Special teams affect title pursuit
Florida State may have fallen from contention after blocked kick.
ATLANTA — Another week, another wild finish in college football. It doesn’t even seem that improbable anymore.
If nothing else, Georgia Tech’s stunning victory over Florida State on a 78-yard return of a blocked field goal as time ran out — not to mention Michigan State shocking Michigan on the final play with a TD off a bobbled punt two weekends ago — demonstrates the importance of special teams, a phase of the game that often gets shortchanged. Many schools don’t have a fulltime special teams coordinator, handing the role to an assistant with other duties.
That’s the case at Florida State, where Jay Graham oversees the running backs as well as the kicking game.
“We know when there’s a blocked kick, you’ve got to cover it,” said Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher, whose team tumbled eight spots to No. 17 on Sunday and may have lost its shot at contending for a national title.
Florida State (6-1, 4-1 ACC) got caught flat-footed when Georgia Tech blocked Roberto Aguayo’s attempt at a winning field goal from 56 yards with 6 seconds remaining. Lance Austin picked it up at his own 22, took off the other way, and didn’t stop running until he gave the Yellow Jackets a 22-16 victory Saturday night.
While Aguayo was attempting the longest field goal of his career, he and Fisher insisted it was well within the kicker’s range. In fact, Georgia Tech had lost the previous week to Pittsburgh on a field goal from the same distance with just over a minute remaining. Aguayo had made 60 of 66 attempts for the Seminoles, never missing in the fourth quarter.
But when kicking from that far away, the trajectory must be a bit lower than an attempt from closer in. Patrick Gamble got a hand on the ball to seemingly force overtime.
Austin had other ideas. With the ball rolling deep into Georgia Tech territory, he took off after it even while some of his teammates were jumping around in celebration. On the sideline, coach Paul Johnson waved his arms and shouted for the sophomore to stay away from the ball. After a brief hesitation, Austin decided to pick it up anyway.
That seemed to catch the Seminoles off guard. Suddenly, Austin had a wall of blockers in front of him as he took off down the sideline in front of the Georgia Tech bench. Only two players really had a shot at him, but Aguayo missed a diving tackle and another Florida State player spun off Austin when he made a brilliant cut at the 20.
“It was kind of surreal,” Austin said.
Coaches leave: Miami fired coach Al Golden, one day after the Hurricanes endured the worst loss in the program’s 90-year history. Golden went 32-25 with Miami and 17-18 in ACC play. His last game was a 58-0 loss to then-No. 6 Clemson. Miami (4-3, 1-2) plays at Duke on Saturday, with Larry Scott as interim coach.
George O’Leary retired as Central Florida’s coach, effective immediately. He leaves UCF with an 81-68 record, but the Knights dropped to 0-8 with a 59-10 loss to Houston on Saturday. Quarterbacks coach Danny Barrett was named interim coach.