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Sporting News, The, Sept 20, 1999 by Mark Blaudschun

Before anyone starts trashing Florida State as not worthy of being one of the nation's top teams after its close call over Georgia Tech, a few things should be understood.

First, Georgia Tech is very much a top 10 team and probably won't lose the rest of the season. And Tech's Joe Hamilton proved he is as good a quarterback as there is in college football in 1999.

Plus, with games coming up against Miami and Florida, FSU can afford to skate by a few games with just wins, instead of overwhelming wins.

But the Seminoles defense, which had been labeled as the strength of the team, has looked vulnerable twice.

Louisiana Tech quarterback Tim Rattay exposed the Seminoles defense for a half two weeks ago before FSU shut things down on its way to a 41-7 victory.

And Hamilton exposed it in his team's 41-35 loss as the Seminoles had to resort to a method much more familiar to Florida-win by outscoring your opponents, not shutting them out.

"We hit, and they hit back," says Hamilton, who was a phenomenal 22-of-25 for 387 yards and four touchdowns and completed his last 14 passes. "They made plays and we made plays back. They just got more plays than we did."

That allows some reason for hope for Miami, Florida and even North Carolina, all of which have quarterbacks who can throw the ball down field.

Even FSU coach Bobby Bowden was stunned at the completeness of the offensive display by Georgia Tech. "I never thought I would see the day," he said, "that an offense would score that many points on us."

Florida State can and has played shootout games before. The Seminoles, who haven't finished out of the top 5 since 1989, are so confident they will eventually win that they have little fear of high-scoring games with teams. For years, they did it with Miami and lost in what was known as the "wide right" era, when Miami was winning on missed or made field goals.

They have done it with Florida the past several years, with the two teams generally trading homefield victories.

But the ACC has been FSU's gaming preserve. Since joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1992, FSU is 30-0 at home, has lost only two road games (at Virginia and NC State) and has never lost an ACC rifle.

Rarely do the Seminoles get challenged at home in a league game the way Georgia Tech came at them. And even more unusual is a defensive breakdown.

When FSU loses a league game, it usually is an offensive breakdown, such as the one that occurred last season at NC State, when quarterback Chris Weinke threw six interceptions and the Seminoles' best offense was their defensive secondary.

Such was not the case against the Yellow Jackets. Hamilton abused the FSU defense almost from the start, which forced the Seminoles to get into a shootout environment.

Not that they don't have the weapons--from Weinke, again healthy after last year's season-ending neck injury, to wide receiver Peter Warrick to quarterback-turned-fullback Dan Kendra.

"Our defense has been picking up the slack for us," says Warrick who caught eight passes for 142 yards and scored two touchdowns, one on a run. "This time the offense picked it up."

But what must concern defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews was Georgia Tech's 501 yards in total offense.

That just hasn't happened to FSU in ACC play and hasn't been done by many teams in any conference, including Florida.

But in a season that is still only two games old for the Seminoles and still includes games against Miami and Florida, there is now a seed of doubt.

Andrews and his staff must start to break down tapes and try to fix something that might not be broken but certainly looks vulnerable.

Perhaps it is only an attitude adjustment. The Seminoles are so good they know they can often show up for only a half or three quarters and still win easily, which is what happened to the defense in the 41-7 win over Louisiana Tech.

In that game, Tech quarterback Tim Rattay went up and over the Seminole defensive backs for most of the first half before Andrews had a little face time with his players and the nonsense stopped.

Now Hamilton has burned them.

Hamilton may be so good that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with what FSU is doing. Or there might be a larger problem of motivation. When you are as good as FSU, you focus on three games a season: Miami, Florida and the bowl game.

If nothing else, FSU no longer carries a fireproof label on its uniforms, at least defensively.

Bowden is old enough and has been around long enough to move on from this near-loss experience and not lose all that much sleep over it.

"I've learned to take wins," says Bowden, who, if things go as he expects and hopes, will accept his 300th win October 23 against Clemson, which is coached by his son Tommy.

FSU will continue to get plenty of Ws, perhaps all the way through the Sugar Bowl on January 4 in New Orleans, where the Seminoles hope to play for another national championship.

But, for the time being, things are different. The perception is different If Joe Hamilton can do that to the Seminoles, why can't Kenny Kelly at Miami or Ronald Curry at North Carolina or Doug Johnson at Florida?