What a difference a year makes.
In 2023, the Florida State Seminoles were one of the best teams in college football. They went 12-0 during the regular season, won the ACC, and probably would have been in the four-team College Football Playoff if starting quarterback Jordan Travis had not been injured.
Despite missing out on the playoffs, and then getting blown out in their bowl game, the Seminoles still entered 2024 as a preseason top-10 team with ACC championship expectations.
They are not going to come close to matching them, and with Saturday’s 52-3 loss at No. 10 Notre Dame, their season has officially gone from bad to embarrassing.
It is also one of the worst 180 wrong-way turnarounds in college football history.
The Seminoles are not only 1-9 on the season, they have not even been competitive in most of these games.
Saturday’s loss at Notre Dame was already their sixth loss by at least two scores and the fourth time they have lost by at least 20 points.
The Seminoles completed just 10-of-26 passes for only 88 yards, while also throwing two interceptions including a pick-six late in the fourth quarter. They were out-gained 453-208 overall.
Yes, Florida State lost a lot of talent from last year’s team, including Travis and top running back Trey Benson. But again, this was still a team that entered the year with a top-10 ranking and was 23-4 the past two seasons. To not only lose nine of their first 10 games but to get dominated in most of them is a bad look for everybody involved, from the coaching staff down to the players.
It is also uncharted territory for the program. While Florida State has had some mediocre seasons in recent years, it has rarely been this bad. This is Florida State’s first nine-loss season since 1974.
If there is a silver lining to take from it all, it is that the Seminoles at least have two winnable games remaining to close out the season with Charleston Southern and Florida still on the schedule. The former should be a win, while the latter might be a 50-50 coin flip given the way both teams have played this season.
