MIAMI -- Roland Seymour walked around the locker room,
pausing to speak to each of his Florida State teammates.
"We're going to bounce back. Don't even worry about it,"
Seymour said.
|  | | History again reared its ugly head over Florida State on Saturday. |
The Seminoles might, but it won't make Saturday's loss to Miami
any easier for them to handle.
Four times in the first half, the Seminoles failed to score from
inside the Hurricanes' 26. Chris Weinke threw two interceptions.
And two other times, Florida State passed on easy field goals and
came up empty -- once on a failed fourth-down run from the 16; the
other on an incomplete pass from the 13.
"All we have to do is kick field goals instead of going for it
on fourth down and we win," Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden said.
It helps to make them, too.
Matt Munyon missed two field goals, including a 49-yarder that
sailed wide right on the final play of the game to give No. 7 Miami
a 27-24 victory over top-ranked Florida State.
"It just went right," said Munyon, who also shanked a
22-yarder in the fourth quarter. "I got all of it. I couldn't have
kicked it any harder, but the accuracy just wasn't there. It
started fading back. It didn't just come back enough."
Neither did the Seminoles.
Shut out in the first half, Florida State took a 24-20 lead with
1:37 to play in the game. The players celebrated, jumping around on
the sidelines and exchanging handshakes and high-fives.
But the game was far from over.
Miami, led by sophomore quarterback Ken Dorsey, drove 68 yards
in 51 seconds to put the Hurricanes back in front for good.
Weinke, slowed all week by a sore left foot, had one last shot.
But he didn't get the Seminoles close enough for the tying field
goal -- especially with Munyon, who has made just three of eight
field-goal attempts this season.
Weinke completed 29 of 58 passes for career-high 496 yards -- 12
yards shy of the school record -- and had three touchdowns despite
playing with limited mobility. He wore a hard plastic covering to
protect the foot and had it heavily wrapped with tape.
"It was pretty sore," he said. "I probably played at about 75
percent."
Still, Weinke wasn't the problem.
The defense was.
Dorsey threw for 328 yards and two touchdowns. Santana Moss, who
caught nine passes for 180 yards against Florida State last season,
had seven receptions for 115 yards. James Jackson also ran for 98
yards.
"Their talent showed today," Bowden said. "We did not whip
them up front like we did in the past. They whipped us."
Defensive end Jamal Reynolds, who entered the game with 10
sacks, was held to just one tackle.
"No excuses," Reynolds said, declining to say anything more
about the loss.
Nothing else really needed to be said.
Now the Seminoles must win the rest of their games -- which
includes home games against Florida and Clemson -- to get back in
the national championship picture. They might also need some help
from the Hurricanes, who play Virginia Tech next month.
"Our goal now is to win the rest of our games," Weinke said.
"We're definitely capable of doing that, and then we could be
right back in the hunt."
| |
ALSO SEE
Wide right again: Miami upsets top-ranked Florida State
|
