Sports: Only No. 1 will satisfy Seminoles

Only No. 1 will satisfy Seminoles

By GARY SHELTON

JACKSONVILLE -- They stalled and they sputtered and they stumbled. They didn't run the ball very well, and they kicked it even worse. The confetti that fell from the sky a few months ago has been replaced by penalty flags.

But that isn't what you really want to know about the way FSU started its football season, is it?

What you really want to know is whether you might be interested in how it finishes.

And the answer is ... yes, the Seminoles have a chance.

Maybe.

Around the FSU program, the questions never change. Nor do the answers. FSU always aims high, and it always seems to come close. As programs go, it is like a relay race, one great team handing the baton to the next until you end up with 13 straight seasons of a top 4 finish. It has become one of the most familiar sights in college football, this excellence of the Seminoles.

But also familiar are yesterday's ulcers, the nagging problems of field goals sailing wide, of running plays stopping short.

Those are notmerely the inconveniences of opening night, of problems that will disappear as soon as FSU gets a little fine-tuning. Those are the glass jaws that felled past would-be champions, Achilles' heels that yet plague this one. This, more than No. 1 Nebraska, is what stands between FSU and a title defense.

Take what you want from FSU's 29-3 victory over Brigham Young on Saturday night, the potential or the problems, the sizzle or the fizzle. That's what an opening chapter is about at FSU; it's a hint about how the story ends. As such, this was only sort of about Brigham Young (the N.C. State of Utah) in Alltel Stadium, and sort of about Nebraska (or whoever else shows up) in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 3. It was partly about competition, but it was mostly about clues.

What the fans saw were reasons to worry and reasons to hope. The debate can begin today on how long the journey ahead is, and whether there is sufficient fuel in the tank.

The running game, for instance, looked as chaotic as it did a year ago, when it was 83rd in the nation, an amazingly low figure for a national champion. But last season, you kept waiting for the running game's deficiencies to catch up to the Seminoles, and they never did. Still, after 57 yards on 36 carries, coach Bobby Bowden seems concerned.

"If you don't run the ball better than we did, you ain't going to go to any kind of bowl game," Bowden said. "We might not even go to a bowl."

The kicking problem is even more dire. FSU's Matt Munyon missed two field goals and an extra point, which goes a long way toward explaining why Bowden put up with Sebastian Janikowski over the past few seasons. This is a program that has left a couple of national titles wide right, which qualifies this as something of an emergency if not an omen.

"He kicked the ball about like I would have," said Bowden, 70.

There were other problems, too, alignment problems and silly penalties and dropped passes and other things that coaches expect when you spill new paint on a blank canvas. There were missed blocks and missed receivers and missed throws. There were times the first team looked like the second team and the second team looked like the third.

But FSU also showed enough glimpses into the ability it possesses to convince you it could once again be around for the final chapter. The Seminoles have 24 seniors, and scouts say 17 are expected to be drafted next spring, four or five in the first round. No, they don't have anyone as good as Peter Warrick. Guess what? No one else does, either.

This FSU team is going to be good. Again. After 13 seasons of top 4 finishes, that shouldn't surprise anyone.

Start with Weinke, the other old man of the FSU program. The thing is, Weinke looks wonderful, especially when you compare him with Burt Reynolds, who once shared the same backfield with him. Did you get a load of Weinke on his 21-yard run in the second quarter? It was like watching the old gray mare turn into the Galloping Ghost.

Okay, okay. Enough with the age jokes about Weinke. But at 28, he does provide a calming influence on this offense. When you consider the young talent the Seminoles have at wide receiver, that's going to carry FSU a long way.

There is enough speed here. There is enough power. Enough experience and ability and potential.

The gut feeling is the FSU defense is going to be better this season (it slipped from first in the nation to 19th last season). No, shutting down Brigham Young isn't as good as it sounds. This is no longer the program that won the national title in 1984 (not that it ever was, except in the polls). But BYU coach LaVell Edwards does know how to diagram a play or two.

So, how far does this team go? Who knows? Who knows if the players stay out of Dillard's? Who knows about injuries? Look at the schedule, and the game at Miami in October and against Florida in November are the only ones that grab your attention.

The guess here is that FSU will be in the hunt.

Otherwise, it will go down kicking.