Boston College could not have shown up at a better time.
Eager to show that it learned a hard lesson from last season, Florida State successfully recovered from its shocking collapse at North Carolina State last week by overwhelming the Eagles 51-7 Saturday at Doak Campbell Stadium.
The Seminoles needed a goal line stand on the game’s first series and took off from there, scoring four quick touchdowns and probably looking ahead to Saturday’s game at Miami long before this game was official.
“I thought our kids did a great job all week of putting that last game behind them and not letting it drag on,” coach Jimbo Fisher said. “I thought they were focused. They weren’t rah-rah. They were locked.”
The Seminoles promised all last week they would not take the disappointment of the crushing 17-16 loss at NC State into the BC game, something they did a year ago when they followed an emotional home loss to Oklahoma with two more losses on the road.
No. 12 Florida State (6-1, 3-1) took advantage of a Boston College (1-5, 0-3) defense that could not stop the pass. EJ Manuel threw for a career high 439 yards and equaled his career best with four touchdown passes as FSU surpassed 600 yards of total offense (649) for the fourth time this season.
“I expected all of us to come out and play well,” Manuel said.
Dustin Hopkins kicked three field goals and became the all-time leading scorer in Florida State and ACC history. Hopkins’ first field goal, a 51-yarder on the final play of the first half, gave him 394 points, surpassing former Seminoles kicker Derek Schmidt and former Maryland kicker Nick Novak.
The irony: At North Carolina State, Jimbo Fisher opted to punt in the fourth quarter instead of attempt what would have been a 51-yarder that could have given FSU a 19-10 lead.
That call, and a dependency on a grount attack running game late in the game as FSU tried to milk the clock, had many blaming Fisher for the NC State loss, saying he was too conservative.
But on Saturday, against a team that is last in the ACC in rushing defense, Fisher was much more aggressive. Manuel’s 34 passes (27 completions) were one shy of his season high. Florida State started the game with nine consecutive passes even after taking over inside its own 1.
Fisher was asked if he was sending a message.
“I’m not interested in trying to send a message,” he said. “I’m interested in trying to win a football game.
“I understand fans are passionate. They care. That’s what makes Florida State a great place. I have no problem with that. That’s their right. That’s part of the business. Coaches coach and players play and if you can’t look at that and have thick enough skin to do that then you shouldn’t be in the business.”
Manuel spread the ball to nine different teammates with running back James Wilder catching two touchdowns and Kenny Shaw and former Glades Central star Kelvin Benjamin one each. Okeechobee’s Lonnie Prior scored twice on the ground, giving him 21 career touchdowns, 16 rushing.
Rodney Smith had nine catches for 108 yards and Shaw had 125 yards on just two receptions.
“We saw what we wanted to do as far as attacking their defense during the week,” Manuel said.
Fisher said it’s similar to the way FSU has attacked Boston College since he’s been at the school.
“We’ve always been able to do that if you look at the history of it,” he said. “We had some matchups and we liked it.”
The tone of the game was set on the first series. Boston College used seven plays to drive the ball to the FSU 1.
But on first down, Bjoern Werner batted down Chase Rettig’s pass. Andre Williams then rushed for no gain on second and third down and Werner pressured Rettig into hurrying a screen pass that fell incomplete on fourth down.
“Sometimes you just have to make a couple of big plays and stop them, and that’s what we did,” Werner said.
“That’s huge,” Fisher said. “It was a tremendous momentum boost.”
The Seminoles’ offense quickly went to work. FSU needed just six plays to cover the 99 yards as Manuel threw six passes, the last covering 77 yards to Shaw.
“We said as an offense, ‘Let’s go 99,’ ’’ Shaw said.
Florida State was just getting started. Pryor made it 14-0 and short scoring passes to Wilder (7 yards) and Benjamin (6 yards) gave the Seminoles a 28-0 lead midway through the second quarter.
“A lot of teams have goals of winning a national championship and they lose a game,” Wilder said. “Some teams can’t bounce back. We just made sure we didn’t have that taste in our mouths anymore.”
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