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Even the punter got opportunity to bully 'Noles

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 15, 2001

CORAL GABLES -- Punter Freddie Capshaw scored a touchdown.

That sums up the way things went Saturday for the Hurricanes, who are No. 1 in both polls again after dominating Florida State 49-27, ending the Seminoles' 54-game unbeaten streak at Doak Campbell Stadium -- a streak that began after Miami beat FSU 17-16 in 1991 -- then watching Auburn upset top-ranked Florida Saturday night.

Capshaw picked up the ball on an errant snap on a field-goal attempt and ran 7 yards for a touchdown.

"I tease Freddie he's one of the best running backs we have," coach Larry Coker joked Sunday. "He thinks he's tough. I guess now, he'll think he's really tough." My wife said, 'Did you call that fake field goal?' I said, 'Yeah, honey, I called that.' "

Miami had two special-teams touchdowns. Dixie Hollins grad Markese Fitzgerald had the first when he picked up the ball after Ed Reed blocked a punt and walked into the end zone. Six FSU turnovers led to 35 Miami points. Reed and Philip Buchanon each had two interceptions of quarterback Chris Rix.

"We tried to get in his head a little bit," Reed said.

"They made a lot of bad plays, and we made a lot of good plays," Buchanon said.

Tight end Jeremy Shockey, who again had a big TD catch against FSU, said: "We expected to win. We knew they had an inexperienced team, and if we jumped on them early they'd do stupid things and we'd win."

COKER'S CONCERNS: Coker wasn't happy with the running game. The Seminoles outgained the 'Canes 214-142. UM had only 3 yards rushing in the first half.

"Nothing really transpired the way we wanted to," Coker said. "We wanted to run the ball. They ran the ball much better than we were able to."

He did praise the line's pass-blocking: for the second year in a row FSU failed to sack Ken Dorsey.

But Miami's 15 penalties for 125 yards also raised Coker's ire. Still, he said he was "elated." As to Miami being No. 1, Coker said: "Now that we're No. 1, it's pretty important. We can play better and our players know it. (But) you're not going to play that perfect game every week."

NOT A SNAP: The only significant injury was to long snapper Chris Harvey's right knee. Coker fears Harvey will miss the rest of the season. His backup, Joe Fantigrassi, struggled. A bad snap on a Todd Sievers field-goal attempt led to Capshaw's first TD since his high school in Wyoming. Later, however, Michael Boulware grabbed a bad snap Capshaw couldn't control and raced 73 yards for an FSU touchdown.

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