The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: FSU Edition

We all know how important this game was for the program, the players, the fans, and recruiting.

And everything seemed right in the world when UM was up 13-0 in the early going.

UM gave up 20 straight unanswered points though.

They responded with what should have been the game tying TD but somehow the XP was blocked.

It’s been that kind of decade for Miami.

Sigh....

The particulars below:

The Good:

• Miami has still not allowed a point yet this season in the 1st quarter.
• This was a huge early play.

• And the trend continued on the second drive with RJ McIntosh getting one too.

• Nice to see Scott Patchan get some game action and get an early QB pressure.
• Great read by Jaquan Johnson on his second quarter INT.
• This was a great play call that led to UM’s first TD of the game, a few plays later when Kaaya connected with Coley.

• Corn Elder was once again, ridiculous. His NFL Draft stock has to be soaring, as me makes play after play.
• Ahmmon Richards continues to be as good as advertised.

The Bad:

• The monstrous shot Kaaya took on the opening play from Jacob Pugh. It perhaps affected him, as he seemed just a touch off all night.
• Bad 2nd Q running into the punter penalty on Ahmmon Richards cost Miami 20+ yards in field position.
• Miami failed to wrap up Dalvin Cook on a huge second quarter run and the result was a 54 yard run. They were lucky it Elder was able to catch him from behind.
• Kaaya was efficient some of the night, but his 3rd Q INT snuffed out a huge scoring opportunity. It was also a momentum killer.

• Gerald Willis was banged up (some kind of left leg injury) in he second half. Hopefully it isn’t serious.
• No one was near Cook on the wheel route that closed the game to 13-10.
• Kermit Whitfield’s 3rd Q TD to give the Noles the lead was aided by an apparent missed holding call, yet they called a very shaky one on Tyree St. Louis to wipe out a Mark Walton go ahead score.
• Elder was shaken up in the 3rd quarter. Ditto Anthony Moten in the 4th.
• Brandon Linder has really regressed.
• Awful call.......

• How do you let an XP be blocked in that situation?

The Ugly:

• Something has to go here. I don’t know what this type of intensity is necessarily “ugly” though.....

• This is funny, but yeah UGLY. “Something” you Seminoles, Seminoles “something” you (for those who don’t know the words).

• This end, this streak.

Team Grades:

Offense - The ‘Canes started out with two consecutive three and outs. A near miss from Kaaya to Coley in the 2nd Q would have been huge. Kaaya and Coley got it right a few series later. The UM QB took too much punishment on the night. The run game was never really there. Epic fail by a troubled O line unit, and BK wasn’t good enough to overcome it.

D

Defense - Kendrick Norton had a huge third down stop before Jackson’s deflection on 4th down ended the Noles opening drive. Norton was all over the place tonight, ditto Jackson. As good as Elder was, Adrian Colbert had some tough moments in coverage. The front 4 deflected a ton of passes, but Cook got off again against UM.

C

Special Teams - Great 1st punt by Justin Vogel, but a face mask penalty nullified the field position advantage. Corn Elder made a nice 2nd Q play though to back the Seminoles up. And Michael Badley’s 51 yard boot toward the end of the first half was money. A lot of starters were in on ST tonight, it helped. Berrios made a huge play, but not enough, because of a missed XP.

D

Coaching - There’s no doubt, the ‘Canes played hard and aggressive. There were far too many penalties though and that needs to be worked on. Mark Richt’s O mostly took what was given but was very vanilla and Manny Diaz’ D was again very good minus a few plays. A loss here is a fail though. Where was the creativity tonight? How do you end up losing this game?

D