First off, yes Florida State is really good. We know that. But after reading so much on this site as well as others about the strength of the ACC this season, I looked further in depth at FSU's success against teams outside the conference, and who FSU's opponents have played outside of the ACC. For example, the Clemson smashing is obviously the most impressive win on the Seminoles' schedule right now. But who was Clemson's most impressive win over? A 4-3 Georgia team by 3 points. While Georgia has good wins as well, they have 3 losses. I took this approach to all of FSU's opponents to date.
Pittsburgh (4-2) Lost to FSU 41-13. Best out of conference win is a 49-27 victory over a 2-5 New Mexico team. Pitt also squeaked by Duke (58-55) and only beat Old Dominion by 11.
Nevada (3-4) Lost to FSU 62-7. Best win is over 1-6 Air Force.
Bethune-Cookman (6-1) Lost to FSU 54-6. Bethune-Cookman is an FBS team whose best win is over FIU.
Boston College (3-3) Lost to FSU 48-34. Best out of conference win is against Army, who is 3-5. BC also got shmacked by Southern Cal 35-7.
Maryland (5-2) Lost to FSU 63-0. Maryland did blank WVU 37-0, but also only beat a winless UConn team by just 11. Also, in conference, they of course beat UVA by just one point.
Clemson (6-1) Lost to FSU 51-14. Best out of conference win is over 4-3 Georgia, 38-35. Also just beat Boston College by 10 at home.
I am by no means saying FSU is not a top 10 team, or that Clemson isn't either. I'm simply stacking up FSU's overall performance against non-ACC teams to see if they legitimately could be better than Alabama, Oregon, or even Ohio State. The biggest factor in FSU's favor is their margin of victory in almost every game. But the teams that they have beaten, and the teams that their opponents have beaten, are not as strong as one might think. So even though their stomping of Clemson was downright impressive, I had to question how good that Clemson team was, then did the same with Pitt, BC, etc.
All of that said, I think FSU is a top 5 team, but the talk of them being ranked #1 is a little premature until they have success outside the ACC, and against other teams who have also had success outside the ACC.
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