FSU: Miami Week gets underway with a 22 period practice Tuesday

FSU: Miami Week gets underway with a 22 period practice Tuesday

POSTED 10/01/2008 - Florida State versus Miami is a legendary series and while it may not captivate the nation’s attention as it once did, it is just as big on the respective campuses as it ever was. You could hear that in the voice of Miami’s Corey Surrency in his post practice

interviews Tuesday and you sure couldn’t tell it wasn’t a No. 1 versus No. 2 battle listening to head coach Bobby Bowden as well. With the win versus Colorado now squarely behind them, Tuesday the Hurricanes were on everyone’s mind.

"I thought we had a pretty good practice today. The boys worked pretty hard and it seemed like the defense got the best of the inside running drills," said Coach Bobby Bowden. "It seemed like the offense got the best of the passing drills. I don’t know what that means but the passing looked pretty sharp; hope they keep it up."

He continued, "It will be a very interesting ball game because both teams remind me of being in about the same place. Both teams are trying to climb back to the top. I think it will happen, it’s an interesting race. This game will tell a lot between our two schools."

PRACTICE HIGHLIGHTS

· Jermaine Thomas and Antone Smith turned in impressive runs during inside drills and the defensive highlight was a big hit by Everette Brown.

· In 1-on-1 E.J. Manuel connected with Greg Carr, Cameron Wade, Avis Commack, Rod Owens and Louis Givens. Defensively Korey Mangum, Ochuko Jenije and A.J. Alexander all broke up passes.

· When 1-on-1 moved into red zone, Bert Reed and Commack hauled in TD passes while Jenije and Commack broke up passes.

· In 7-on-7 Christian Ponder completed a couple passes each to Carr and Caz Piurowski and also connected with Taiwan Easterling. For the defense Kendall Smith and Derek Nicholson broke up passes and Roosevelt Lawson had a strip.

· While 7-on-7 was going on, the lines worked against one another on the upper field. Brown dominated with three sacks while Budd Thacker, Kevin McNeil, Moses McCray and Justin Mincey all got to the QB as well. Ryan McMahon had a good drill winning four battles, Rodney Hudson won two and Jacob Stanley, Brandon Davis and David Spurlock all got a win as well.

· In the final drill (11-on-11) Ponder hit Carr on a deep ball. Defensively Myron Rolle had a tackle for loss. Markus White had a QB pressure as did Paul Griffin. Neefy Moffett had a QB pressure and he batted down a pass at the line.