From the moment our preseason top 25 was released, to last week when the demons (of Wake Forest) were finally exorcised, we here at CFT have thought long and thought hard about whether Florida State was really... you know..."back.”
It’s a four-letter word of vulgar yet somehow simultaneously diluted meaning because it’s a movie we’ve seen before. The plot goes as such: the Seminoles enter the season with lofty expectations with promises that this finally the year of a return to national prominence, only to underachieve and end up in the Champs Sports Bowl.
Though FSU was 3-0 heading into tonight’s game against No. 10 Clemson, could you blame anyone for thinking this year was any different? Sure, a 69-3 season-opening win over Murray State and consecutive shutouts against Savannah State and Wake Forest is worth at least a raise of the eyebrow, but it’s also Murray State, Savannah State and Wake Forest.
So forgive me for having a Stephen A. Smith moment when I thought “the Clemson Tigers are not the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.”
As it turns out, though, Florida State may not be Florida State, or at least the Florida State of old. You know, the one that loses to Wake Forest and can’t beat top-ranked Oklahoma to thrust itself back into college football’s elite group. This time around, the fourth-ranked Seminoles seized the opportunity to knock off Clemson 49-37. It was Jimbo Fisher‘s first win over a top-10 team since taking over for Bobby Bowden in 2010.
And Fisher needed a big win. For all the hype, the top recruiting classes, FSU has had nothing meaningful to show for it in Fisher’s short tenure. The ACC needed it too. Since expanding to 12 members in 2005, the ACC has not become the football power conference it was expected to be. If anything, it’s been right around, or just above, the level of the Big East. To change its perception, the ACC needs a traditional power to be nationally relevant again.
What team better than Florida State?
Could that happen this year? Perhaps. We’re not ready to use the “B-word” just yet, but the ‘Noles continue to give off the appearance that they’re for real (and we mean it this time, we think). Keep in mind that September is for overreactions, October should be when the polls are first released and November is for separating the contenders from the pretenders. So right now, everyone’s just guessing. Want to stop the guesses? Keep winning and no one will wonder about Florida State.
They’ll wonder if the Mayans were right.