(Photo by Orlando Sentinel)
In 2023, the Florida State Seminoles ran the table and entered NCAA football's version of Selection Sunday as a shoo-in for one of the posts in the college football payoff. FSU went undefeated and won the ACC Championship game. Surely, the committee wouldn't fumble this. Spoiler alert: they fumbled this. They decided that one-loss Alabama was a better team, and they were going to the playoff while the Noles were on the outside looking in.
To say that Florida State didn't take this news well is an understatement. A majority of players decided to skip the bowl game as an act of defiance. Unfortunately, the opponent of the Noles, Georgia, was also pissed. After losing in the SEC Championship game, the Bulldogs were upset that their chance at a three-peat was squandered. In the Orange Bowl, Georgia all but showed Florida State what happens when you encounter a buzzsaw. 63-3 was the final as FSU limped into 2024, hoping for a continuation of 2023.
What has happened is one of the most shocking drop-offs in recent history. Florida State University stand at 1-6 and was beaten by a supposed basketball school in Duke for the first time in school history. It is their worst start since the late 70's, and it will probably leave FSU without bowl eligibility. This loss has left the Seminoles 15th in the ACC, a conference that they once ruled under Bobby Bowden and a short time under Jimbo Fisher. Many fans won't mention the Willie Taggert Era, because of causes them to get panic attacks. 2024 has become a season-long panic attack with losses to Georgia Tech, Memphis, SMU, Boston College and now Duke. Past Seminole teams would have destroyed these teams and not break a sweat doing it.
The media and fans have decided to take shots at Florida State and rightfully so. The poster boy to these remarks is former starting quarterback DJ Uiagalelei. Coming out of high school, DJ was one of the top quarterback prospects in the nation from St. John Bosco. In fact, he wasn't the only top quarterback prospect out of California in 2020. Number one was Bryce Young out of Mater Dei High School, DJ was number two and CJ Stroud out of Rancho Cucamonga was three. Young won the Heisman in his freshman season and was the number one pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, while Stroud was number two. For DJ, he would begin his college career at Clemson, where he would back up campus legend Trevor Lawrence. DJ was dreaming of repeating the success that Lawrence achieved at Death Valley.
Well, it hasn't gone well for him as he didn't rekindle the championship formula that T-Law accomplished. Also, there was that time where coach Dabo Swinney benched him for the ACC title game in 2022. He decided that transferring was a good idea, on to Oregon State he goes! DJ had an okay 2023 season in Corvallis (57.1 completion percentage, 2638 yards, 21 touchdowns, 7 picks). After this season, he decided to transfer again in hopes to resuscitate his once legendary career, why not Florida State? He was in a perfect situation as FSU was in line to run it back. As DJ would be named the starter, let's see his stats and......
OH, MY GOD!
The game against SMU wasn't pretty.....
Geez, just geez. Remember, he was rated ahead of CJ Stroud in high school. Stroud is a franchise quarterback on a playoff contending team with the Texans. He was benched after the SMU game as his college career is at its merciful end, hopefully he's not allowed to transfer elsewhere. (Seriously, the NCAA needs to limit that)
So, the Noles are heading into a cliff with no brakes as their next opponent is sixth ranked Miami. Yep, 2023 seems so long ago.
For anyone asking where I got the name of the title of this piece, it is from this song.
(Photo by Wikipedia)
I was also listening to it while finishing this. It is a banger of a tone.
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