For the first time in 24 years, Florida St. and Miami are unranked in the polls. The following entry by Matt Carroll (mcarroll@dewberry.com) revisits the game between the two teams and argues that the game was a matchup of two anemic offenses rather than two amazing defenses.
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The first retrospective thought of the young college football season: Florida State at Miami. Many pre-season prognosticators had at least one of these teams playing for the national championship. The game was tight, low scoring, and played down to the wire. The game presented a fulcrum for all analysts. Did we just see two great defenses? Or two feeble offenses?
Most analysts touted the talent of these two teams, and therefore, concluded that it must be the great defensive talent. A mere month later, the real story is beginning to unfold.
FSU loses to a team (NC State) that just got their butt whipped by Southern Miss two weeks ago. And their superb defense? They gave up more points to NC State than the following teams did: Akron, Southern Miss, and Boston College.
Miami was flattened by Louisville. Yes, Louisville is a great team, but the score was 10-7 when Brohm went down. That's right. The whooping came from the backup, Hunter Cantwell. 21-0 to be exact. Miami's two wins you ask? A squeaker against powerhouse Houston 14-13, and a silver platter cupcake against I-AA Florida A&M.
It makes you wonder. What if you took away those meaningless numbers next to the school names on the TV scoreboard back on September 4th? And tried to extricate yourself from the aura of the two programs involved? Would this be a game that sparks your interest?
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The first retrospective thought of the young college football season: Florida State at Miami. Many pre-season prognosticators had at least one of these teams playing for the national championship. The game was tight, low scoring, and played down to the wire. The game presented a fulcrum for all analysts. Did we just see two great defenses? Or two feeble offenses?
Most analysts touted the talent of these two teams, and therefore, concluded that it must be the great defensive talent. A mere month later, the real story is beginning to unfold.
FSU loses to a team (NC State) that just got their butt whipped by Southern Miss two weeks ago. And their superb defense? They gave up more points to NC State than the following teams did: Akron, Southern Miss, and Boston College.
Miami was flattened by Louisville. Yes, Louisville is a great team, but the score was 10-7 when Brohm went down. That's right. The whooping came from the backup, Hunter Cantwell. 21-0 to be exact. Miami's two wins you ask? A squeaker against powerhouse Houston 14-13, and a silver platter cupcake against I-AA Florida A&M.
It makes you wonder. What if you took away those meaningless numbers next to the school names on the TV scoreboard back on September 4th? And tried to extricate yourself from the aura of the two programs involved? Would this be a game that sparks your interest?
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1 comment:
The first thought that comes to mind is sympathy for the two powerhouses.
That is, until I remember Dillardgate the way that Bobby Bowden gave a slap-on-the-wrist suspension to then-Heisman frontrunner Peter Warrick and completely shut out Lav Coles from the FSU program.
Forevermore, we can all remember how players from The U have avoided arrest.
The offensive talent at Miami is still strong. They are just young. At FSU, the talent level on the offensive side has dropped for years. Not to mention, the presence of Urban Meyer in the sunshine state can only disrupt the pipelines for obtaining talent.
Overall, I agree with your argument. Rankings can be very deceiving, especially in September. The next time that two rivals who know each other play, we must assume that the defenses are not as good as they seem due to familiarity.
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