November 12, 1994

Notre Dame vs Florida State Final Stats

By Kevin Eckhardt, The Scholastic 1994 Football Review

Three yards. The line of scrimmage lay at the three-yard line; right at the intersection of victory and defeat. The goal posts loomed overhead, yellow standing out against the gray Florida sky. Just three yards away lay the lead for a team that had been bruised, battered, and thoroughly beaten by a superior foe, yet had held through sheer will to a game that should have ended long ago. Now they had a shot at the lead from three yards away.

The day started bleakly for the Irish, and looked bleaker and bleaker as the haze turned to rain over the Citrus Bowl. The unranked Irish began flat and seemed ready to roll over and surrender on both offense and defense so many times, yet pure guts kept the Seminoles within sight.

Florida State took its second series on offense down to the Notre Dame 30. The rumbling running attack from Rock Preston and Warrick Dunn crashed through the Irish lines and surged forward, swallowing the front seven in its wake. “We missed a lot of tackles,”said defensive coordinator Bob Davie. The missed tackles and the vicious battles in the trenches began to wear down the Irish defense. The 70-degree temperatures and the Florida humidity also did not help the cause.

Nevertheless, Notre Dame blitzes rained down on FSU quarter­ back Danny Kanell, and his ineffectiveness under siege kept the Irish alive all afternoon, even as the two ‘Nole backs ate up yardage with a ferocious appetite. Down the field they roared, until the defense grew tall and stood. Kanell fell prey to Jeremy Sample and the drive was done. This production would run all afternoon, the Seminoles rushing forward, the Irish retreating, falling, leaning and pushing them back.

The momentum careened back and forth. The Irish offense went nowhere, and their only shot at a big play glanced off of Charles Stafford’s fingers and into the arms of a defender for an intercep­tion. They were dumb struck, spending all three time outs before the end of the first quarter. FSU rolled down field again, crashing down to theIrish five before a questionable fake reverse was turned back by the defense. 3-0, Seminoles. Momentum,’Notre Dame.

The offense sputtered and missed opportunities and Powlus seemed lucky to escape, luckier with each passing series. Florida State roared again. This time, the Notre Dame heroics turned back the Seminoles at the Irish 13. 6-0 Seminoles. Momentum flowed back to the Fighting Irish.

The return of the’ tandem of Lee Becton and Ray Zellars brought excitement and talk of the return of the Irish to the polls, but the two were banged up and hurting again after the game. But here, the offense sparked to life, as Becton and Zellars started churning away yardage, moving slowly into Florida State territory as the first half began to wane. And then a pressured Powlus delivered a pass into deep FSU coverage that Derrick Brooks picked off at the Seminole 20. Momentum to Florida State – until Kanell went blind.

Fixed on the left side of the field, the Seminole quarterback missed Bobby Taylor’s marathon cornerback blitz, was drilled into the ground and lost the ball. Taylor scooped it into his hands effortlessly, and the field receded before him. Run down, outgunned, outmanned, exhausted, Notre Dame was in the lead, 7-6.

But the blitzing Irish D, tired from spending most of the swelter­ing game chasing down Dunn and Preston, folded at the end of the half. Kanell was unfazed, his backs unstoppable, until they reached Notre Dame’s two-yard line. The Fighting Irish dug deep down again. Bad clock use forced Florida State to settle for another Mowrey chip shot, and though they owned the lead and the stats, it was the Irish who were charging.

Surrender seemed imminent on the first FSU drive of the half, but another stand on fourth-and-one kept the Irish in it. Powlus and the offense came out looking sharp. A key third-and-eleven toss to Derrick Mayes got Notre Dame moving, and Becton took a screen for a first down and followed it with a run for another. But Powlus ignored a wide open Oscar McBride and forced the Irish to settle for a Scott Cengia field goal. At least the offense expressed signs of life.

More blitzing kept Kanell on the run and the defense finally put the Seminoles to bed without allowing big runs. Two minutes later, all that was forgotten. The Seminoles scored in 53 seconds on a Rock Preston streak up the middle and the blitzing, bending Notre Dame defense finally wilted from FSU’s time of possession and crushing ground game. FSU 13-10.

The statistics for the two backs were cartoonish, the Irish offense pitiful and the game appeared lost, once and for all. The Irish went three and out, followed by a punt of less than epic length that spelled the doom for the underdog. Kanell found Kez McCorvey for a key first down on third and three. Time ticked away- but then, unbelievably, Florida State stalled once again and Mowrey misfired.

The momentum swung once more.

The time for the Irish to stand up had come, the fateful time when good players become great and great players become legends.  Notre Dame began to march, Powlus getting it started on a 20-yard pass to Stafford. Randy Kinder broke for 17. A stumble, and suddenly the team was up against it. The crowd rose on fourth-and­ one, all eyes fixed on the rookie quarter­ back, the piecemeal line, the ragged under­ dogs beat down by the bruising Seminoles only to come back and hang on through guts and spirit.

Powlus dropped and scrambled, evading garnet and gold attackers three times; and he fired a strike to Mayes who cradled the ball in the back of the end zone to tie the score at 16-16. The Irish erupted. The Seminoles were silenced.  And for one moment in this underachieving, disappoint­ing season the spirit of victory filled the men in gold and blue, raising them up and wip­ing away the clouds of the season. Run over and knocked down, the Fighting Irish would be ahead, after the point after, of course.

Three yards. That’s all it would take. But it was too much. With one slap against the left upright, all the energy building toward a comeback dissipated. The score was still tied, and there was too much time. Every­ one saw it corning, from Lou Holtz (whose head-dropping scene on ABC after the missed attempt was a classic) to Bobby Bowden and everyone across the stands. Kanell dropped and hit McCorvey 49 yards downfield, and it was over, over quicker than a single clank off the goal post. As Dunn flashed into the end zone to put the Seminoles ahead 23-16, the agony of the season, four losses, no titles, no headlines, no ranking, came down and fell full against every Notre Dame player, coach and fan. There would be one more shot, though the result seemed inevitable.

Powlus escaped from the pocket on fourth down and saw nothing but green, the bright green turf reflecting the sun shining above, and for one fleeting moment, the same amount of time it takes for a ball to fly wide of the goal post, it seemed as if he might reach that first down marker, as if he could resuscitate this team just once more. He ran hard, pushing tired, beaten legs as fast as they would go, reaching, stretching. And then all he saw was garnet sweeping down and dousing the last smoldering hope for this season.

Three yards. The Irish went from three yards away from victory to six feet under in defeat.