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Amazing: The making of Wide Right

The recipe: No. 1 FSU vs. No. 2 Miami, add a close game, mix in a sophomore walk-on kicker and watch college football history be made.

By BRIAN LANDMAN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 9, 2001

TALLAHASSEE -- Almost immediately after he struck the ball, Florida State kicker Gerry Thomas started leaning to the left, a movement he hoped the ball would mimic.

It didn't.

FSU coach Bobby Bowden, however, thought Thomas had converted the last-minute, 34-yard field goal and he began urging his players to stay put and avoid a penalty for celebrating the dramatic win against nemesis Miami.

"Then I saw the Miami guys jumping up and down and hollering and screaming and I'm thinking, "What are they yelling about?' " Bowden recalled.

He finally realized the ball had slid outside the right goal post by a few tantalizing inches as television replays would show, preserving a 17-16 Hurricanes win at Doak Campbell Stadium on Nov. 16, 1991.

It was the kick heard 'round the college football world.

Not only had the No. 2-ranked Hurricanes beaten top-ranked FSU for the sixth time in seven years, a win that would propel UM to its fourth national title in nine years, but "Wide Right" forever became part of the nation's vernacular. (Miami beat FSU in 1992 and in 2000 as the Seminoles missed late field goals that would have tied the games. Both were wide right.)

"It's a little easier to look back at it now than when I was kneeling on the sideline," said former Miami coach Dennis Erickson, now the coach at Oregon State. "When he missed it, obviously there was elation because you don't beat Florida State up there."

In fact, the Seminoles haven't lost at Doak Campbell since that picturesque fall day a decade ago. They proudly carry a nation-leading 54 game home unbeaten streak -- and a nation's best 37 straight home wins -- into Saturday's showdown against No. 2 Miami.

"That is amazing," Bowden said of his team's home cooking. "Just amazing."

He uses the same word to describe that last home loss.

During the 1980s, the annual Miami-FSU showdown became more than a game for state bragging rights. It went national and the implications in front of a then-record crowd of 63,442 on Nov. 16, 1991 were larger than ever.

FSU had been No. 1 the entire season and seemed headed for its first national title if it could finally weather the Hurricanes. But the Seminoles were too excited at the outset.

They were penalized twice for late hits on Miami quarterback Gino Torretta, fueling a touchdown drive on the opening series. Torretta sprained an ankle on the second hit, but no one knew which one. By design. The trainers shrewdly taped both ankles all the way around the shoes.

"Nike was on the phone Sunday saying, "Why did I cover the swoosh?' " Torretta said with a laugh as he recalled the tactic.

The Seminoles eventually settled down and took control by scoring 16 consecutive points. Thomas, a sophomore walk-on, had only recently won the job from Dan Mowrey (of Wide Right II fame). He improved to 8-of-9 on field goals after converting from 25, 31 and 20 yards and seemingly was set to be the day's unlikely hero.

"I thought we had them, no doubt about it," Bowden said.

The Hurricanes knew otherwise.

"The mind-set at the University of Miami in 1991 was nobody could beat you no matter where you played," Erickson said. "I don't think there was any time during that game that they thought they were going to lose."

The Hurricanes cut the deficit to 16-10 on Carlos Huerta's 45-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter, and on their next possession, tight end Coleman Bell, a former Jefferson High standout, came up with an acrobatic, over-the-shoulder catch for 21 yards to ignite a remarkable drive.

FSU's defense stiffened, setting up a crucial fourth and 6 from the Seminoles' 12 for Torretta, who had been sacked six times and harassed into throwing two interceptions. Undaunted, he told all of his receivers to run 6-yard hitch patterns and be ready for the ball.

"Horace Copeland was on the wide (right) side of the field and (Terrell) Buckley was the farthest off of him, so I was like, "Well, I'm throwing there,' " said Torretta, who wanted to redeem himself for a four-interception debacle in a loss at FSU in 1989. "I took the quickest three steps I could and threw it as hard as I could."

Copeland, who hadn't had a catch all game, grabbed it for a 9-yard gain just before Buckley upended him.

After tailback Stephen McGuire ran twice to the 1 (he finished with 142 yards), Larry Jones plowed in to give the Hurricanes the lead with 3:01 to go.

Although still feeling the effects of a sprained knee sustained against LSU a few weeks earlier, quarterback Casey Weldon marched the Seminoles downfield.

A pass-interference call on Ryan McNeil gave FSU a first down at the 18, but after Amp Lee ran for 2 yards, Weldon had to spike the ball to stop the clock. Why?

"I remember Casey's shoe coming off," Derrick Brooks, then an FSU freshman linebacker, said, shaking his head in disbelief as if reliving the moment a decade later.

It didn't seem like it would matter.

"Gerry had been so accurate; he was automatic inside the 40," Bowden said. "We said, "Let's not mess this thing up.' "

Bowden decided to go for the field goal on third down with 29 seconds left.

"We probably should have taken another shot, looking back on it," said Weldon, who would finish second to Michigan's Desmond Howard for the Heisman Trophy in 1991. "I honestly don't think we prepared for a tight game well enough, getting the field goal team on or getting the ball in the middle of the field for the kicker."

The ball rested just inside the hash mark on the far left, requiring Thomas to bend it ever so slightly.

"I hit the ball real well, probably as well as I had all day," he said at the time.

"It started off his foot and it started hooking," Torretta said. "Being a golfer, I was thinking, "Damn, that thing is going to hook in.' But then it straightened out."

Warren Sapp, then a UM defensive tackle who had locked hands with several members of his freshman class, was pretty sure the kick had sailed to the right.

"Then you saw Sebastian (the team's mascot, on the ground) kicking his legs up and you knew it was no good," he said. "That was the best."

"I looked up and thought it was good and then I saw their fans react and was pretty devastated," Weldon said. "I don't know if people realize it, but that was the year they moved the goal posts in 6 inches on each side. Any other year (before) it hits the goal post and maybe goes in."

What might have been? Weldon still feels that sting.

What if he had led Lee on a long pass a bit more for a touchdown instead of a first and goal at the UM 2? What if Eric Turral had made the catch in the end zone despite the interference?

"There's a lot of things you think about," he said. "It was an unbelievable game."

For his part, Thomas handled the miss with aplomb.

He didn't make excuses and shouldered the blame for the loss. But to a man, the Seminoles knew they shouldn't have had to settle for three field goals after getting inside the Miami 10.

"He didn't lose the game for us," Bowden said. "I liked Gerry. He was such a good kid. I'm sorry so much of the brunt has to go on him, but that's the nature of the game."

Thomas came back to hit the clinching field goal against Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, but he gave up football before the next season. Bowden, who planned to give Thomas a scholarship in 1992, said he hasn't seen him since then.

Although the media try to contact him every year before the Miami game, Thomas, an FSU alumnus and booster and now an attorney in Tampa, politely has rebuffed them.

"Five years. Ten years. Twenty-five years. Nothing changes and everything's been said," he said. "What's past is past. I'm not bitter about any part of my career. I'm happy about my career. I just don't worry about being famous or infamous."

That game has left him both.

Just amazing.

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