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One of team's few veteran receivers is using crucial Orange Bowl misplay as motivation this season.
By BRIAN LANDMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2001
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida State receiver Robert Morgan knows the play could have made his, and the team's, season.
With the Seminoles trailing Oklahoma 6-0 early in the fourth quarter of last season's Orange Bowl and facing a crucial second and 10 from the OU 35, Morgan streaked past star cornerback Derrick Strait and flung himself toward the spiraling ball in the left corner of the end zone.
"He did a good job of getting around me, and I thought for a quick second he was going to make the catch," Strait said. "He dove out and made a good play for the ball."
Not good enough.
The ball slipped through Morgan's outstretched hands.
But instead of moping or offering excuses, he candidly calls it a "drop," and he has embraced it to feed his already intense singularity of purpose. For Morgan knows the play can perhaps make his, and his team's, year in 2001.
"When I think about it, I look at it as an opportunity and I let it get away from me," he said during FSU's media day Sunday morning. "Now, I'm looking forward to the opportunity this year."
To make the tough and the easy catch alike.
To not allow a great chance, or any chance, to slip through his hands again.
The No. 6 Seminoles need that from him. They lost star Marvin "Snoop" Minnis, a consensus first-team All-America and Biletnikoff finalist, to the NFL draft, then Anquan Boldin, second among the receivers in catches (41) and third in yards and touchdowns (664, 10), when coaches switched him back to his high school position, quarterback, in the spring.
With Devard Darling leaving school, the Seminoles have just four veteran scholarship wideouts: senior Atrews Bell, who had a breakout junior season; senior Javon Walker; junior Talman Gardner; and the 6-2, 187-pound Morgan, a senior.
"There's no doubt about it: Somebody has to step up at wide receiver," FSU coach Bobby Bowden said. "When we lost Peter Warrick, we felt like there's a (good) group of them, but then ol' Minnis stepped out and played like an All-American. We need that to happen this year. If it doesn't, well, we're going to struggle."
Just as the Seminoles did against the Sooners in the national title showdown.
The usually sure-handed, big-play receivers dropped about a half-dozen passes from Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Chris Weinke. The Seminoles, frustrated and impatient, amassed 301 yards, 248 fewer than their average.
Oh, yeah, they lost 13-2.
"The receiving corps as a whole didn't play well ... we played horribly," said Bell, who despite nursing a hamstring injury had seven catches for 137 yards. "We could have been the difference in that ballgame. Well, I think we were the difference in that game. That's been the incentive to work hard this year. The guys want to go out and prove that was just one game, that's not the characteristic of the receivers here. That's been the motivation for all of us this summer."
Especially given the Seminoles' precarious quarterback situation. Neither redshirt freshman Chris Rix nor Boldin has thrown a collegiate pass. For a while, the burden might be on the receivers to make the quarterback look good and brim with the necessary confidence.
"I'm expecting Robert to step up," receivers coach and offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden said. "I really expect him to go out and play, do everything right and make the plays when they need to be made."
Morgan has shown the ability to do that. He had career highs with 19 catches for 366 yards (a robust 19.3 average) and three touchdowns last season. In the spring, he even made a diving catch eerily reminiscent of the one that got away on that Jan. 3 evening in Miami.
But his chances have been limited by a wealth of talented teammates and injuries. He missed the last three games last season with a broken left big toe that hampered him in the Orange Bowl.
"That one drop? It motivates me, but I've got so much more that motivates me, too," said Morgan, 22, who is scheduled to earn his degree in sports management in December. "I'm really looking forward to helping the team whatever way possible. There's a big opportunity this year and that's been driving me; that's been pushing me."