Miami and Florida State will renew their bitter rivalry this weekend, when the third-ranked Hurricanes travel to Tallahassee to face the No. 18 Seminoles.
The in-state rivals have competed against each other in some of the biggest games in either program's history, and while Saturday might not reach that level, it certainly is a pretty big deal to both teams. That is especially true considering the ACC and College Football Playoff (CFP) implications.
The game has so much riding on it that one of the people potentially most excited is someone not even playing in it. Jonathan Vilma, who starred at Miami in the early 2000s before a decade-long NFL career, seemed to be almost psyching himself up for the Hurricanes' clash with the ‘Noles.
“As hyped as we would get when we won the national championship, every game took on a life of its own,” Vilma said on Kay Adams' ‘Up & Adams Show'. “But when it was FSU week, nothing else mattered. We literally would just go around saying FSU week. Why is that? Because the mentality here is that we don't care what happens. We are going to win the game. We don't care what happened the week before. We don't care who was playing the week after. All we want to do is win this game. So if we had a poor game the week prior, doesn't matter. It's FSU week. If we had a great game the week prior, doesn't matter. It's FSU week. If FSU lost every game before playing us, it doesn't matter. It is FSU week.”
That thinking could be especially helpful for Miami this time around since Florida State suffered an upset defeat at the hands of Virginia a week ago, taking some hype off the game, which would certainly have featured two top-10 teams since 2013.
The Hurricanes snapped a three-game losing streak to the Seminoles last year with a 36-14 home win. But Miami has not managed to win in Tallahassee since 2019, and the ‘Canes haven't beaten a ranked Florida State since 2009.
