The Daily Nole

FSU With Plenty to Prove, Play for in Orange Bowl

Jeff Romance/FSU athletics

With college football stars like Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey and LSU’s Leonard Fournette deciding to sit out bowl games, some have questioned how much value bowls really have. For Florida State in this year’s Capital One Orange Bowl, the answer is quite a bit.

When the Seminoles take on No. 6 Michigan in Miami on Dec. 30, they won’t only be looking to avoid losing a third straight bowl for the first time in school-history, but also that they can still beat elite teams.

Florida State is in a major bowl game for a fifth straight year and for a third straight year since FBS scrapped the BCS system for the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six. The first two trips to New Year’s Six bowls however, have been utterly disappointing for FSU.

After losing to Oregon by an embarrassing score of 59-20 in the Rose Bowl — college football’s first semifinal — to conclude 2014, the Seminoles were handled by Group of 5 representative Houston in last season’s Peach Bowl, 38-24.

Losing the last two bowls served as dampers to end an otherwise stellar campaign, but this season is a bit different. FSU began the year with legitimate national championship aspirations and ascended to as high No. 2 in the polls before being embarrassed at Louisville and losing heartbreakers at home to North Carolina and Clemson.

The Seminoles have fought hard to crawl out of an early hole and should be commended for getting to a New Year’s Six bowl and while winning would result in 10 wins and probably a top-10 finish, the 2016 campaign as a whole will fail to live up to expectations. Losing to finish with fewer than 10 wins for the first time since 2011 and probably FSU’s lowest ranking since would make it an abject failure.

In a season that failed to live up the hype such as this one or one largely billed as a rebuilding year like 2015, the Seminoles showed they could still stand toe-to-toe with the nation’s best. Against a Clemson team last season that reached the national title game, FSU was even in the fourth quarter at Death Valley and this year, the Seminoles led the College Football Playoff-bound Tigers up until the final score with 2:06 to play.

Hanging tough with elite teams and beating them however, are two different things. While it’s worth noting both Florida and South Florida are ranked in the AP top 25, the Seminoles beat just one team that finished ranked last season and that was the Gators who finished just inside the polls at No. 25. FSU hasn’t beat a team that finished in the AP top 10 since Georgia Tech in the 2014 ACC Championship.

Since winning the national championship in 2013 behind one of the most dominant seasons in FBS history and reaching the College Football Playoff a year later, there is some conjecture that FSU has fallen off as a program or slid to the second tier of the national pantheon.

Michigan currently sits at sixth in the country with a record of 10-2. Those losses came by one point on a last-second field goal at Iowa and in overtime on the road to a playoff-bound Ohio State team one play after it appeared that the Wolverines had come up with a fourth down stop to seal a victory.

Even with the two losses, Michigan was still considered alive by some for a playoff berth all the way up until the bracket was unveiled on Dec. 4. By almost all accounts, Michigan is one of the best teams in the country. Beating a Michigan team that starts 18 seniors would not only give FSU a fifth straight 10-win season and a top-10 finish, but it would give credence to the notion that when it comes to college football’s elite programs, the Seminoles aren’t going anywhere.

Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson

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