Fresh off their home loss to Butch Davis and the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Canes will host their biggest rival, Florida State, this Saturday.

The Marlins' season is finally over, which means that the Canes won't have to deal with the dirt infield at Dolphins Stadium that no doubt affects kickers such as Matt Bosher, who missed one from that spot last week.

The big key this week will be the offensive line, which is expected to again be without injured right tackle Reggie Youngblood. The line started last week with a crushing block by left tackle Jason Fox. But late holding penalties against Fox and center Xavier Shannon hurt the Canes' cause.

Hopefully, the Canes will get injured freshman DT Marcus Forston back this week and add him to a front wall that is playing pretty well. They held North Carolina to 35 yards last Saturday - one yard per try.

At linebacker, the Canes still need to play freshman Sean Spence more. He is a stud.

UM's defensive backs were victimized last Saturday. And while they surely need to play better, the Canes' blitzers are also at fault. The Canes brought blitzers and failed to get at the Tar Heels' QB, which left the DBs vulnerable.

Offensively, RB Graig Cooper went over 100 yards and has an impressive average-per rush. But he needs help. With Javarris James hurt, the Canes are going almost exclusively to Cooper and have not given young backs Shawnbrey McNeal and Lee Chambers much of a chance.

I continue to like QB Robert Marve's moxy. He admittedly threw  a bad pass on his first interception, but he is a very accurate, poised and impressive young QB.

The receiver position is another position where the freshmen have to play if this team is going to ultimately progress.

On the final play of the game, junior WR Kayne Farquharson almost came up with the winning TD pass on a Marve pass that was a bit high. And while Kayne tried his best, the play showed his shortcomings. Rather than stretch for that pass, Kayne needed to quickly plant and leap and go get that ball at its highest point.

That is what I expect in the future will happen with players such as freshman Aldarius Johnson, who caught his first college TD pass against the Heels, and also 6-5 Tommy Streeter, who is out this year with an injury but still has major potential.

Tight end Dedric Epps is another big dude who has shown he can make the big catch in a clutch situation - his game-winner vs. Florida State is a case in point.