Florida State vs. No. 3 Miami Picks, Predictions & Preview

Florida State heads down to South Beach to take on the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday night, and I don’t mean to be demeaning here, but Miami is the considerably better football team.

That’s displayed by the 21.5-point spread over at Hard Rock Bet, but also by the records and the tracks of these programs right about now.

My main question is how healthy Miami got during its bye week.

This was a banged-up football team when it left Clemson, South Carolina. They had a couple of injuries on the offensive line, a couple of key starters on the defensive line, and they’ve been without multiple safeties in the back end basically all season.

I don’t think it’s ultimately going to matter. I’m not going to go as far as to say Miami could beat Florida State with the twos, but Miami is a deep football team, and the Hurricanes are the better football team.

I’m just curious how healthy they are going into this matchup.

Florida State vs. Miami Prediction

I personally like Miami -21.5 over at Hard Rock Bet. I’ve got them winning this one, 42-7.

I don’t love it because it is a rivalry game. Maybe Florida State can summon up a big one here.

But I do like the Canes -21.5. I’m willing to lay it.

Can FSU Slow Down Miami’s Offense?

It’s just so bad defensively right now for Florida State.

The Seminoles are 122nd in yards, 114th in passing, 102nd in rushing and 83rd in points per game. Not to mention, they’re giving up third-down conversions on 41% of downs.

That’s awful. It’s really, really bad right about now.

I think Miami needs to show up and continue to execute the way it has been, and the Hurricanes will be just fine in this college football game.

When you’re expecting a lopsided rivalry game like this, you would imagine that if there’s a creative rabbit left in the hat, Florida State is going to pull it.

You almost have to expect the unexpected as an offensive or defensive coordinator.

If there’s something this Florida State defensive staff can throw at you, they’re going to throw it at you. If there’s a trick play, a new offensive formation or something new they can put on schedule, this staff has its back against the wall right about now.

You have to be prepared for the unexpected in this football game.

Florida State X-Factor: Ashton Daniels

My X-factor is Ashton Daniels.

He’s obviously been unpredictably good and unpredictably bad throughout his career as a starting quarterback.

If he catches lightning in a bottle, you have to be prepared for something that might be relatively explosive on the offensive side of the football for Florida State.

We saw this against Alabama twice. He did it at Auburn, and he did it this year in his start against the Crimson Tide as well.

Dating back to Stanford, I felt like he was this way in his first couple of years in college football. He’s very up and down as a football player.

The ups were absolutely spectacular. The downs were pretty rough.

He’s my X-factor for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I don’t think Florida State is going to be able to run the football all that much.

Miami has the best rush defense in college football right about now.

You’ll say, “Well, they ain’t played nobody.” I think they’re pretty damn good.

I think it’s a combination of the fact that they’re great and the opponents they’ve played so far, with regards to rushing the football, aren’t all that good.

But they’re certainly great.

Can Miami Run It Up?

I’m excited to see Darian Mensah again this week. He’s played phenomenally all year long.

I’m expecting Miami to score a lot of points in this football game.

This Florida State defense is bad, and it’s also a rivalry game.

If the backups do get in, and I’m not forecasting that, I don’t know if Mario Cristobal is going to take his foot off the throat.

They haven’t against anybody this year, to be honest. I guess you could kind of say they did a little bit against Clemson, but not really.

Earlier in the season, they were running everybody out of the building.

It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter how much you’re outmatched by.

The eyebrows might go up, but this is the same Florida State football team that gave up 50+ to Alabama.

Is this Miami offense not the same caliber as Alabama’s?

That’s what I’m foreseeing right now: an inability to stop this Miami Hurricanes football team.