Six Turnovers by No. 2 Miami Give Game to No. 9 Florida St.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. â€”  On the last Saturday night in October, Florida’s two highest-ranked college football teams got together in a game that could affect what happens on New Year’s Day.

As officials from nine bowl games looked on, ninth-ranked Florida State defeated second-ranked Miami, 24-10, for the first time in five years in a weighty matchup probably important enough to be its own bowl game and certainly wacky enough to have its own name. Call it the Goof Bowl.

The Hurricanes committed six turnovers--two of them on the Seminole one-yard line--and are probably wishing right now that quarterback Craig Erickson’s injured hand gets well soon.

With Erickson in uniform but unable to play, redshirt freshman Gino Torretta had four passes intercepted and Miami (6-1) lost for the first time since he replaced Erickson three weeks ago.

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden had at last defeated the team that three times during the decade kept him from a perfect regular-season record.

“This feels real good,� he said. “It’s the way it should have been the last four years.�

The Seminoles (6-2) weathered 14 penalties that set them back 143 yards, mainly because of tailback Dexter Carter’s 142 yards rushing and a critical third-quarter goal-line stand.

Trailing 14-10, Miami had first and goal at the Florida State two-yard line. On third down, fullback Shannon Crowley fumbled as he dived into the line, and Kirk Carruthers recovered at the one for the Seminoles.

From there, a 99-yard drive took 5 minutes 34 seconds, finished when tailback Amp Lee squirted around left end for a touchdown and an unreachable, 21-10, Florida State lead.

That ill-fated Miami drive began after Hurricane Roland Smith intercepted a pass and Deondri Clark clipped Carter on the return. Carter picked up the flag and placed it on Clark’s head. More flags flew. The net result: a 15-yard penalty against Miami for the clip and two personal fouls worth 30 yards for the flag-as-a-hat.

If this was a seldom-seem event, so was the Hurricane defeat. Miami had won 40 of its last 42 games and was ranked No. 1 in rushing defense, allowing an average of 45.5 yards a game. Carter, a 5-foot-9 senior, led the way on the ground as the Seminoles rushed for 220 yards.

Torretta, who had a pass intercepted in the end zone in the first half with the ball on the Florida State one-yard line and Miami down only four points, had one final frustration left.

A first-and-goal at the five in the last two minutes fizzled on a fourth-down incompletion at the one, thus completing the hat trick--three times on the one, three times no score.

“If we had scored those times we were on their one-yard line, it would have been a different game,� said Miami Coach Dennis Erickson.

Florida State quarterback Peter Tom Willis completed seven of 20 passes for 129 yards, had one intercepted and was sacked twice. Torretta had better statistics and worse luck. He finished with 23 completions in 48 attempts for 208 yards, but he had the four interceptions and was sacked once.

“I made some bad throws and some of the guys didn’t get open, but I’ll take most of the blame for the loss,� Torretta said.

Torretta would probably like to forget a first half in which four of his passes were intercepted.

Miami trailed only 14-10 at the half, in spite of Torretta’s scattershooting--Hurricane receivers diving to the left, diving to the right, even diving out of bounds trying to catch passes.

Torretta became a starter when Erickson broke the knuckle on his right index finger in the Michigan State game, thus following in the storied line of Miami quarterbacks--from Jim Kelly to Bernie Kosar to Vinny Testaverde to Steve Walsh to Erickson.

It took only 23 seconds for Torretta to look like the end of the line. His rollout pass on the first play of scrimmage was intercepted by cornerback Terrell Butler at the Hurricanes’ 37-yard line.

On first down, the game’s second play from scrimmage, Carter took a handoff, looked to the inside of the line and then beat Miami safeties Hurlie Brown and Charles Pharm in a race to the goal.

So after nine seconds, Florida State held a 7-0 lead. But the Seminoles seemed to get the early jump on the Hurricanes before then.

Three skydivers dropped onto the playing field just before kickoff amid wild applause from the sellout crowd of 62,602. Then, as players from both teams crowded midfield, Florida State’s Seminole Indian mascot threw a flaming spear from horseback into the turf at the 50-yard line.

Actor Burt Reynolds was a guest and the Florida State player of 1955 provided color commentary on the Seminole radio network.

Not to be upstaged, Miami retaliated. Coaches from both sides had to restrain both Hurricane and Seminole players after the normally uneventful coin toss ritual became a shouting match and narrowly avoided degenerating into a gang-tackling.

The Hurricanes committed three personal fouls in the first half (Florida State had eight penalties), but their biggest goof was Torretta’s second interception.

A 65-yard Miami scoring drive, with an eight-yard touchdown pass from Torretta to Randal Hill as its conclusion, had tied the score at 7-7 after just three series.

Seminole fullback Edgar Bennett, whose uniform number is 22 and whose license plate reads “22 Reasons Y,� provided six of them with a touchdown on a three-yard run and a 14-7 lead that became 14-10 after Carlos Huerta’s 44-yard field goal.

When Miami moved 62 yards to the Seminole one, aided by three first downs because of penalties, Torretta had the Hurricane third-and-goal and the momentum on his side.

Torretta dropped back and lofted a pass intended for Randy Bethel in the corner of the end zone, but he underthrew his tight end and linebacker Kevin Grant intercepted the pass.