The days get longer, but the wait gets shorter as we move along in the summer. As part of the offseason, we’re doing a countdown that highlights players, games, and specific moments from Florida State football history. Yesterday, it was FSU winning its first title during the 1993 national championship season.
Today, it’s the 92-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Deondre Francois to receiver Nyqwan Murray in the 2016 Orange Bowl vs. Michigan.
Much of the discussion before the 2016 Orange Bowl centered around the defenses. Did Florida State’s late season improvement depend on weak opponents? Could the Wolverines maintain their elite play against Dalvin Cook and his explosive running? Very few commentators expected a high-scoring affair — much less one with Florida State as the winner. The spread was in favor of the Wolverines by a touchdown.
Even Florida State fans will admit that the beginning of the game was shocking. The Seminoles took an early 10-3 lead and looked completely in sync. Near the end of the first quarter however, Michigan punted the ball and pinned FSU at its own 8-yard-line. It looked like a tough task for the Seminoles to try and do anything with the bad field position.
On the first play of the drive, head coach Jimbo Fisher dialed up something unique. FSU faked the hand-off to Dalvin Cook and had guard Cole Minshew pull to the left side. Francois kept his eyes down the field and saw Nyqwan Murray blazing past Michigan’s Jourdan Lewis — one of the best cornerbacks in the nation.
While the ball was slightly underthrown, Murray was able to reel it in and set off for the end zone. He outran both Lewis and the safety for a haymaker of a score.
The result was the longest touchdown pass in Orange Bowl history and a 17-3 lead for the Seminoles. Florida State (and Michigan) fans were stunned with what they were witnessing. While Michigan eventually came back and made it competitive, the Francois-to-Murray connection made another appearance at the end of the game for the winning score in a 33-32 FSU victory.
It might not have been a very consequential sequence in the grand scheme of things, but the 92-yard strike went against everything we thought we knew: Francois struggled with the deep ball, Michigan’s secondary wouldn’t allow a busted coverage and the FSU offense wouldn’t be able to rely on explosive plays.
Both Francois and Murray are still on the team. Both players have questions surrounding their impact on next season and where they fit in the new offense. Perhaps they still have some big “Francois-to-Murray” moments left in them.
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