The Seminoles were a college football powerhouse, fresh off their fifth straight New Year's Six bowl game and four years removed from a national title, with nearly four decades of unrivaled consistency in the sport. The Florida State football program feared no one.
Behind the success, however, the cracks in the program's foundation were obvious to anyone who cared to look deeper: A coach who flirted with a seemingly endless string of deep-pocketed suitors. A contentious power struggle among the program's leadership. Demands for bigger and better facilities stressing an already tight budget. A pervasive attitude of entitlement within the locker room. Declining academic performance. And a string of high-profile, off-field trouble that bruised the program's reputation.
The dysfunction could be overlooked in service of the common goal: victories on the field.
Lots of interesting discussion...
- Culture under Jimbo
- Jamies Winston's behavior and Jimbo's response
- Jimbo vs Athletic dept
- Players faking injuries to get out of practice
- Fisher's son's health issues
- FSU Officials failing to do due diligence on Taggart (including failing to account for Taggart's buy outs) when agreeing to hire him
A few comments that stood out to me, mirroring some challenges VT faces:
Fisher believed the football program deserved nearly unilateral support. Florida State's alumni base is comparatively young, and its football success didn't begin in earnest until the 1980s, one Seminole Boosters board member said. That makes for an often shallow pool of big-dollar donors, combined with what is among the most geographically dispersed fan bases of any major school in the country.
"He'd been in the SEC, and maybe he'd seen that when Nick [Saban] wants something, he gets it really quick," the booster said of Fisher, who'd been an assistant under Saban at LSU. "Florida State, there was a delay where we had to go raise the money for a project that doesn't generate revenue."
Fisher saw Clemson's program expanding, including plans for a $55 million football facility that opened in 2017, and he believed Florida State needed to keep pace.
"He knew if Florida State didn't jump on top of it right away, Clemson would eventually overtake everyone," one Fisher staffer said. "Their administration on down, everyone was in alignment with the vision of the program and totally committed to doing what it takes to make football successful."
"[FSU was] like a nice, shiny Lamborghini, and then you pop the hood, and it's a 1985 Ford motor."
Finally, one comment that made me chuckle:
The game ended in a 24-3 Virginia Tech victory, and Taggart's offense, dubbed "lethal simplicity," had already become a punchline.
"They wanted to run this playbook with freaking five plays in it," one former player said. "I'm sorry this isn't the MAC. They're going to catch on to it, and that's exactly what happened."
Anyways, it's a great read, I recommend reading the whole thing when you have time.
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