Miami was ranked for the first time in two years this week, and people in and around college football started to ask the question: Are the Hurricanes back?

Tonight that question was answered with an emphatic no.

Miami went to Georgia Tech and got manhandled by the Yellow Jackets, who looked physically stronger than the Hurricanes in the trenches and more athletic at the skill positions. Georgia Tech led throughout, was ahead 24-3 at the half, and had the game put away late in the third quarter. The Canes scored a couple of late touchdowns to make the final score 41-23, but the fourth quarter was garbage time.

The most amazing thing about the game was the Hurricanes’ complete inability to stop the Yellow Jackets’ running game. Tech running back Jonathan Dwyer made the Hurricanes’ secondary look slow as he ran through it for a 56-yard touchdown, and even the lumbering 256-pound fullback Lucas Cox got in on the action, picking up 78 yards on eight carries. The total damage? An unthinkable 472 rushing yards for Georgia Tech.

We shouldn’t go too far in criticizing the Hurricanes. They were, after all, on a five-game winning streak before tonight’s debacle. But they’ve still got a long way to go before we can say that Miami is back.

After Florida State safety Darius McClure picked off a pass on Saturday, he did what so many football players do to celebrate big plays: He ran toward a teammate, jumped into the air, and bumped chests with him.

One problem: When McClure landed from the chest bump, he tore cartilage in his knee. The injury is season ending, and since McClure is a senior, that means his college football career is over.

Amazingly, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden says he won’t tell his players to cool it with the celebrations — and he says the real fault lies with the rule that penalizes players for individual celebrations.

“They do it all the time and all over the country; it’s just kind of a thing right now,” Bowden said. “I’m sure it’s instigated by the officials saying they don’t want any celebrating [alone]. … I’d hate to cut that enthusiasm out. I’ll take my chance on injury.”

Uh, Bobby? The rule that tells players they can’t celebrate alone doesn’t compel the players to hurl their bodies into teammates at full speed. How about you tell your players to find a way of celebrating as a group that doesn’t require them to take a chance on an injury?

Virginia Tech wide receiver Jarrett Boykin reeled in a 38-yard catch on Thursday night against Miami that gets more impressive every time you watch it.

On the catch, Boykin, a true freshman, grabbed the ball with one hand and steadied it against his helmet, a la David Tyree, before hauling it in as he went to the ground.

Boykin also dropped a deep pass against Miami, but once you see the catch he made, you’ll let that drop slide.

Here’s the video:

What do you think? Can Boykin’s catch top Edwin Baptiste for catch of the year?

Florida State might need to bring back the triple option on Saturday.

Coach Bobby Bowden has suspended five players — all wide receivers — for Saturday’s game against Boston College as a result of a fight on campus Wednesday.

Taiwan Easterling, Bert Reed, Corey Surrency, Cameron Wade and Richard Goodman are all suspended for at least Saturday’s game and maybe longer.

That does still leave three remaining receivers, including Greg Carr, who leads the team in receiving yards, and Preston Parker, who is probably the most physically talented receiver on the team. Backup Rod Owens is also unscathed. So it’s not like Florida State’s passing game will be completely shut down against Boston College.

But it does mean Florida State can’t afford an injury to a wide receiver, and four-receiver formations just went out the window.

This is Reed’s third suspension this season and Surrency’s second. So far, no charges have been filed in connection with the fight, in which someone threw a chair that injured a female bystander.

Former Oakland Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin is a candidate for the head-coaching position at Clemson.

The South Carolina newspaper The State reports that the interview quietly took place on Friday in Detroit. Clemson athletics director Terry Don Phillips flew to Detroit to see Kiffin and then flew to Tallahassee to watch Clemson play at Florida State. He and Kiffin succeeded in keeping the interview under wraps for five days before news of the meeting surfaced.

Phillips is also known to have interviewed Oklahoma defensive coordinator Brent Venables.

Clemson coach Tommy Bowden was fired after the team got off to a 3-3 start. Interim head coach Dabo Swinney, who is 1-2 in three games running the show, is not believed to be a strong candidate to be given the job on a permanent basis.

Kiffin was fired as the Raiders’ coach on September 30. Before taking the Oakland job he was an assistant to Pete Carroll at USC, and he is likely to interview for several college jobs in the next month.

Oklahoma defensive coordinator Brent Venables appears to be a strong candidate to become the next head coach at Clemson.

SoonerScoop.com posted a photo yesterday showing Clemson officials arriving at the Oklahoma City airport, and Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips is apparently in town to interview Venables for the job.

There were rumors that Oklahoma offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson was also a candidate, but he says he knows nothing about it. Wilson did say he’s heard the rumors about Venables, but he doesn’t know if there’s any truth to them.

“Everybody keeps throwing Brent’s name out there from time to time,” Wilson said. “But we don’t ever talk about it up (in the football office).”

The 38-year-old Venables played at Kansas State and was an assistant coach there from 1993 to 1998. When Bob Stoops, at the time a Kansas State assistant, became the Oklahoma head coach in 1999, he brought Venables with him.

Venables did not show up when Oklahoma assistants were made available to the media yesterday.

It’s going to be the best of both worlds for Florida State defensive back Myron Rolle.

Rolle is a finalist for this year’s Rhodes Scholarship, and the final interviews are scheduled for November 22, the same day as Florida State’s game at Maryland. But Florida State, ESPN and the NCAA appear to have a schedule worked out that will not force him to choose between playing in the game and participating in the interview.

Kickoff of Florida State-Maryland has been scheduled for 7:45 p.m., and in a rare bit of common sense, the NCAA said it would allow Florida State to charter a private jet to take Rolle straight from the Rhodes interview to the game. As the schedule for the afternoon interview currently stands, Rolle likely will make it in time for the opening kickoff.

Rolle is a very good defensive back and a great student, and he’ll likely learn when he lands in Maryland whether he’s been chosen as a Rhodes Scholar. He’ll have a lot of football fans rooting for him.

Florida State safety Myron Rolle is a kid whose accomplishments seem too good to be true: A starter since his freshman year, an All-America candidate, a pre-med student who got his bachelor’s degree in two and a half years and is already working on his master’s.

And now Rolle is poised to do something really extraordinary: Make football second in his life, after his aspirations to earn a Rhodes Scholarship.

The final interviews for this year’s Rhodes Scholar candidates are on November 22, which is also the day of Florida State’s game against Maryland. And although that game could decide the ACC Atlantic Division, Rolle says becoming a Rhodes Scholar comes first, and he’ll skip the game if he has to.

“The more I do mock interviews here at school and think about what I want to say, I have grown to really want to be a Rhodes Scholar,” Rolle tells Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated. “If it takes missing a game, that’s what it takes.”

Florida State coach Bobby Bowden says he completely supports that decision, even though it means going into a big conference game without a starting safety.

“We couldn’t be more proud of this happening for one of our players,” Bowden said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance and you wouldn’t dare deny him that. I just hope he wins it.”

Kickoff time of the Florida State-Maryland game has not been determined, so there’s a chance that Rolle could both attend the interview and play in the game. But if he has to choose, he’s choosing his academic goals over football.

One of the biggest stories (or, depending on your point of view, one of the most overblown stories) in the NFL this year is the phone conversation between Brett Favre and members of the Detroit Lions’ coaching staff before the Lions played the Green Bay Packers.

Favre, now the New York Jets’ quarterback, has been harshly criticized in some quarters for giving information about his former team to a division rival.

Could the same thing happen this week in college football when Florida State plays Clemson on Saturday?

Florida State coach Bobby Bowden might be tempted to call his son, former Clemson coach Tommy Bowden,  and ask him for some inside information. But Bobby says there’s no way Tommy would tell him anything that could help the father beat the son’s former employer.

“Tommy wouldn’t dare try to spill the beans on them,” Bobby Bowden said. “Tommy and I have talked three or four times since he left Clemson and we have not mentioned one Clemson player. I can see where people would think, ‘Boy, now Coach Bowden’s going to get a good scouting report.’ We study film. We don’t need a scouting report.”

I don’t really buy Bobby’s claims that “we don’t need a scouting report.” Are we really to believe that Tommy couldn’t tell Bobby anything that would supplement Florida State’s film study?

But I do buy that Tommy wouldn’t tell Bobby anything. Even if Tommy Bowden isn’t happy that he got canned, I don’t believe that he has so much anger toward his old school that he’d do anything underhanded just to see them lose to his old man.

Virginia fullback RaShawn Jackson has been charged with one count of breaking and entering and one count of grand larceny in connection with a break-in at a campus dorm last year. The burglary charges, which police announced Wednesday, are felonies.

Police confirmed that they charged Jackson but have released few details, including why they’re just now filing charges in an incident that took place last November.

Virginia says it’s not kicking Jackson, a starter, off the team.

“At this time Rashawn Jackson is still a participating member of the football team,” athletic director Craig Littlepage said in a statement. “This matter will be handled within the team and the athletics department, and his final status with the team will not be determined until such time as the legal process is resolved or additional information becomes available.”

Jackson is a junior from New Jersey who began his college career as a linebacker before switching to fullback in 2007.