Florida State 29, Miami 24 Instant Analysis

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1. Florida State? Where have we seen this before?

A Florida State team that struggles, doesn’t look great, sputters too often for a full sixty minutes, and doesn’t look the part of a playoff contender – welcome back to 2014.

The Seminoles have their superstar Heisman contender this time around, too, with Dalvin Cook showing that he deserves to be in the Heisman race every bit as much as Leonard Fournette and Trevone Boykin, running for 222 yards and two scores, but more than anything else, this young team continues to find ways to survive. Last year’s team wasn’t pretty, but it got to 13-0 as the only unbeaten Power Five team even with a ton of problems. This year’s squad suffers from power outages, relies too much on Cook, and gave up 405 passing yards to Brad Kaaya, but the only look that matters is 5-0.

2. Al Golden’s hot seat turns up more, but …

It’s ridiculous. Miami played hard, never stopped hitting, never stopped battling, and never quit even though there was a point in the first half when it could’ve easily gotten its doors blown off, but because it’s 3-2, and because it lost to Cincinnati, and because this isn’t the same program that used to rule the world, Al Golden’s job situation will be under the microscope once again. The key now will be for Golden to make sure his team realizes the season is hardly over. It’s one loss to a team from the other division, and even though there’s still a date with Clemson to deal with, as long as the Canes win all the Coastal games, they’re going to play for the ACC championship. But the bar is always set higher for Miami, and even though the program can’t do all the things that made it so amazing in the past, it’s still full of talent and it showed against Florida State that it’s still good enough to hang with the big boys. But again, for Miami, it’s about being one of those big boys.

3. Will Everett Golson start to get any love?

Notre Dame fans were all too happy to get rid of the guy who took the Fighting Irish to a national title game a few years ago, but last season couldn’t stop giving the ball away. Now at Florida State, Everett Golson has become exactly what the program needed with a smart, effective veteran quarterback who isn’t turning the ball over, manages to come through on key third downs, and wins, wins, wins. Golson isn’t the talent Jameis Winston is, but he’s winning regular season games, throwing for 291 yards and a score in the victory over Miami. He might not be a Heisman candidate, but there’s no way FSU is 5-0 without him.