Miami 14, FSU 10 (Halftime)

The last two times Miami and Florida State opened the season against each other (2005 and 2006), they looked like two aging boxers returning to the ring after long layoffs.

In the first half of Monday night's game, the Hurricanes and Seminoles reminded everyone of what made this college football's greatest rivalry in the late 1980s and 1990s. Both teams were crisp, fast and not nearly as rusty as some teams looked over the weekend during the first weekend of the season.

The Hurricanes led thanks to a 6-yard run by Javarris James with 42 seconds left before halftime. FSU broke a 7-7 tie on freshman kicker Dustin Hopkins' 52-yard field goal late in the first half.

We'll wait until after the game to decided which of these proud programs appears closer to being back among the nation's elite. But if the first half is any indication, both teams appear headed in the right direction.

Here are some key stats from the first half:

* Miami quarterback Jacory Harris was 10-for-15 for 177 yards and one touchdown.

* FSU quarterback Christian Ponder passed for 175 yards on 15-of-20 passing. He threw one touchdown and a late interception.

* Miami had 229 yards; FSU 192.

Miami, FSU Make Strong First Impressions

Everybody knows by now that the Miami-Florida State game isn't what it used to be. Instead of national championship implications, Monday night's season opener was mostly a measuring stick for which program's rebuilding project is making more progress.

There were a lot more questions than answers for both teams. The Seminoles entered ranked No. 18, and according to most, appear ahead of the Hurricanes in the rebuilding department.

After one quarter here at Doak Campbell Stadium, it's difficult to tell which team looks best so far. Both scored on their opening drives, Miami striking first on Jacory Harris' 39-yard touchdown pass to Travis Benjamin.

On the ensuing drive, FSU redshirt junior quarterback Christian Ponder drove the Seminoles 67 yards on 13 plays, capping the drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass to tight end Caz Piurowski. Ponder was 7-for-8 for 72 yards on the drive, a hopeful sign for those Nole fans tired of quarterback struggles the past several seasons.

The first quarter ended evenly, with both teams getting four first downs and Miami holding a 93-85 advantage in total yards.

I'll be back for a halftime update shortly.

No Joke: Good Seats Left for Miami-FSU Game

There is a lot of chatter on sports-talk radio and Internet message boards in the Sunshine State about Monday night's primetime showdown between Miami and No. 18-ranked Florida State at Doak Campbell Stadium.

In this rivalry's prime, no other matchup in the country generated as much media coverage or fan interest. These days? The Virginia Tech-Alabama game on Saturday is the one most of the pundits are excited about.

You want proof how much this rivalry needs a boost? As of late Thursday, FSU's ticket office reported that more than 5,000 tickets remain for the Labor Day evening game on ESPN.

The players and coaches still talk about Miami-FSU like it's 1989 or 1999. However, they are the only ones at this point as both programs try to climb back to the top of the polls.

While both programs have been down in recent years, I'm still somewhat shocked that so many tickets remain available. When I asked FSU coach Bobby Bowden about the lagging ticket sales earlier this week, he cited the economy as the No. 1 factor.

I agree the economy is more to blame than the fact the game is on a Monday night in Tallahassee, at least a three- to four-hour drive from the majority of the state's largest cities. The Orlando Sentinel listed these reasons as why the game won't be a sellout.

Still, when these two teams met four years ago to open the season on Labor Day night at Doak, they drew the largest crowd (84,347) in the history of FSU's home stadium. The second-largest crowd? The 2003 FSU-Miami game that drew 84,336 to a stadium that has a capacity listed at 82,300.

Even in 2007 when the Hurricanes last visited FSU -- with both programs clearly in rebuilding mode -- a sellout crowd of 82,738 showed up.

Bad economy and all, college football just isn't the same when a Miami-FSU can't pack the house.

Are FSU Coaches Being Candid or Coy?

As I walked off the field at Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday afternoon, I had two initial thoughts following Florida State's final preseason scrimmage before hosting Miami on Sept. 7.

1) FSU's coaches should send thank-you letters to the Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN for giving them a couple of extra days this week to prepare for the Labor Day evening showdown with the Hurricanes, or

2) The Seminoles' coaching staff is working overtime at building a huge smoke screen in preparing for Miami.

Here are some of the coaches' comments after Saturday's scrimmage, which focused primarily on clock management and other in-game situations involving personnel changes:

"I didn’t see anything real exciting happen," said head coach Bobby Bowden. "If I was criticizing, my first criticism would be too many yellow flags – penalty after penalty after penalty."

"I don’t know if there was anything I liked,'' offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher said. "It was just a very average day, very ho-hum. We’ll be ready when the time comes, I promise.''

Defensively, the Seminoles remained without defensive tackles Kendrick Stewart, Budd Thacker and Justin Mincey due to injuries. While Bowden said he hopes to have Stewart and Thacker back at practice this week, defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews sounded as if he preferred Peter Boulware, Marvin Jones and Deion Sanders back in garnet and gold.

"The thing that you notice right off the bat is we weren’t ready to play a football game,'' Andrews said. "We couldn’t have beaten Miami today defensively. It would have all been on the offense. I guess they had something more important to do today than to go out there and simulate whipping Miami."

The good news: freshman kicker Dustin Hopkins, competing with James Esco to be the starting place-kicker, made all four of his field goals. He was good from 44, 43, 34 and 26 yards.

Who'd thunk it? The kicker actually getting rave reviews Miami week.

Here are more quotes:

“Mainly, to try and get these doggone mistakes corrected and try and execute better. [Next week] will be preparing more for what Miami does. The whole key now is taking the next week and correcting these yellow flags. If we don’t do that, we’re going to have a hard time winning." -- Bowden on the primary focus starting Monday.

"[This team] needs more time. We need to clean up little things and make their minds up how to do it." -- Fisher on the overall mentality entering Miami week."The most disappointing thing to me is that we didn’t knock anybody down. There weren’t many people put on their back. That meant we were hitting anybody. That’s not a good sign for a defense. Somehow or another, we’ve got to regain the enthusiasm that you are supposed to have on defense. We act like it’s a chore instead of a fun opportunity." -- Andrews on his unit's sub-par effort.

So what do I make of all this? The coaches obviously have some concerns they will address this week in practice, highlighted by the mental mistakes leading to the large number of penalties Saturday. And no doubt, Andrews is not happy with his unit's overall progress, but then again, he rarely is. That's his nature and his way of keeping constant pressure on his players, one reason he is considered one of the finest defensive coordinators in the modern era.

As for Fisher, he has been mostly positive this preseason when talking about his unit's play, but with the game quickly approaching, he is entering game mode (i.e. saying little of significance and playing possum to keep Miami guessing).

What I know for certain: Players, coaches, fans and us media types are ready for the season to begin.

Bowden's Take On All That Heisman Hype

It's as much a part of college football today as tailgating and trash talking. I'm talking about that mailbox-stuffing tradition of schools sending out piles of promotional material hyping their favorite Heisman Trophy candidate.

One of my personal favorites arrived in the mail last year: a pair of plastic binoculars that showed Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel making big play after big play when you looked into the lens.

On Thursday, I received my first piece of Heisman hyperbole of this season: a Berry4Heisman.com calendar that actually might come in handy to keep track of my fall schedule. The calendar's namesake is Tennessee defensive back Eric Berry, a player first-year Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin needs a big season from. Click here to check out the website Tennessee has set up for Berry's Heisman campaign.

Most schools do this sort of campaigning if they have a serious Heisman candidate. But not Florida State. In the last 20 years, FSU is one of six schools to have multiple Heisman winners, quarterbacks Charlie Ward (1993) and Chris Weinke (2000).

Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden said he prefers to leave it to the players to impress Heisman voters with their play on the field rather than have the school's sports information department conduct a huge campaign. FSU did put Ward on the cover of its 1993 football media guide, but that's about it.

"I don't like to do that,'' Bowden said. "When Charlie Ward won the Heisman he had had a good year the year before. So when we went into that last year, I told [former sports information director] Rob Wilson: 'Do not send out anything on him, nothing. He'll win it by himself '... sure enough, he won it in a landslide.

"We're on television enough where you don't have to do that. I tell our kids, if you don't make All-American, it's your fault, because we're going to be on television every Saturday.''

The good news for FSU players: all their games are on TV this season. The bad news: none of them are considered Heisman candidates.

Hello Seminole Nation

If you’re an out-of-work sports journalist fresh off a three-month mental vacation -- most of which was spent trying to decide what to do when you grow up -- starting a blog makes perfect sense, right?

Or maybe I’m just not ready to grow up despite being closer to 40 than 30 these days.

Regardless, I’m excited and thankful to start writing again as a contributor to World Sports Blogs. Hopefully this is the start of a meaningful and long-lasting relationship instead of one of those late-summer romances I had in college.

Before I make another leap into the blogosphere -- click here for a taste of the FSU blog I wrote at The Tampa Tribune -- let me tell you a little bit about myself. I graduated from the University of Florida when another Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback played for the Gators. Back then, Tim Tebow was barely out of diapers while Danny Wuerffel was shredding SEC defenses on the way to winning the 1996 Heisman and leading the Gators to their first national title.

After graduating, I started a newspaper career that eventually took me to The Tampa Tribune, where I spent a decade far from the passion of college sports. I spent most of my time there covering the Rays, Lightning and horse racing.

It was great while it lasted, but the decline of the newspaper industry cost me my job a year ago, and here I am typing away on a new endeavor.

You might wonder why a University of Florida grad opted to focus his new blog on Florida State University sports. Well, I moved to Tallahassee in 2006 to start covering FSU for the Tribune. I thought it was a great assignment full of rich stories detailing the end of football coach Bobby Bowden’s prolific career.

I was right. For the two years I covered the Seminoles for the Tribune, I wrote some of my favorite stories and got to know many folks in the FSU sports family. However, I never expected Bowden to outlast me on the beat, but that’s what happened as newspapers began to cut back resources. Here is a story talking about the end of my time at Tribune.

When you’re a sports journalist living in Tallahassee, there’s nothing you can report on and write about that's more interesting than FSU. Hence the name of my new blog: Seminoles Sports Center.

If you’re a Seminoles fan, I hope you’ll take a look and come back for more. If not, I hope you'll read simply because you find the blog interesting. I’ll be writing mostly about FSU football and Bowden, who has agreed to provide me with occasional special access as I work on a book detailing the twilight of his legendary career.

When people ask me who I have enjoyed covering the most during my career, the answer is easy. Bowden is No. 1, former Rays and current Cubs manager Lou Piniella is No. 1A. Both are a sportswriter’s dream: honest, funny and human quote machines.

They are also very similar in many ways. They treat everyone from the team owner to the guy painting stripes on the field with equal respect. OK, that’s not entirely true. Piniella isn’t nearly as fond of pitchers who throw too many balls or umpires who call too many.

Anyway, my main mission here as I report and offer analysis on the Noles is to inform, entertain and most importantly, have fun.

Seems there isn’t nearly as much of that in sports these days.

Thanks for stopping by.