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'Noles unimpressive in win

FSU's bid to repeat as national champ starts with a 29-3 win, but it isn't pretty.

By BRIAN LANDMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 27, 2000

[Times photo: Kevin White] Darnell Dockett celebrates with teammates after sacking BYU quarterback Bret Engemann.

JACKSONVILLE -- Florida State coach Bobby Bowden desperately wanted some answers from his Seminoles against Brigham Young in Saturday night's Pigskin Classic.

The No. 2-ranked Seminoles, trying to become the second team in more than two decades to repeat as national champion, provided them in a 29-3 win before a partisan crowd of 54,260 at Alltel Stadium.

Not that they were exactly what he wanted.

Or had assumed.

Bowden found out his defense, which had uncharacteristically struggled in the fall, might regain its dominant form sooner rather than later after it shut down the usually potent BYU attack. The Cougars mustered 225 yards.

He learned his young and unheralded receiving corps isn't too shabby, but his offense isn't as unstoppable as he figured it might be with a veteran quarterback in Chris Weinke and an experienced offensive line and running backs.

And Bowden, as he feared, learned just how irreplaceable kicker Sebastian Janikowski is. Redshirt freshman Matt Munyon, a walk-on, missed two short field goals and an extra point and Bowden said he needs freshman Brett Cimorelli, the former Zephyrhills star, to recover from a strained groin and "get back into the battle."

For those scoring at home:

That's the good, the bad and the ugly.

"The game surprised me; it surprised me," Bowden said. "We've been struggling all preseason defensively. The offense was going up and down the field ... and I thought our offense was really capable of putting up a lot of points. But it was just the opposite.

"Our defense played beautifully. They couldn't have played much better than they did tonight. Offensively, I was surprised we didn't throw better than we did. (We were) hot, cold, hot, cold. And the kicking game was like what I was afraid of."

Weinke, who completed 32 of 50 passes, both career highs, for 318 yards and two touchdowns to earn the game's most valuable player, looked sharp at the outset and took advantage of virtually all of his receivers.

Junior college transfer Javon Walker gave the Seminoles their first receiver highlight, snagging an off-balance toss and managing to keep one foot inbounds in the back of the end zone for a 19-yard score with 12:13 left in the opening quarter.

But Munyon, who won a three-player battle for the kicking duties, missed the extra point -- certainly un-Janikowski-like. Janikowski, a first-round pick of Oakland, hit all 47 of his extra points last season.

Later in the quarter, Weinke sliced up the Cougars defense, hitting 5 of 6 passes for 36 yards, including a 3-yard touchdown to junior receiver Atrews Bell. This time, Munyon added the extra point for a 13-0 lead.

After the kickoff, one that, again un-Janikowski-like, reached only the 8 and was returned 10 yards, the FSU defense provided its own highlight. Senior defensive end Jamal Reynolds burst around the right end, sacked sophomore Bret Engemann and stripped the ball. BYU recovered in the end zone for a safety and a 15-0 FSU lead with 2:53 to go in the first quarter.

Bell's 6-yard run on a reverse gave FSU a 22-0 lead. Munyon later missed his first collegiate field goal, a 34-yarder, midway through the quarter. The offense then sputtered for almost the entire second half, including a missed 27-yard field goal, not scoring again until senior tailback Travis Minor's 5-yard run with 1:11 left.

"We didn't play that well on offense, but the bottom line is that we won the game," Weinke said.

"I thought we should have beat this team by 60 points," FSU sophomore receiver Anquan Boldin said. "We didn't look like Florida State in the second half."

The defense did.

Early in the third quarter, the Cougars reached the FSU 11, but senior safety Derrick Gibson's crunching hit on running back Ned Stearns jarred the ball loose and junior middle linebacker Bradley Jennings recovered to preserve the shutout temporarily.

"You have to credit Florida State," said BYU coach LaVell Edwards, who announced a couple of weeks ago that this would be his final season. "Like we said before, the problem we have when we play teams like this is they have such great defensive quickness and it makes it difficult."

BYU, however, extended its NCAA record of not being shut out to 313 games when Owen Pochman hit a 42-yard field goal with 2:19 left in the third.

"We have to play better," Bell said, "because we can't win the national championship playing like that."

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