[Article] 7 Years of Pain: Miami-Florida State 2010-2016

Going deep into Miami's 7-year losing streak to their archrival, Florida State

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If you’ve listened to the Ball Through The Ages podcast (especially the end of this episode), you know that I am a huge Miami Hurricanes fan and that fact has largely brought nothing but pain for the past 18 years. Since the 2002 Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State, the Canes have suffered all sorts of terrible losses from a 2007 embarrassing 48-0 blowout to close out the Orange Bowl at the hands of Virginia to getting beat by cross-town little brother FIU at Marlins Park (where the OB used to stand). There’s a truly stunning list of horrible Miami losses from 2002 to 2019 (and most likely beyond).

Yet, the worst part of this stretch of Miami football was losing 7-straight games to hated rival Florida State from 2010 to 2016. I attended 6 of these games in person and they damn near broke my soul. Since the 2016 heartbreaker, Miami has won 3 straight against the Seminoles. But with the next installment of the game coming up on Saturday and Miami in a more stable place, it seems like a good time to reexamine these losses.

2010: #23 Florida State 45 #13 Miami 17

After Miami had won 8 of the previous 11 matchups and 9 of those being one possession games, this beatdown at home was unexpected. Randy Shannon was coming off his best season as Miami head coach in 2009, a 9-4 campaign that ended with a bowl loss to Wisconsin. After a close loss to eventual Big Ten co-Champ Ohio State, we had real hope that the U could be back (especially after “The U” 30 for 30 dropped in 2009).

Miami suffered this crushing loss and the wheels started to come off for Shannon. In the ESPN recap for this game, Shannon specified that the loss was “not a travesty, we just got beat.” Always a great sign when your coach has to say the game against arch-rival was not a complete disaster. He would get fired after another blowout loss to Virginia Tech and a home loss to South Florida to end the season (after which I said “we can’t fall any further” lol). To add further insult, the Palm Beach game story noted that this was Miami’s first sell-out in Sun Life Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium).

(Side story on Randy Shannon: I always liked Shannon and thought he should have got another year as head coach. But I joined my church’s youth group in large part because Shannon was coming to speak to us. He was the most boring speaker I’ve ever seen so I understood why the Canes came out flat under him at times.)

2011: Florida State 23 Miami 19

This is probably the least notable game in this stretch. In a year where Miami faced suspension and uncertainty from the bubbling Nevin Shapiro scandal, FSU just beat a bad Miami team up in Al Golden’s first taste of the rivalry. It set the tone for how many future games would go under Golden: mental mistakes, ill-timed turnovers, and terrible special teams.

The 2011 game was my first FSU game as a student at Miami. (The news of the Nevin Shapiro scandal broke as I plugged in the television in my freshman dorm.) This game also set the standard for my future FSU games as I puked up a lot of jello shots and rallied to watch Miami lose fairly easily in Tallahassee, despite a furious 4th quarter comeback when the Canes trailed 23-7. Luckily, a lot of the local newspaper headlines were taken up by the Miami Women’s basketball team traveling to Knoxville to take on Pat Summit in a top-10 matchup (which Miami of course lost).

2012: #10 Florida State 33 Miami 20

Al Golden’s fingerprints were all over this game. The Miami Head Coach said before the game that the Canes merely had to “hang around until the 4th quarter.” I guess he had only thought that far because Miami only trailed by three heading into the final frame before giving up 17 unanswered points. I really really felt Miami would win after the Heatles (well, DWade, Lebron, Udonis Haslem and Mario Chalmers) showed up and after going up 10-0 as double-digit underdogs.

But I was young and foolish. The Canes lost to a much better team as the Seminoles were ramping up to win the Natty in 2013. In classic Golden fashion, he could pin the loss on injuries (QB Stephen Morris played on a bum ankle and RB Duke Johnson left in the 2nd quarter) and “lack of execution.” Who is in charge of the team’s execution again?

Also in classic Al Golden-fashion, Miami would still control its destiny in the ACC Coastal…..until they lost to Virginia two weeks later. The defense was so bad by any metric under DC Mark D’Onfrio, Al Golden’s brother-in-law, that the Miami Herald ran this savage poll after the FSU game. (Also hilarious to run a web poll in the print-version of the newspaper.)

2013: #3 Florida State 41 #7 Miami 14

A TOP 10 MATCHUP! College GameDay showed up at a Miami game for the first time since 2008! The U and rivalry was back! So of course, Miami got worked by the best FSU team ever on their way to a Natty.

Miami got up to the Top 10 by beating an over-ranked Florida team (who finished 4-8) and a bunch of mediocre teams including unconvincing wins against UNC (on Zero Dark Thursday!) and Wake Forest. While the rest of the nation was excited about the matchup, Canes fans were largely dreading it because we knew this team was fraudulent. For the second year in a row, Miami got hammered in the second half as Al Golden made sure to give FSU credit for beating Miami’s ass and blamed the loss on “execution.” It’d be great if someone could do something about the team’s execution.

Over the next 4 years, Miami would lose to FSU then go on a losing streak to ruin their season. Duke Johnson broke his ankle when the game was long over and it sunk Miami’s season. However, the Canes won 7 straight games to start the season and still missed out on the ACC title game at the hands of Duke. Ugh. As a chaser, here’s an awful story about Dan Sileo, a radio host who somehow still has a job.

2014: #2 Florida State 30 Miami 26

Lather, Rinse, Repeat from the past two years. The Canes went up 16-0 and took a 13-point lead into half. Then, they imploded and lost the second half 20-3 after Jameis Winston realized how much better FSU was than Miami.

Personally, this was the 2nd worst loss on the list. I was a senior at Miami and really thought Miami could win despite being far less talented. FSU looked shaky all season and I couldn’t go all four years of college without a win against FSU right? Wrong. Brad Kaaya, Duke Johnson, Clive Walford (my co-worker at the UM gym) and Phil Dorsett all had big games. But FSU was better. When Tyriq McCord (a classmate in a couple of journalism courses) made a great play linked below to tip a sure touchdown pass from Winston, only for it to fall right to Karlos Williams for a TD, I just collapsed emotionally. This was my first time going to the game with a girlfriend. She did not understand or care for football, which of course made me even more furious. (That girl and I broke up after college; my fiancee understands how to handle Miami’s many failures.)

2015: #12 Florida State 29 Miami 24

By this point, I was rooting against Miami to get Al Golden fired. Golden is, by leaps and bounds, the worst Miami head coach since it became a national power in the 1980s. He consistently blamed players for losses, failed to get the team to play to their talent level, and never made changes to a clearly bad staff. In all four of the games prior to this one, Miami fans had flown banners calling for an end to the Golden era. The team had just lost a game to Cincinnati in Nippert Stadium (why is Miami traveling to Cincy for a game??). Athletic Director Blake James, who looks like one of the monstars from Space Jam before they got their powers, kept insisting that Al Golden would remain in place for the rest of the season.

Two weeks later, Miami completely quit on Golden and lost to Clemson 58-0 at home. He was fired the next day. Two notes on this game: Dalvin Cook ran for 222 yards and 2 TDs and caught another one to cement himself as one of the best running backs in FSU history and Miami got into a very on-brand fight with a kicker, Roberto Aguayo.

2016: #23 Florida State 20 Miami 19

This was the worst loss I’ve ever attended in my time as sports fan. I was in law school at this point and planned on going to the first UM-FSU matchup of Mark Richt’s career as Canes Head Coach. Then Hurricane Matthew upended my plans and my flight got cancelled. But, damnit I was going to make it to this game. My parents and I booked 4 different flights to various airports in South Florida, which all got cancelled. Then, Matthew took a turn away from Miami and I was able to fly in on the Saturday morning of the game.

The game looked a lot like the 2012, 2013, 2014 matchups. Miami got up by 13 against a superior FSU team before the Noles stormed back to go up 20-13. But, I did not stop believing that Miami would win and neither did the team. After a stop by the much improved Miami defense, Braxton Berrios (a great Miami Hurricane) took the ensuing punt 47 yards to put the Canes in the FSU redzone. Finally, Brad Kaaya hit Stacy Coley with a great pass in the endzone on 4th down to bring Miami within 1 point of FSU. I took my shirt off and started whipping it around my head. I hugged several people I had never seen before. I started talking smack to anyone in FSU colors nearby.

Then, I heard a giant cheer from the FSU section.

How a team loses a game on a blocked extra point is beyond me. The curse was real. Hope was lost. I asked myself “why do I even watch this sport?” Of course, the answer is that I love the pain and that the eventual win would wash it away.

Miami lost 3 straight games after this one, but stabilized and had its best season since the early 2000s in 2017. They also broke FSU’s hearts on the last play of the game that season. It did make the last 7 years better, even though those losses will always be with Canes fans. Fuck you, Seminoles.

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