TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Looking at a game with a final score of 48-17, it would be hard to make the argument that officiating had anything to do with the outcome. While Florida State effectively dominated Duke in every quarter except the first, it was the decision of an official early in the second quarter that steered the Seminoles to their easy victory.
With the score knotted at three in the early parts of the second quarter, Duke's defense was playing at a level rarely seen by the Blue Devils, frustrating the Seminoles especially inside the 20 yard line.
"They fought us tooth and nail the first quarter and a half," Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden said. "Our failure was goal line offense."
On Florida State's drive immediately following Brent Garber's game-tying field goal, the defense was at its best. Quarterback Chris Rix was sacked on first down by Shawn Johnson and Giuseppe Aguanno for a loss of seven yards to push the Seminoles back into their own territory.
"We were on the sidelines saying, 'Keep it up! Keep it up!'" said sophomore Duke defensive end Micah Harris about his team's strong start. "We weren't going to come in here thinking they were going to push us around."
On the very next play, Duke did keep it up as Rix's pass to Anquan Boldin was broken up by Alex Green.
Florida State now faced a third-and-17 in their own territory.
The Blue Devils were playing their best football of the season, and Florida State had still not effectively convinced critics that its program had returned to its power of the late 90s.
"Ifs" flooded the thoughts of what would happen for the remainder of the game after this strong showing by the Blue Devils.
Then a little, stout man in a striped shirt decided to throw his lucky yellow flag on the field.
A very questionable pass interference was called on Alex Green, and the Florida State faithful breathed a sigh of relief.
"At the time we had no breathing room," Bowden said. "That gave us some breathing room."
Florida State exhaled their way to three touchdowns in the next six minutes. By half-time, it was all but over for the Blue Devils.
"I thought that was the turning point of the game," Franks said. "I don't think it took us any time to bounce back from it; it's just what it eventually led to that made it the turning point of the game."
From that point on, Florida State dominated the game in the air, with quarterbacks Rix, Adrian McPherson and Fabian Walker combining for 404 passing yards and four touchdowns.
Bowden was puzzled by Duke's defensive decisions once his team got it going in the air.
"We threw the ball a lot tonight because Duke would not let us run it," he said. "They would have eight men on the line of scrimmage, so we couldn't get a good rushing game going."
Anquan Boldin and P.K. Sam took advantage of Duke's defensive formations, and had career-highs in receiving yards.
Duke has had problems with depth in the secondary all season long, and Franks seemed not to understand why the flaw was especially glaring against Florida State.
For whatever reason, the pass-interference call in the early moments of the second quarter caused both the players and the coaches to make mistakes unseen before the penalty. Until then Duke was playing great football, and showed that they should have a shot next weekend against Navy.
"Duke is better than they were a year ago," Bowden said.
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