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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: FSU Edition

What went right, what went wrong, and everything in between Vs the Seminoles. Plus team grades.

By Jerry Steinberg
David Manning-USA TODAY Sports

Well that was fun.....  for a half.

More on that later.

Miami had FSU on the ropes, and like Louisville, NC State, and Notre Dame before them, let the luckiest team in the country off the hook.

That being said, Dalvin Cook is sick, and Florida State made just enough plays yet again.

Someone has a pretty air tight contact with the Devil.   If that seems colorful and distasteful I apologize, but how else can you explain it?

The Good:

  • The Atmosphere at Sun Life Stadium!  It felt like the old days at the Orange Bowl.

  • Great job by Antonio Crawford in coverage forcing a three and out on FSU's second possession to bail out Miami after a Clive Walford fumble gave FSU great field possession.
  • What a great second drive for Brad Kaaya, threading the needle twice to Phillip Dorsett including a perfect strike from 27 yards for the game's opening score. Kaaya was on fire in the first half.....

  • Three 3 and out for the D to start the game and 5 for 5 for UM on third downs on offense.  What third down woes?
  • We see your Dalvin Cook  long TD run and raise you Clive Walford from 61. Walford can seal his ticket as a John Mackey Award Finalist after tonight.
  • Deon Bush!  And Raphael Kirby!  Way to make plays.


The Bad:


  • Another blocked PAT for Michael Badgley.   Got to get that fixed.  (He did do a good job with a 45 yard FG shortly after)
  • Miami missed a few opportunities to really crush FSU early.  With a little more experience and touch, Kaaya hits Stacy Coley on a bomb in the first quarter. And Braxton Berrios should have hauled in a second quarter score that proceeded a missed FG.
  • Sunny Odogwu, you can't make that hit on the sidelines in punt coverage.
  • You can't get lucky every week, can you??

  • 4th Quarter crunching of Nick O'Leary resulted in what should have been a fumble,  and surprisingly was not even reviewed.   Yeah,  that lucky.

  • Lucky or not the Noles O line stonewalled Miami's front 4 in the second half.  Whether it was fatigue or not, you can't beat Winston giving him that much time.



The Ugly:

  • Hard to find much to complain about or label ugly. Some losses of composure on the field perhaps. But leading up to this game I was mostly pleasantly surprised that while both fan bases were confident, things rarely got ugly on social media or on this site. The players had some scuffles, but mostly it was a cleanly played game.  So clean FSU was only penalized once all night (rolls eyes).

Team grades:

Offense -

James Coley called an excellent game....in he first half..  And Kaaya executed it to perfection... in the first half.  Miami did a great job setting up the run with the pass... in the first half

Someone was prepared.

The second half was a whole other story.

grades


Defense -

Great start to the game, and when it looked like the Noles would cut it to a one score game just before the half, Grace and Bush made two huge plays.

No second half pass rush sealed this one.

grades


Special Teams -

What can you say?   Missed FG and XP doomed things.

grades



Coaches -

Al Golden jumping on the field to congratulate his team after Deon Bush forced a fumble is in opinion a man genuinely emotional about his squad.   X's and O's aside there is something to be said about that.

Something else to notice,  Malcolm Lewis and Walter Tucker throwing big blocks down field, continuing a recent trend of all out effort and unselfish play.

But the second half was way too conservative.......  They need to learn to finish games.

grades

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