Is Miami returning to the national stage?
Miami-Florida State once was college football’s biggest game. Not necessarily the biggest rivalry — OU-Texas, Ohio State-Michigan, AlabamaAuburn stake those claims, even when their matchups leave marbles on the table — but the most important game.
From 1987 through 2000, Florida State finished in the AP top five every single season and won two national titles. Meanwhile, Miami won national titles in 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 2001. Their early-October game annually helped set the national order.
But the Hurricanes slumped after Larry Coker coached the 2001 title, and Miami hasn’t finished in the top 10 since 2003 and has finished in the top 20 only four times since. Meanwhile, the Seminoles eventually slumped late in Bobby Bowden’s tenure, and only in the last five years, under Jimbo Fisher, has Florida State returned to its exalted state.
And it’s not like 2017 is a return to the glory days of this series. Florida State lost quarterback Deondre Francois and has limped to a 1-2 record. Miami is 3-0 but largely untested, outside of a trip to Duke. The Hurricanes are ranked 13th, but the Seminoles are unranked.
But it’s definitely time for Miami to change the slide in this series, which resumes Saturday in Tallahassee. The Seminoles have won seven straight from Miami. Beating Florida State would give the Hurricanes the appearance of returning to greatness.
“There’s a reason we play them every year, and they’re better rivalries when there’s some winning and losing on both sides, and that hasn’t happened lately,” Miami coach Mark Richt said this week.
“Florida State’s a really good program. (The losing streak) happened. It’s in the past. And I don’t worry too much about it. We don’t have a kid that’s been here seven years.”
A victory would stamp Miami as the favorite in the ACC’s Coastal Division. A loss would show that the balance of power in the ACC is heavily tilted toward the Atlantic Division, which boasts Clemson, FSU, Louisville and North Carolina State.