Thirty years later, their memories of that Thursday night in early November are still so vivid.
“That last play is one that I’ll always remember,” former Virginia linebacker Jamie Sharper said this week, “because everyone knew Warrick [Dunn] was getting the ball.”
With visiting No. 2 Florida State at the Cavaliers’ 6-yard line and four seconds remaining on the clock, Sharper knew the Seminoles were going to put the game in the hands of their star running back and future first-round NFL Draft pick.
“So, I shot my gap backside and I was diving in there,” Sharper said, “and I got [Dunn’s] leg and made him start to tumble.”
Dunn was so skilled, though, that as he fell, he lunged toward the goal line, giving the Seminoles a click of hope that they might pull off a dramatic, last-second escape at Scott Stadium.
But in an instant, UVa defensive backs Anthony Poindexter and Adrian Burnim were there to stop Dunn short. Burnim even knocked the ball out of Dunn’s hands.
Virginia 33, Florida State 28.
The No. 24 Cavaliers had done the unthinkable on Nov. 2, 1995, toppling Florida State and handing the Seminoles their first ever loss in ACC play. They had won 29 straight conference games upon entry into the league.
“It did just insurmountable growth for our program,” former Cavaliers punter Will Brice said. “It’s amazing to think that 30 years later, people are still talking about that game. It’s mind-blowing to me that 30 years have passed. … But you get the same feeling talking to any of the players from that game and it feels like yesterday still.
“I remember coming out for warmups and the student section was full and it was an unbelievable atmosphere. You could just feel it,” Brice continued. “The fans were there. Everyone was excited about the possibility.”
That’s because the Cavaliers were terrific in their own right under coach George Welsh. They were 6-3 overall going into the clash against Florida State and had played well throughout the year while even fighting to the end in games against their toughest competition in defeat.
Twelve days earlier, UVa went to national power Texas and took the Longhorns to the brink before losing on Phil Dawson’s 50-yard field goal as time expired. To open the year, the Hoos lost in heartbreak, too, at Michigan on a last-play touchdown pass in Ann Arbor.
“We knew we were battle-tested,” Sharper said.
They had prepared all offseason with Florida State in mind also, according to Sharper.
He said then-Cavaliers defensive coordinator Rick Lantz installed a 3-4 defense that looked more like a 3-3-stack just for the Seminoles. Aside from using it on occasional passing downs earlier in the year, the Hoos held it back until that night against Florida State and deployed it on every snap in attempt to confuse Seminoles quarterback Danny Kannell and have a chance of slowing Dunn down.
Sharper said the scheme moved Poindexter from the secondary down to the second level as an extra linebacker, joining Sharper and fellow linebacker James Farrior.
“We knew Kanell was a good quarterback, but that Warrick Dunn was the guy we had to stop,” Sharper said. “As linebackers, that’s what we tried to concentrate on, stopping Warrick Dunn from making plays in the open field. So, having Poindexter come down to linebacker gave us four on that second level and we could keep our eyes on [Dunn] and their flare passes, and we all rallied to the ball.”
UVa limited Dunn to 54 rushing yards and one touchdown on the ground during a season in which he ran for 1,242 yards and 13 touchdowns. The Cavaliers intercepted Kannell three times. Defensive back Percy Ellsworth had two of them.
It also didn’t hurt their defensive effort that Florida State’s average starting field position was its own 20-yard line.
Brice, a four-time All-ACC selection in his career, averaged 47.1 yards on his eight punts, and pinned the Seminoles inside their own 10-yard line four times.
“We felt like we had a good [special] teams group that could make a difference,” Brice said. “I had to do my part, but we had a great snapper, blockers and coverage guys. Like we had Jamie Sharper, for example, and first-round linebackers that were playing on the punt-coverage team and that shows you how important the coaching staff viewed the punting team.
“I did have a really good game that night and we were able to pin them,” Brice said, “so Florida State started with poor field position every time they got the ball. And they were so good, but to make an 80-yard or 90-yard drive, gave our defense a much better chance of success.”
And on a night when the Cavaliers were rolling on offense behind quarterback Mike Groh and running back Tiki Barber, the three units were inspiring each other.
Groh threw for 302 yards and two touchdowns, and Barber rushed for 193 yards and a score and he caught a touchdown.
“We knew Tiki was a good running back,” Sharper said. “He was a home-run hitter, but some of the hits he took and the way he was bouncing off of them and breaking tackles, we knew like, ‘OK, he’s playing at a different level.’ He stepped it up from whatever he’d done in the past.
“And as a defense, you enjoy seeing a running back break tackles,” Sharper said, “and go for long runs and that makes you want to play harder for him. Because the more time he runs the ball, the more time that is coming off the clock, so he’s really helping out the defense tremendously.”
Barber scored on a 64-yard run and a 1-yard reception. The first evened the score at 7 in the first quarter and the second evened it up at 14 in the second quarter.
The Cavaliers took their first lead in the second quarter on the first of four field goals by kicker Rafael Garcia. They got another touchdown pass from Groh late in the second quarter to take a 10-point lead against their vaunted foe and legendary Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden.
“They were almost untouchable,” Brice said of the Seminoles, “especially if you go there and play there. They start the tomahawk chant and it’s an intimidating feeling because they looked the part.”
But this was in front of UVa’s sold-out crowd, and the Hoos were determined to finish on the right side of a tight game after those devastating losses earlier that fall to the Wolverines and the Longhorns.
“We knew we had a good game plan and we played within it,” Sharper said. “There weren’t guys out there trying to make a play on their own. It was guys out there playing within the defense and knowing that if we play within it for four quarters that we can go get this game against one of our big ACC rivals like Florida State. And because we had lost in the last seconds to those other big teams, we knew we were as good as anybody in the country.”
Said Brice: “We were very confident.”
The win, Sharper said, opened up opportunity for Welsh to recruit more players out of Florida and for the Cavaliers to become more attractive to the bowl representatives when determining who would play against programs from the Big Ten or SEC.
UVa finished its 1995 season with a win in the Peach Bowl against Georgia.
Brice said their victory over the Seminoles also proved to other teams in the ACC that Florida State could be beaten.
It was a triumph that Brice, Sharper and their former teammates will never forget, and that they are particularly reminded of this week with UVa set to host No. 8 Florida State on Friday night in Charlottesville.
A win for this version of the Cavaliers against the Seminoles, “could do more them now than it did for us then,” Brice said.
“So many things have been a struggle for UVa football for a while,” he said. “We played in the conference championship a few years back [in 2019], but haven’t been as relevant when we always were year after year. And we’ve started off with a great start to the season and it would do wonders to just be in it. Florida State is back to being really good. It’d be huge.”
Greg Madia
gmadia@dailyprogress.com
@GregMadia on X
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Greg Madia
UVa Sports Reporter
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