FSU Football: Goals Gone, but Don’t Expect Season to Spiral Out of Control

For fans of Florida State football, morale is low.

The Seminoles fell to 0-2 for the first time since 1989 on Saturday with a 27-21 home loss to N.C. State in the first game played in three weeks. The loss marks the second season in a row that FSU’s College Football Playoff hopes were dashed before Oct. 2.

Running the table at this point to get to 10 wins hardly seems like a reality. In fact, reports are that the Seminoles are even considering rescheduling Louisiana-Monroe, because it may be a necessity to become bowl-eligible.

With contests with Miami, Louisville, Clemson and Florida remaining — not to mention trips to currently undefeated Wake Forest and Duke — the potential of not playing in a bowl is a reality for FSU. Other streaks in jeopardy include five straight major bowl appearances and 10-win seasons, seven top-25 finishes and four straight wins over rival Florida and seven against Miami.

While this may sound like doom and gloom, there is good news for FSU fans. The Seminoles have been in bad situations before under head coach Jimbo Fisher and things have never spiraled out of control. Don’t expect them to this year either.

“We have to play one game at a time,” Fisher said during Wednesday’s ACC teleconference. “We’re very close in all the areas, but we have to improve.”

In 2011, FSU was just 2-3 after dropping three straight contests to Oklahoma, Clemson and Wake Forest. The Seminoles went on to win seven of their final eight games, with the lone blemish being a 14-13 loss to Virginia in which Dustin Hopkins missed a potential game-winning field goal as time expired.

Last season, the Seminoles were 3-2 after losing by 43 points to Louisville and then watching the nation’s longest home winning streak end with a gut-wrenching 37-35 loss to North Carolina. Rather than fold, FSU again went on to win seven of its final eight games with the only defeat being a 37-34 loss to eventual national champion Clemson in a game where the Tigers had to rally in the final minutes.

With four teams currently ranked and two others still undefeated remaining on the schedule, the challenge is a bit greater for the Seminoles this time around. Under Fisher however, they’ve never shown an inability to get off the mat regardless of how soon the goals for the season were dashed.

“You’ll find out who a lot of your guys are who can deal with adversity,” Fisher said. “I think our guys understand that and we have to play well this weekend (against Wake Forest).”

FSU being able to continue that trend would not necessarily mean that changes to the coaching staff would not need to be made. There’s something admirable in being able to bounce back from early-season adversity and still have a commendable season, but consistently being out of the College Football Playoff and arguably the ACC race before the end of the first week in October isn’t going to keep the fan base happy.

“You have to go back to work and control what you can control,” Fisher said. “There’s no magic formula, no magic dust out there.”

FSU is just 14-8 in its last 22 games and just 12-8 if you exclude FCS opponents. The Seminoles are also just 7-6 in their last 13 ACC games. Assuming FSU can’t run the table, this will be the third season in a row that it did not play for the ACC crown and suffered at least three losses after losing just three total from 2012-14.

The fan base would probably almost unanimously agree that the status quo is unacceptable and changes are necessary. As bad as things may seem right now, Fisher has never been one to lose his team. With that said, don’t expect the remainder of the season to go up in smoke.

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