In the long history of sport, there are moments when the machinery of modernity falls away and competitors are left with only their instincts and each other. On a Monday night in Tallahassee, a power surge before kickoff stripped Florida State and SMU of every electronic tool they had come to depend on, forcing a high-stakes ACC opener into uncharted territory. Rather than retreat from the moment, both programs chose to play — accepting the silence of dead headsets and dark screens as the price of keeping their season intact. It was, in its way, a reminder that the game existed long before the