It could have been a little better it could have been a lot worse. I’m genuinely proud of out guys focus going into the second half; they could have easily lost it. Overall, I can’t imagine being much more pleased with a final outcome going into the second season of recruiting.

PS- “McMahon-handled” is classic and accurate. He was McMahoncaked all afternoon.

Neefy Moffett.
Made game changing plays all year long, specifically this game and Clemson.
Noone ever talkes about him, but he has been huge this year.

I missed them making Mickey Andrews the player of the game. Did they really do that? If they did, I’m hoping that’s his capstone and he bows out with a big Chevrolet player of the game certificate and eventually the practice fields named after him.

The good:
Carlton “Ty” Jones
Ponder in the 2nd half
Offensive line in the second half
Givens
Secondary
Special Teams
Antone Smith and Carr’s final game
No dropped passes

The bad:
Offensive line in the 1st half
Ponder in the 1st half
Defensive line
Overall tackling

The ugly:
Personal fouls

The game went pretty well, but there were really not that many good performances by underclassmen. The stars of the game were Smith, Carr and Brown, and none of those guys are back. Ty Jones looked good, Thomas did not. Ponder was up and down, though he did have a nice 2-0 ratio. Young WRs were a little quiet but did nothing wrong. No drops. Markus White made some nice hits. Best our secondary has looked in forever, but keep in mind Wisconsin only ran or threw to the TEs nothing else.

I give this game a B+. The seniors played well and I am happy for them. I am excited for next year, we’ve got a lot coming back. There is some pressure on 1st time starters like Hopkins/Hobby, Thomas/Jones/Pressley, and our secondary. If those guys do well we should be in pretty good shape.

Everyone else has said this, but I’ll echo it: The blocking got a lot better in the second half. In what I’m sure isn’t a coincidence, the offense got a lot better in the second half.

I’m excited about the progression of this very young offensive line, and I look forward to seeing how good they (hopefully) get.

They are scaring me.

Their whole team appears to be freshmen, and they are showing talent.

Their RB Chambers looks very good. Johnsond Byrd are good receivers. Very good. Harris looks pretty good. They do have Nix though, who is our JB. Not sure how I feel about Shannon. I still think Coker was better.

I’m too shell-schocked to discuss it rationally, but Miami just had the worst two-minute drill that didn’t end in a turnover I’ve ever seen…Thankfully Patrick Nix is still there.

Patrick Robinson and Justin Mincey.

And there’s no dead period keeping the coaches from getting on them.

if anyone wants to see something they may have missed the first time.

I was on call last night so I’m watching the final minutes of the game.

The first half was brutal. We were tentative and our offensive line played like freshman in their first bowl game…oh wait, they are freshman playing their first bowl game. I think our athleticism and conditioning made a huge difference in the second half.

Once we settled in, made our adjustments, it was on cruise control. I think our defense was their from the start and was bailed out by Gano. He is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

I’m so happy to see the team end on such a high note. This was a big moral boost and will help recruiting significantly. Even though Wisco had a down year, beating a Big Ten (Eleven) Team like this is huge. Not like many Florida/South East recruits flock to Wisconsin, but his certainly helps.

Well done. Lets get the coaching figured out, get some of the big name recruits and bulk up that offensive line and pray that the defense recovers from everyone who is leaving.

Go Noles…don’t forget about the basketball team this winter…their season has paralleled the football team this year.

I usually am too busy following the way plays develope than watching specific lineman but I didn’t look much at McMahon. I surprised he was knocked around. They guy is usually a horse in there.

The line followed the usual progression, outweighed and not as strong in the first half but they are in better shape and faster than the competition usually. When they beat up dlines with cut blocking for a half they don’t want to play any more by the second half. Hence we see Ponder seem to amazingly get better. Ponder is a decent quarterback. All qbs need time to throw.

…unless I missed them. I was at the game.

1. For anyone who doesn’t know, your local city dump’s got nothing on the Citrus Bowl. Those of us local to the Orlando area know this all too well. The next time you have a chance to visit this stadium for a non-FSU-related event, pass. Otherwise, wear OSHA-approved safety gear. I actually felt the bleachers settle a little when the crowd got hot in the third quarter. Thankfully, had they collapsed, the mulch that covers the dirt floor of the stadium would have broken my fall.

2. Wisconsin is easily the worst Div. 1-A football team we played this year. No offense to Colorado, whom I also saw in person – and no offense to FSU fans who are celebrating this win, as any Nole fan should be – but Wisconsin is a slow, poorly-conditioned football team. And I know this isn’t headline material for anyone on this board, but to see this team in person made the first half especially frustrating. It was obvious in the pre-game warm-ups alone that we had the recipe for the rout, and the play of the offensive line in particular in the first half drove most sane FSU fans in attendence nuts. However, sanity seemed to be a commodity on Saturday as most Nole fans were busy chanting “Bobby, Bobby!” when the game got out of hand in the 4th quarter. (Ah, the nostalgia win. Am I really just becoming a prickly old man in my early 30’s, or is it okay that I threw up in my mouth a little?)

Anyway, while I’ve stumbled onto the subject, if the “Bobby” chant came across on TV and you were wondering at the time just how prevelant it was, I’m pretty sure it was every FSU fan in the stadium besides me. Maybe, like I said, it was simply nostalgia and they were partying like it was 1999, or maybe the hostages were simply praising their captor, I don’t know – but I found it to be very, very creepy. Yes, that’s the best way I can describe it. It was very unsettling to me. A “Mickey” chant would have been a much more appropriate gesture to a very deserving coach who most loyal followers should have known is at the very most a year away from saying good-bye to FSU. And considering you can barely get a “Bobby” chant started at Doak these days, it leads me to believe that many of these fans were indeed casual fans who won’t travel to Tallahassee anymore and decided they’d spend some Christmas dollars on the bowl game. I guess that’s a positive.

As others have said, I’ll take the win!

P.S. A note about Holly Rowe and a television myth I was able to debunk over the weekend: The camera does not add 10 pounds.

EB or Gano. I think Gano will be the more missed.

WI is not a good team and they play in a bad conference. I didn’t think FSU played very well and when we do play good teams (like UF) we get killed. The mediocrity in Tally has gone on for far to long. I DO beleive that being subjected to constant mediocrity (like playing in the ACC) takes a toll on our program.

Still, it was very nice to see a post season blow out. Bowden proclaimed it a trip down memory lane – “we look like the Noles of old”. Not so fast there Bobby – there’s still a long way to go.

I’m reading an article about Nix being fired at UM. Shannon hasn’t said but Nix mentioned that he wanted to run something more wide-open and go no huddle but Shannon had a different philosophy..

“I enjoyed it here. I appreciated Randy giving me the opportunity,” Nix said. “I’d like to have gone with something more wide-open and more no-huddle. He and I had a philosophical difference on that.”

Found here

I wouldn’t be shocked to see Nix do well elsewhere under a coach that will let him implement what he wants.

I don’t understand this and you see it all the time (both in the NFL and college). Coaches, ADs, and GMs constantly hire people on that have differing philosophies concerning their chosen area of the field. Auburn did it with Franklin and now UM apparently did it with Nix. Do the coaches, ADs, and GMs just no pay attention in interviews and do no research?

Soon FSU will be hiring a new OC and DC and it should be kept in mind that the "hot" coordinator isn’t necessarily the best one for the job for a multiple number of reasons, one of the most important being lack of agreement on operations.

(Like I said, this is off topic but I find it to be an interesting and vastly under-reported subject in college football both in hiring coaches and bringing in recruits.)

I have some very good news for you, the number 10 team in the nation, Ohio State managed a 3 point win over Wisconsin. Penn State #6 managed to beat Ohio State by 7 points. Try and find some solace in that FSU performs better than what the pollsters consider some of the best teams in the land.

This per ESPN, so all in all we must be awaiting a correction in the polls and FSU will move to #9 in the nation.

Yes I am being sarcastic but you have to admit the polls this year are some sort of meaningless joke. Georgia Tech sits at #14, a team which FSU defeated with exception that Marcus Sims was not on board with it. I said a year and a half ago that the football seems like a greased bowling ball to him. He is a fumbler and why Jimbo called his number on that play is beyond me.

It is hard for me to believe FSU would handily beat the bottom 5 teams in the top five, Mizzou, Oregon, Ball State, Northwestern and #20 Virginia Tech….oh wait we already defeated Virginia Tech.

I have come to the conclusion the pollsters are either some of the dumbest SOBs on the planet or that despise Florida State and revel in us being down. On second thought it is probably both.