ORLANDO — Amid the proliferation of early-season walkover games, the few high-level matchups that exist can take on exaggerated importance. They feel so definitive, even if they sometimes aren’t. Preseason optimism only grows for the winners while it evaporates for the losers.
That’s why fans of No. 5 LSU beat a hasty retreat from Camping World Stadium in the fourth quarter, their pace of exit powered by fresh disgust. And it’s why No. 8 Florida State fans howled and whooped and Tomahawk Chopped late into the night in and around the stadium after a 45–24 beatdown of the Tigers.
Stow away the palpable emotions of the night, and this is the truth: a top-10 showdown in Week 1 is not a must-win game in the College Football Playoff Era. The loser is rarely, if ever, evicted from the playoff race. (Although LSU coach Brian Kelly came close to declaring that the purple-and-gold world has ended as we know it. More on that later.)
However, sometimes one team needs to win the big game more than the other. And let’s just say that Florida State inarguably had more on the line than LSU did for multiple reasons.
There is less strength of schedule ahead for the Seminoles than the Tigers, for one. While that’s largely a byproduct of playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference vs. the SEC West, it’s also due to rival (and SEC member) Florida looking like it won’t bring much to the table at season’s end.
Here’s the other reason why Florida State really needed to win this game: The school’s administration shot off its mouth this summer to such a degree that the football program had to back it up. Without having yet proven it on the field, FSU’s president and some of its trustees declared a month ago that the Seminoles were too good for their popsicle-stand league and needed to be treated like the royalty they used to be. Despite being contractually obligated to the league through 2036—an agreement the school entered into willingly—the university brass openly fomented a revolution in a live-streamed trustees meeting.
“I believe that FSU will have to, at some point, consider very seriously leaving the ACC, unless there were a radical change to the revenue distribution,” president Rick McCullough said. Trustee Drew Weatherford, a former Seminoles quarterback, took that rhetoric up another notch: “It’s not a matter of if we leave, in my opinion. It’s a matter of how and when we leave.” Another trustee called for an exit plan by 2025.
In part to calm down the mutinous ‘Noles, the ACC just this past week finalized a deal to expand by three schools: Stanford, California and SMU. That will created added revenue from ESPN, and those schools are coming in at a discount rate with a good chunk of that money going into a “success initiative” pool for ACC schools that advance in the College Football Playoff and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
How long that satisfies an openly hostile league member remains to be seen. (Florida State was one of three schools to vote against the expansion, along with Clemson and North Carolina.) But coming into this game, Florida State still needed to make a statement that it will be good enough to earn that extra money and earn Most Favored Nation status within the league.
Florida State hasn’t won the ACC since 2014 and was a shell of its former national championship self from ’17 to ’21. The ‘Noles’ record during that time: 26–33. FSU left Clemson to carry the league by itself for five grim seasons under three different coaches.
John Raoux/AP
The turnaround finally started last year, when the Seminoles went 10–4. That breakthrough, combined with retaining several stars who could have entered the NFL draft and again crushing the transfer portal, set the stage for this season and this showdown game.
“I told them today, they’re built for an environment like this,” said coach Mike Norvell. “This stage.”
Needing to plant their flag—or at least their burning spear—the ‘Noles delivered thunderously. After falling behind 14–7, they unleashed an offensive barrage that LSU couldn’t handle. FSU scored on six straight drives to blow the game open, with quarterback Jordan Travis (380 yards total offense and five touchdowns) connecting with Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson (a combined 16 catches for 226 yards) repeatedly.
“I told them at halftime, ‘You will score every drive in the second half if you focus on the little things, force on the details,’“ Norvell said.
The biggest detail: Give Travis time to find those two big, fast receivers who can win contested catches. Both Coleman and Wilson are transfers, with Wilson arriving last year from Arizona State and Coleman this spring from Michigan State. They have plenty of transfer company. As Colorado proved dramatically Saturday, adding talented players capable of immediate impact can work wonders.
Flush with talent and increased experience, Florida State now can look ahead to the rest of the season with anticipation of conjuring up the glory days of Jameis Winston, Chris Weinke and Charlie Ward. Meanwhile, LSU might have to talk its own coach in off the ledge.
After seeing his team give up the most points in an opening game by an AP top-five team since 1968, according to ESPN, Kelly did not take the path of least resistance and greatest coachspeak. He sounded the alarm, blaming himself repeatedly but not sparing the players, either. (Nor should he have.) His team looked like it quit in the middle of that Florida State second-half barrage, and that’s a big problem.
“We certainly were not the football team I thought we were,” he said. “I take full responsibility for not having our team playing the football I thought they would.
“This is a total failure from a coaching standpoint and a player standpoint that we obviously have to address and have to own. … For some reason we thought we were somebody else. We thought we were the two-time defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs or something, I don’t know. We were mistaken.”
By the end of his press conference, Kelly did get around to articulating some resolve.
“We’ve got 11 more games, and I can tell you right now we’re going to be better.”
How much better? We’ll see. LSU still has plenty of talent. It must find some toughness. Do that, and—as noted above—this loss is not fatal from a championship standpoint.
As for Florida State? This was the giant leap forward that the program needed. Not just to vault up the rankings, but to back up its own big mouths.
