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.
Comments
To be fair...FSU's lax punishment towards their football players behaving badly is nothing new, that's been around since the 80s. But, how could anyone have foreseen that hiring a guy named Jimbo could backfire so spectacularly? /s
Didn't Laborn show up for his announcement in a Lambo?
Really interesting read, and some good perspective for us. The part about FSU having a relatively young donor base that is very spread out geographically in particular. They had a much larger window of football success than we ever had, and they have the same struggles to bring in $$s. It's pretty reasonable to think that the biggest thing they (and Miami) ever had going for them was simply being in the state of Florida.
Once it became harder to just keep every good Florida HS player by default, those teams fell off. Even UF did for a period, but being in the SEC gave them an advantage to work back to where they are now.
They have 3 more MNC than us so...
Yep. And better weather, too.
Honestly is Florida weather all that great? Humid af and a lot more storms.
Arizona weather is much better. And they can't recruit for shit out here
I used to think this, too. I've lived in Tucson for 13 years now and this summer (the whole year, actually) has broken me. It was 110 in mid-September for crying out loud. Still better than bumfuck Florida, though. Not better than Blacksburg.
i'm convinced the myth of florida having nice weather is a marketing push by disney to get people to show up to their theme parks. beaches are nice when you're literally on the ocean, rest of the state is hot, humid, sticky, and smells funny.
as my granddad used to say "Sounds like an old girlfriend of mine"
Part of it is winter weather.. South Florida is very comfortable in January/February.
I'm in the Florida Panhandle, about a two-hour drive from Tallahassee.
Today is sunny and 73 degrees. Yesterday was sunny and 73 degrees. Tomorrow will be sunny and 73 degrees.
Apart from hurricanes, the weather is pretty nice here. Sunny most of the time. Hot in the summer, very bearable in the winter.
Plus a clown college
Fun fact: FSU was a women's college until the 70s
Source? Pretty sure that happened after WWII. Wikipedia
Was Co-ed in 1947, and had a men's football team.
lol, have you been there? it's a swamp. that area of the country is borderline unlivable for humans, or at least this one.
I live in North Dakota. I'll take hurricane country and humidity over brutal winters, any day.
Also, we can see it get up to 107 here in August, only for it to be 49 the next morning.
I miss living near the Gulf Stream, but the pay is right for my industry.
Haven't read the story yet....but IMHO FSU football started the decline as Bobby Bowden aged and then eventually retired. My abridged and less informed version of the story may have a familiar ring.
Very similar to Hokie Football and Beamer...
And Penn State as well 😁☠💩👨🚀👉
Yea but it took a major scandal for them to fall, joepa probably still be coaching if he had not been fired for covering up abuse...
Penn State was one major scandal, FSU was a series of scandals and public gaffes, ours isnt scandal but media apathy...
Well that and he's dead
He died because they fired him, they took away(rightfully so) his reason for living
The situations are similar, but we didn't fall nearly as far since we didn't have anywhere near their success. Otherwise, not a bad comparison.
We also weren't as high. FSU had 15+ years being ranked in the top 5. They were a number of missed FGs from another couple of championships. We had a once in a decade player and a good scheming DC that got us to a championship game.
EDIT: typo, also probably should be "great scheming"
to a degree sure,"there is even a comment about them trying to get Jimbo's success on Bowden's budget and attitude" but there was also another major high in between there what with winning another title.
A TKP thread about the downfall of FSU and no mention of turntle on this whole page. Put some respect on the name.
For the uninitiated https://www.sbnation.com/platform/amp/college-football/2017/11/29/167148...
#RIPTurntle
It just hurts too much to think about Turntle
Justice for Turntle
How have I never heard of this? Man fuck that guy
the fall of FSU say?
The one parallel that bothers me, but is part of an ADs job, is to push success in all sports. Whit is doing that, and providing the facilities for those programs. Our baseball field is legit. We have a legit wrestling program, basketball is trending positive, etc, etc, BUT maybe even 10 years ago, that money probably went to football. Hell our soccer teams are ranked.
It bothers me though, b/c the success of football goes hand in hand with the other sports. The revenue generated by football, the buzz from football, the general interest in the school from football, etc. Gotta feed the beast to feed the minions.
I see it as kind of a cyclical thing. Football success led to ACC membership which led to A) increased revenues but also B) increased obligations for non-revenue sports So then we spend a lot of resources on those non-revenue sports to get them to ACC (i.e. top-tier) levels. Now we are turning the dial back to reinforcing the revenue sports (basketball & football). Ideally there would be the resources available to do both - keep the revenue sports up to date & competitive *and* invest in the non-rev's but I think that is a rare situation unless you have Big Fourteen Network money
I've inferred (from handful of places, no personal #sauces) that the directive to compete across all sports (not just football) comes from President Sands, who is more concerned with Directors Cup rankings than CFP Rankings. Again, no one has explicitly told me this, just something a handful of people and message board posters have alluded to over the years. Take it as you will.