Even though the Florida State Seminoles were right in the middle of their dynasty period, they had one small problem.

It was the Hurricanes of Miami.

Without Miami on their schedule, the Seminoles may have won as many as 5 to 8 national championships.

The 1987 season was the beginning of the Seminole Dynasty, but the only team they didn’t beat was the Miami Hurricanes. It did come down to the wire, with the Seminoles admirably deciding to go for 2 on their extra point instead of the tie. Man, who wants to tie? But, a tie could have meant a national title later in the year. The pass was deflected and the Canes ended up winning, 26-25, in a super exciting game. Jimmy Johnson and the Hurricanes won the national championship that season.

In 1989, the Seminoles actually beat Miami, but it was the Hurricanes that went on to win the

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national championship. In 1990, Miami was ranked 9th, but managed to beat 2nd ranked Florida State, 31-22.

Then, the 1991 and 1992 games were the Wide Right 1 and 2 games.

Miami had been a thorn in the side of the Florida State Seminoles for a while now.

In 1992, true freshman Tamarick Vanover was an incredible new player that made a huge difference in the game, even though it was a losing game for the Seminoles. In the 1993 season it was true freshman Warrick Dunn from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dunn was an incredible young man who was the oldest of 6 siblings, that lost their police woman mother in a robbery gone wrong. He has a tremendous story that would later effect many other lives including Clemson’s Deshaun Watson.

As good as the previous Florida State teams had been, this one may have been even better.

Quarterback Charlie Ward was now a senior and at the top of his game. He was backed again by future star Danny Kanell. Running back was in great shape with Sean Jackson and super freshman Warrick Dunn.

Wide receivers were the usual Florida State good with Kez McCorvey leading the way.  Tamarick Vanover, Matt Frier and Kevin Knox were also favorite Charlie Ward targets.

The Offensive line was led by center Clay Shiver, but also others like Juan Laureano and Patrick McNeil. They were young with Shiver and 3 others being sophomores and McNeil their only junior. With 4 excellent sophomore offensive linemen in the years before everybody left early for the NFL, the Noles would be good for at least a couple more years after this one.

On defense, All American Marvin Jones was off to the NFL, but not to worry with Derrick Brooks and Ken Alexander roaming around knocking down ball carriers without mercy.

Toddrick McIntosh and Derrick Alexander led the defensive line and the secondary had Clifton Abraham, Devin Bush and Corey Sawyer all back.

Yep, this team was good and stacked with talent and the pollsters had them ranked number 1 from the start.

They came to play, too. They began by crushing Kansas 42-0 and Duke, 45-7, before they got really impressive.

In game three, they hosted the Clemson Tigers who were ranked 21st in the country. It was a beating with the Seminoles just stomping the Tigers, 57-0. Beating Kansas and Duke by large scores was one thing, but beating a ranked team by such a large margin was stunning. Clemson went on to finish their season with a 9-3 record, so they were a pretty good team.

13th ranked North Carolina was next. Coached by Mack Brown, the Tar Heels would finish their

season with a 10-3 record. But, they were no match for the Noles who walloped them, 33-7.

To warm up for the up coming Miami game, the Seminoles just ripped Georgia Tech, 51-0.

3rd ranked Miami was up next and the Seminoles had to be thinking about Wide Right 1 and Wide Right 2. The Going for the Win game had to be going through their heads. Miami had to be in their heads. It’s probably not even possible to have had such bad luck against one team to not be thinking of that team.

However, this was the third year in a row there was a different kicker for Florida State and it’s completely understandable. Scott Bentley was this year’s Seminole kicker and hopefully things would work out better for him than the last two kickers.

Even though the Hurricanes were ranked 3rd and were 4-0 coming in to this game, if push came to shove, this team wasn’t really as good as the previous Miami teams. Quarterback Gino Torretta won the Heisman in 1992 and then was gone. Also gone were his outstanding receivers and a good portion of their defense. While there were stars on the team like Warren Sapp, Ray Lewis and Rohan Lewis, they were really young overall. About the only returning starters for the Canes were defensive ends Darren Krein and Kevin Patrick, plus offensive guard Rudy Barber and offensive tackle Zev Lumelski. Ray Lewis at middle linebacker was a  true freshman.

But, still, Miami is Miami and they had been a problem for Florida State so a lot of animosity and intensity followed the Hurricanes into Tallahassee for their October 9th, 1993 showdown.

Frank Costa and Ryan Collins were the new Miami quarterbacks, but neither was the next Gino Torretta, or Vinny Testaverde, or Steve Walsh. But, Frank Costa started against the Seminoles.

The new group of Miami receivers were big, with three of them over 6’4″ and tight end Syii Tucker measuring a bit taller at 6’6″.  Their other receiver, Jonathan Harris, was just plain old fast.

The Miami offensive line might have been better than year’s past with the addition of center KC Jones from Midland, Texas. With Jones at center, the Canes moved veteran Tirrell Greene over to guard and Rudy Barber returned at the other guard. Zev Lumelski returned at right tackle and he was possibly their best offensive lineman.

Future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Warren Sapp made his presence known on Florida State’s first offensive play after they had stopped the Miami offense. Sapp broke into the backfield and tackled Seminole running back Sean Jackson for a loss.

After a Charlie Ward pass to Kez McCorvey, Sean Jackson’s next run was just the opposite of his first. He took it around right end and broke a couple of tackles and outran everybody to the house on a 69 yard scoring run. Sean Jackson was a big running back, too, at about 6-2, 220.

Florida State 7, Miami 0.

Miami was fairly inconsistent on offense in 1993 which was understandable with new quarterbacks and receivers. But, Florida State had the number one scoring defense in the country and the Canes had their work cut out for them.
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Costa fumbled the snap on Miami’s next possession and Florida State recovered on the Miami 42 yard line. You can’t turn the ball over against bad teams, but especially not against the top ranked team in the country like Florida State. But, no harm down with the Hurricanes stopping the Seminole offense and forcing a punt.

That inconsistent offense of Miami, got the ball back at their own 20 and got an impressive drive going. They ran and passed the ball down to about the Florida State one yard line before they fumbled again. But, this time, they got the ball back. However, they lost yardage back to the 6 yard line. But, no problem, as Costa hit Donnell Bennett for a 6 yard touchdown pass.

7-7 all tied up now.

Bobby Bowden and about 70,000 Florida State fans in the stands had to be thinking about a possible Wide Right 3 right about then. But, it was still the 1st quarter.

These programs were two heavyweights of that time period. It was like a Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier fight in about the 3rd round. We had a long way to go in this one, but they were pounding

each other.

The first quarter had some more fireworks in store.

After a holding penalty set the Seminoles back 10 yards, star quarterback Charlie Ward was under heavy pressure. He rolled out right and spotted possession receiver Matt Frier deep. Ward hit Frier and Frier showed surprising speed in out running the Hurricane secondary for a 72 yard touchdown.

14-7 Florida State in the lead and a brief sighting of super star actor Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson on the extra point for Miami.

On the last play of the first quarter, super freshman running back Warrick Dunn finally made his presence known with a direct snap trick play when he converted into an impressive 27 yard run.

Warrick Dunn is a strong reminder of why people should help other people always. Give to others and they will in turn give to yet other people and make differences in others lives. Ask Deshaun Watson about Warrick Dunn and how Dunn made his life better.

Florida State started to take this game over in the early 2nd quarter and Ward led them down field and finished the drive himself with a short touchdown run to extend their lead to 21-7.

The Seminoles may have taken over the game, but the Canes still had fight in them. Near the end of the first half, the Rock got into the Seminole backfield and got a clean sack on Charlie Ward. I wonder if the Rock called Charlie Ward a Candy Ass, or a Jabroni, as he got off of him. Or, maybe he asked ‘can you smell what the Rock is cooking?’

He actually seemed a little more reserved than the super star Hollywood actor we know today.

The first half ended with the Seminoles leading 21-7.

The 3rd quarter was uneventful with the Noles still leading 21-7 going into the 4th quarter. Devin Bush, the father of Devin Bush Jr of Michigan who just finished up in 2018, made a big play to save a Miami touchdown early in the 4th quarter and Miami had to settle for a field goal.

21-10 with Florida State still leading.

With the game winding down, Miami quarterback Costa tried to make something happen and forced the ball into coverage. It was picked off by safety Devin Bush and he returned for a 40 yard

touchdown.

28-10, Florida State leading and game basically over with less than 5 minutes left.

The crowd went wild. Sensational true freshman running back Warrick Dunn had another great long run to excite the fans even more about the future.

Good thing the Seminoles didn’t need kicker Scott Bentley to win this game because he was kicking wide on all of his extra points.

Miami won a few more games that year, but lost to 9th ranked West Virginia up in Morgantown, 14-17. Then, they were crushed in the Fiesta Bowl by the Desert Swarm defense of Arizona, 0-29.

Head coach Dennis Erickson would last one more season before resigning and saying he felt sorry for his replacement at Miami.

The Canes had their breakthrough with Miami, then they crushed 15th ranked Virginia, 40-14. They followed up with a 54-0 beating of Wake Forest, and a big 49 – 20 win at Maryland.

 

However, the top ranked Seminoles ran into a little problem at South Bend, Indiana and they were upset by the 2nd ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish, 24-31.

The following weekend, the then 2nd ranked Florida State Seminoles annihilated the North Carolina State Wolfpack, 62-3. While up in Boston, the new number 1 ranked Fighting Irish were upset by Boston College when they missed a last second field goal.

It was back to number 1 for Florida State and they went on to beat 7th ranked Florida and 2nd ranked Nebraska to claim their first ever national championship.

1993 was Florida State’s breakthrough season. Bobby Bowden finally got his national championship.