2011 Florida State Seminoles Football: Florida State vs Virginia

It’s hard to put into words how remarkable the Virginia Cavaliers’ 2011 season has been. It’s also just as difficult to explain what happened at the end of Virginia’s one-point victory over the Florida State Seminoles on a crazy Saturday night in Tallahassee, Florida.

One of the nuttiest endings to a college football game unfolded at Doak Campbell Stadium in the Florida panhandle. When the craziness abated, Virginia – yes, Virginia – was still alive in the chase for the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coastal Division title. The Cavaliers earned the right to face archrival Virginia Tech for the Coastal crown on Thanksgiving Weekend, moving to 8-3 one year after finishing well below the .500 mark.

Just how did Virginia steal a win from Florida State? One can, in many ways, thank Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher.

With roughly 2:30 left, FSU – leading by a 13-7 score – was at the Virginia 30. Strong-legged Seminole kicker Dustin Hopkins, who had not missed a field goal all year, was getting ready to come onto the field to kick another three-pointer and give the home team an insurmountable two-possession lead (16-7) with precious little time on the clock. All Florida State needed to do was get a few yards. A running play would have made sense. A quarterback draw would have worked. Anything safe, anything which would have prevented a 14-yard sack from occurring.

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Well, Fisher ordered a slow-developing dropback pass which produced a 14-yard sack by Virginia. The play pushed the ball back to the UVA 44, knocking the Seminoles out of field goal range and giving Virginia the ball back with a chance to win. The Cavs’ offense had been dormant all night, but Virginia only needed to be superb on one drive to win the game.

Quarterback Michael Rocco got hot at the right moment. He completed four straight passes for 65 yards before Kevin Parks slammed into the end zone from 10 yards out to give Virginia a 14-13 lead (with the PAT) at the 1:16 mark of regulation. Jimbo Fisher had, in effect, made Virginia’s lead possible.

Florida State threw short of the sticks three times on its last drive, exhibiting poor clock management and the shaky coaching which often accompanies it. The third instance of throwing a pass short of the first-down marker was the most glaring example of Fisher’s failure as a coach. With under 20 seconds left and no timeouts, Florida State – at the Virginia 30 – could not afford to throw short of the marker and in bounds. Yet, that’s what the Seminoles did. The clock ran out and Virginia began to run off the field in triumph.

This is when the night became especially wacky. Replay showed that Florida State receiver Bert Reed trapped the pass he caught in bounds and short of the marker. The ruling weirdly but genuinely put time back on the clock, since an incomplete pass freezes time. The clock was reset to the point when the ball hit the ground. Florida State was able to send Hopkins back on the field, but the point still remained: Fisher butchered the final few minutes from the Seminoles’ sideline.

Then came the final screwy plot twist: Hopkins, given a chance to kick the field goal he couldn’t kick a few minutes earlier, finally did miss a kick. It veered wide left, bringing to mind all the missed field goals in the Bobby Bowden era at Florida State. This time, Virginia’s victory was final. It couldn’t have come about in a more ridiculously zany manner.

Florida State Seminoles vs Virginia Cavaliers Football Recap