Miami Hurricanes-FSU rivalry week leans on nostalgia as fallen powers try to get back up | Opinion
Mario Cristobal said the four words casually but as a matter of fact, as if no debate was expected or would be heard: “Best rivalry in football.”
He was right. Was. Miami Hurricanes vs. Florida State Seminoles sure used to be that, once, in its time.
You would get fierce debate now from devotees of Alabama-Auburn, Michigan-Ohio State, Oklahoma-Texas or maybe even Southern Cal-Notre Dame or Florida-Georgia. Traditionalists might nominate Army-Navy. Somewhere, somebody wearing a letter sweater and coonskip cap is telling us not to forget Harvard-Yale.
Canes vs. Noles was a mighty hand to play in that debate, though, back when the rivalry began to flourish in the 1980s and then lit up the ‘90s. It was Bobby Bowden vs. Howard Schnellenberger when the thing really took. How many times did Bowden, so gracious in victory or defeat, say “Dagumit” over another loss to UM on a field goal gone “Wide Right”?
But both coaches passed away in 2021 as long-retired icons, and there is symbolism in that as Saturday’s 65th all-time meeting goes on without them — a once-vital rivalry living at the top of the Top 25 polls now trying to reinvent itself as both schools try to get back to what they were.
To be reborn and find new glory days.
Saturday’s game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami will have the veneer of the great old days, of a major game with national stakes. It will be in prime time before the cameras of ABC-TV. It will be in a rocking, full stadium, not usual for UM home games. There will be the kind of electric ambiance that led UM quarterback Tyler Van Dyke earlier this year to admit he likes playing on the road to feel that atmosphere lacking most Saturdays at home.
The trappings of the traditional rivalry will be alive and vibrant. FSU fans with their familiar (if controversial) chant and “Tomahawk Chop.” The Hurricanes, running onto the field through billowing thick smoke as red and black hurricane flags wave.
It will be a lot of pomp for the circumstance of two unranked teams meeting, neither with any real shot at reaching the Atlantic Coast Conference Game that seems destined as Clemson vs. North Carolina.
FSU is 5-3, UM is 4-4 and both are .500 in the ACC. Miami and the first-year coach Cristobal needed four overtimes on Saturday to escape with a 14-12 win at Virginia, when a loss would have made merely qualifying for a minor bowl invitation a steep climb.
These are two programs that have met 26 times when both were ranked, and 14 times with both in the top 10.
Florida State enjoyed that surreal run of 14 consecutive top-five poll finishes from 1987 to 2000, when two of its three national championships were won. Miami won its five national championships between 1983 and 2001, and bunched a dozen top-five finishes in that span.
Now Cristobal and FSU coach Mike Norvell are helping two fallen champions rise again.
Miami has had but one 10-win season since 2003 and during the past five years including this one is 32-25 overall. FSU is 31-36 during the past six seasons into this one.
Jimbo Fisher won a championship in Tallahassee but left, then Willie Taggert didn’t last long, now Norvell is trying.
In Coral Gables, Randy Shannon, Al Golden, Mark Richt and Manny Diaz all had their shot at restoring glory and failed to varying degrees. Three of those four had UM ties and now so does Cristobal, a two-time Canes champ as an offensive llineman.
Cristobal learned on Nick Saban’s Alabama staff and proved his coaching chops at Oregon, and, despite 4-4 right now, has earned time and benefit of doubt. His 2023 UM recruiting class, the first here that’s all his, includes the two highest-ranked commitments — No. 4 and 5 nationally in ESPN’s Top 300 — that Miami has won in the 15 years ESPN has done player rankings.
But eight games into his Year 1 Cristobal still is looking for his first signature win.
FSU might be a modest 5-3 but is good, and a big 8 1/2-point favorite in early betting on Saturday’s game. That, the storied rivalry, the prime-time stage and national TV audience all make this the signature win that Cristobal needs in his first time facing FSU as Canes head coach.
It’s also a win two fallen powerhouses both need in their climb back to national relevance.
“Best rivalry in football,” Cristobal declared.
It is what you say when you are holding up the past like a beacon of hope as you tough through the present and trust in better days coming.
