all have great respect for each other as a coaching staff and as a football team."

That respect was demonstrated before the game when the two head coaches decided to follow through with a pre-game handshake as encouraged by the American Football Coaches Association and the NCAA. The teams went to their respective sidelines and then met each other at midfield to shake hands before heading to their locker rooms.

"It's a good thing to do," FSU Athletic Director Randy Spetman told the Tallahassee Democrat. "It doesn't matter when you do it. What matters is that you did it and show you're a good sportsman."

Of course, FSU has had to be a good a sport many times following its games against the Hurricanes.

"Some of the greatest games we've had since I've been here was 1987, when they beat us 26-25 -- that was one of the greatest games I've been around we've lost," Bowden said Monday night. "Next greatest game I've been around was Notre Dame in '93 when they beat us up there (South Bend, Ind.). This one here was probably the next greatest football game, and we've lost."

The Seminoles, however, should easily rebound at home on Saturday against Jacksonville State University, which is expected to have quarterback Ryan Perrilloux. Perrilloux, who threw for 2,318 yards last season, was suspended for the team's opening 37-17 defeat at Georgia Tech last week. Perrilloux played in all 12 games and started three for LSU in 2007.

FSU, which has dropped its last three home games, doesn't have much time to lollygag, however. The Seminoles will need to correct their mistakes and improve in obvious areas -- more productive in the red zone, tighten up their secondary, find a pass rush -- before its showdown at No. 9 BYU Sept. 19. That will be FSU's next opportunity to put an exclamation mark on another college football weekend