Florida State Gets Jolted

Florida State has handed out its share of beatings since joining the ACC in 1992. North Carolina returned the favor Saturday in one of the biggest wins in its 111 years of football.

“I haven’t even got a speech for this,” Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said after his No. 6 Seminoles turned the ball over five times in a stunning 41-9 loss.

“They got what they deserved--a win--and we got what we deserved--a loss. We’re not good enough to play like this.”

The defeat was a major jolt to Bowden’s program, which had been to the national title game each of the last three years.

“This team has to decide what it wants to do,” Bowden said. “I didn’t see anything that resembled poise, I didn’t see any execution. I think it was a complete breakdown.”

The Tar Heels, 0-3 and 17-point underdogs, used a 34-point second half to stun the Seminoles (2-1, 1-1).

“I jumped around with everybody else,” North Carolina senior quarterback Ronald Curry said when asked what he did after the game. “I’m still a kid--especially at heart.”

North Carolina also limited Florida State to 11 first downs and 34 second-half yards.

“We felt like we could dominate their offense from the first play of the game,” linebacker David Thornton said. “Their offense wasn’t too complicated and we felt like we had the speed and the talent up front to go out and be aggressive and attack all game.”

It took North Carolina Coach John Bunting, a former NFL assistant who replaced Carl Torbush this season, about 15 minutes to weave his way through a mob of fans who stormed the field and eventually took one of the goal posts to the ground.

“I didn’t anticipate everybody being on the field after the game, that’s for sure,” Bunting said after his victorious home debut. “I guess if you win that’s going to happen, isn’t it?”

Backup quarterback Darian Durant threw a pair of touchdown passes for the Tar Heels (1-3, 1-1) and Jeff Reed had two field goals as North Carolina took command in the third period to hand Florida State its third ACC loss in nine-plus seasons--a span of 74 games.

The Seminoles did lose their second game in 1998 at North Carolina State and made it to the Fiesta Bowl. However, Florida State still has No. 1 Miami, No. 2 Florida, No. 10 Georgia Tech and No. 19 Clemson left on its schedule.

“There are question marks, but they’re questions that have to be answered,” Florida State running back Nick Maddox said. “We need to take this as a lesson. If we take it as a loss it’s going to be a long season.”

North Carolina, which had lost at No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 5 Texas, beat its highest-ranked team since a 7-6 victory over No. 6 Duke in 1960. The Tar Heels have never beaten a top-five team.

The loss matched Florida State’s worst since a 52-20 drubbing by Florida in the 1997 Sugar Bowl, and worst in the regular season since Auburn beat the Seminoles, 59-27, in 1985.