FSU Football: Miami game highlights roster, coaching connections
By Jason Parker
FSU football has always been able to go into South Florida and recruit, but the Canes also have plenty of ties to the Seminoles’ player and coaching history.
When the average FSU football fan hears names like Richt, Dugans, Weldon and Jennings, they think of players who were a part of the greatest era in the programs era – 14 seasons in which the Seminoles were the dominant force in college football that never finished outside the top five and helped bring home two national titles.
On Saturday when the Seminoles take on the Miami Hurricanes, all of those names will be in orange and green and on the home team’s sideline instead of the visitors side as the Canes have plenty of ties to the history of FSU football currently residing in South Florida.
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Of course, the biggest name would be head coach Mark Rick – who spent over a decade as an assistant for the Noles, namely as offensive coordinator for a spell – where he coached a wide receiver named Ron Dugans, who was a part of that national title team in 1999 and now serves as the receivers coach for Miami (after turning down an offer to join the Seminoles this year).
The Hurricanes’ defensive coordinator, Manny Diaz, has ties to the Seminoles both as a graduate of the school and a graduate assistant coach on the football team during that 1999 title team.
On the roster, the Canes are riding with a quarterback by the name of Weldon – but not FSU football legend Casey, but his son Cade – along with a linebacker by the name of Bradley Jennings Jr., whose father Bradley Sr. was a former star recruit out of Miami who played on the 1999 title team as well.
Miami occasionally will have a player from the Tallahassee area on their roster, but not this season. That is not the case for FSU football, who traditionally has been the one school who has been able to go into South Florida and compete with the Canes for the top recruits and bring some back to the state capital.
Though the number have gone down in previous seasons, the Seminoles have 15 players on their roster entering the game from either Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach County – names that include Brian Burns, Stanford Samuels III and Asante Samuel from near Fort Lauderdale as well as Emmett Rice and Frederick Jones from Miami and even Amir Rasul, who grew up minutes from the UM campus in Coral Gables.
Those players are joined by tight ends coach Telly Lockette, a Miami native who coached at two high schools in the area and brought home state championships with a few names FSU football players might know: running back Devonta Freeman and Dalvin Cook.
Next. Top FSU wins over Miami Hurricanes on the road. dark
The connections between FSU football and the Hurricanes are one of the reasons why this is the best rivalry in college football: everyone knows each other’s game and knows it’s going to be a battle each and every season.