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Historical Hypothetical: What if Warrick Dunn Had Scored Against Virginia?
Looking back over the last quarter century, it remains one of the most heartbreaking defeats in Florida State football history. On a Thursday night in Charlottesville, Virginia in November 1995, the Seminoles suffered their first ever conference loss as a member of the ACC.
Faced with one last play from the Virginia 6-yard-line, FSU running back Warrick Dunn took a direct snap from center Clay Shiver and made it to the goal line, but was ruled down just inches short, giving Virginia a 33-28 victory over the No. 2 Seminoles.
“Everyone was relaxed that we were going to go down the field and score, but we came up just short,†said Todd Rebol, a senior linebacker on the 1995 team. “We didn’t want to lose to anybody, but I think looking back, that’s the only game where our group of players said ‘what if’. We laid it out every game, but that one Virginia game, it just felt weird.â€
Florida State would rally to win the ACC, but the regular season ended with a loss to Florida. The Seminoles were able to overcome a 12-point fourth quarter deficit in the Orange Bowl to defeat Notre Dame 31-26 and finish 10-2 and ranked fourth nationally in the AP Poll.
One however, has to wonder how the season might have been different had Dunn got into the end zone or had the final play been ruled a touchdown.
“We still would have had to go down to the Swamp and beat a very good Florida team,†Rebol said. “Clearly, that would have been a bigger game because the winner would have gone to the national championship. It still would have been tough to beat the Gators, but I think we probably would have been in a better position than we were.â€
In the regular season finale against Florida, FSU fought back from a 22-point halftime deficit to whittle the lead to 35-24 heading into the final quarter. Neither team from there was able to score as the Gators completed a perfect regular season. Florida would clobber Arkansas for the SEC Championship to get a shot at top-ranked Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, but were handled 62-24 for the national championship.
“I don’t know if the Dallas Cowboys could have beat Nebraska that season,†Rebol said. “They beat Florida in the national championship game unlike I had ever seen. (Nebraska) Coach (Tom) Osborne and that offense had a lot of senior talent that had been in the big games. It was brutal to watch.â€
Though Rebol couldn’t say with any confidence that FSU would have defeated Nebraska, he thinks his team would have stood a better chance than the 38-point embarrassment suffered by the Gators.
“I know Mickey Andrews well enough that if we would have played that Nebraska game, he would have put goal line defense in before they would have ran through us like that,†Rebol said. “He would have game-planned where they had to pass somehow, some way. I still feel more comfortable speculating that we could have beat Florida than Nebraska.â€
As a senior in 1995, Rebol recorded 63 total tackles and a career-high 5 forced fumbles. Rebol was a sophomore on the 1993 team that won the national championship. Though his career didn’t end with another shot at a title, Rebol said he was happy with the way it ended and that was with an Orange Bowl victory over Notre Dame.
“I only played in one national championship and we won it,†he said. “I don’t know how I would feel being on the other side of that coin. If you told me, ‘Todd, you would have gone to the national championship game and lost to Nebraska or gone to the Orange Bowl and won’ as we did, I personally probably would have rather went out in the Orange Bowl where we had a huge following versus going out to the Fiesta Bowl and getting beat. If you told me my chances were as good either way, I probably would have played in the bigger game. You always want to play against the best possible team, but that Nebraska team was out for blood.â€
Looking back on the loss to Virginia more than 20 years ago, Rebol said the team just didn’t have it that night. Thursday night games, he recalls, were fairly new and the team struggled to adjust to a different weekly schedule. The loss not only put a huge dent in FSU’s national championship hopes, but it snapped the school’s 29-game ACC winning streak upon entering the conference.
“I don’t want to say we were flat, but we were flatter than normal,†Rebol said. “Maybe that’s because all of the ACC games we had won and maybe, we got a little complacent. I think we look back and know we were a better team than Virginia, but we didn’t execute to the best of our ability. I don’t think it would have been a blowout, but I don’t think it would have come down to the last play.â€
About Mike Ferguson
Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole and former editor of Noled Out. Mike has more than seven years experience as a sports writer including the last four in print and online media. Mike graduated from Florida State University in 2009 with a Bachelors in Religion and a minor in Communications. Mike provided press coverage of Florida State's run to the 2013 BCS National Championship. Mike is also a news reporter at Polk County's newspaper, The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida. and contributes to Athlon Sports and ACCSports.com. Mike has been featured on sites as prominent as Yahoo Sports, FoxSports.com, Associated Press and the front page of SI.com while interviewing athletes as high profile as 2013 National League MVP, Andrew McCutchen. Email Mike at Mike@TheDailyNole.com. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson.
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