Everything Noles: For Florida State Seminoles Fans FFSN

It’s championship weekend in college football and somehow that means fewer trophies will be handed out this week than last week. That may not make sense to many non-college football fans, but the diehards know there’s nothing quite like battling your rival for a chance to hoist a five-foot Paul Bunyan or a pair of boots that are somehow related to Howard Schnellenberger.
Regardless of how you celebrate championship weekend, the fact is the college football season is nearly over and that sucks.
Gone are the big rivalry games.
Gone are the coaches on the hot seat.
Gone are the full Saturday slates.
All that’s left is the boring part... crowning a champion and we’ll take a big step in doing that this week.
Ten games over Friday and Saturday with five of them having some impact on who the final four teams are when they announce the College Football Playoffs on Sunday at noon. So with a condensed slate we’ll do things on the Sharpen the Point podcast differently this week. No review of last week. All focus on the 10 games with notes on the game and matchup implications of all 10 from both Brian Pellerin and Chris Tyndall.
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The Florida State Seminoles football team survived the regular season with a perfect 12-0 record. On Saturday, they’ll head to Charlotte for a matchup with the Louisville Cardinals to see who will take the ACC Championship. The Seminoles and Cardinals dominated the All-ACC team with a combined 40 players selected for the 2023 season.
Each week, as part of our Line of Scrimmage series, we’ll be speaking with members of the beat that covers FSU’s upcoming opponent, getting all the details from those who know those teams best.
To help the fans get to know the Louisville Cardinals better, we’ll catch up with John Powell of the CardChronicle.
Louisville currently sits at 10-2 with just one blemish on their ACC record. After the departure of coach Scott Satterfield last year, first year head coach Brian Brohm has taken the Cardinals up a level with a potent running game and a lock-down defense. The Cardinals will be making a run at their first ever ACC football championship.
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The Florida State Seminoles rallied to overcome an early 12-0 deficit and claim the victory over their Florida Gators on Saturday, polishing off their seventh perfect season in program history. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but the Noles found enough plays espoecially in the run game to pull away late and allow the defense to once again close out their opponent.
Now, the Noles sit just one game away from an undefeated ACC championship season with only the Louisville Cardinals standing in the way.
This week on the Seminole Wrap podcast, Brian Pellerin, Ben Meyerson and Jon Marchant discuss what led to the early struggles, what helped them turn it around, how they ensure a better performance next week and what we can expect from Louisville after the Cardinals suffered a loss to their 7-5 rival Kentucky Wildcats this past weekend.
Plus, the Noles win gave Florida its third losing season in a row. What does this mean for Florida State’s chief rival — both the head coach and the program — going forward?
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It was a first quarter to forget for Florida State, who had just -7 total yards and a single drive over the first 15 minutes.
But there are four of them in a football game and in the end, FSU managed to take care of business, covering the spread and beating the Florida Gators 24-15 to finish the regular season perfect.
The second quarter didn’t start off any better, as Florida was able to ride third down conversion after third down conversion to take a 10-0 lead (its first touchdown coming after an extremely questionable unnecessary roughness call), making up for lost points on a missed field goal by taking down Tate Rodemaker for a safety.
Anchored down by penalties and poor field position, FSU failed to find any offensive momentum until its final drive of the second quarter — a 10-play, 90-yard drive that saw the Seminoles earn their first points of the game.
Florida State, starting off with the ball in the third quarter, took its first lead of the game after Trey Benson ripped off a 36-yard rush. Florida would immediately drive down the field and retake the lead off a field goal, making things 15-14.
That score would hold until midway through the fourth when, after two teams traded off pairs of punts, FSU took advantage of a major punt return from Keon Coleman and a big fourth down catch from Ja’Khi Douglas to end up in goal-to-go distance. The Seminoles were unable to punch it in, however, and settled for a 19-yard field goal to go up 17-15.
FSU’s defense stepped up on the Gators’ next drive, forcing a third straight three-and-out to get the Seminoles the ball back with 5:37 on the clock. Facing third and 17 from the Florida State 42-yard line, Rodemaker took off to try and convert and, while sliding, was hit in the helmet by two separate Gators and forced to leave the game.
True freshman Brock Glenn was forced into action with 3:44 in the game, tasked with preserving the Seminoles' lead.
The result? Another ridiculous, grown man run from Benson — this time, a 26-yarder to push Florida State’s lead to 24-15 with 2:48 to go.
With its final chance at closing the gap, Florida was unable to get anything going as Jared Verse snagged two sacks to force a fourth and 20, where Kalen DeLoach picked off Brown to solidify the win.
Florida State, 12-0 and undefeated in the regular season, will now face off against the Louisville Cardinals in the ACC Championship.
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Rivalry weekend is one of if not the best tradition in the college football.
For the large part, it’s in-state schools in a battle built completely on dislike, disdain or just pure uncut hatred. And every year brings a brand new twist to the rivalry.
For some like Florida, it’s a chance to ruin your rival’s dream season. For teams like Ohio State and Michigan, it’s the only chance either team has to play a team that is worth anything so it’s for all the who knows how good either team is marbles.
This year though, we’ve got an added twist to it all and not one we see very often.
Oregon State-Oregon and Washington State-Washington are two rivalry games potentially for eternal bragging rights. In both of those games, Washington and Oregon have left their in-state counterpart, their most bitter rival on an island alone to rot.
This summer, the Huskies and Ducks followed the Los Angeles schools to the Big Ten while the rest of the conference dipped to the Big 12. Left alone? The pair noww affectionately known as 2-Pac — Washington State and Oregon State.
Think that has some bad blood for this week?
And let’s not forget that, as I write this, these four schools have said they discussed continuing their respective rivalries but nothing definitive has been announced yet. So this could be one final opportunity to hold bragging rights for today, tomorrow and every tomorrow after that.
Do you have enough hate your heart to weather that storm?
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Facing off against its first ranked opponent of the 2023-24 season, Florida State took on the No. 18 Colorado Buffaloes in the championship round of the Sunshine Slam in Daytona Beach on Tuesday.
FSU, having taken down UNLV the night before, battled with the Buffaloes over the course of a tight 40-minute matchup. It was another huge night from Jamir Watkins, who had a dynamic night for the Seminoles with a double-double (18 points, 11 rebounds). He was joined by Jalen Warley (19 points) and De’Ante Green (10) as double-digit scorers, with Darin Green Jr. (12) also hitting a trio of timely threes.
Florida State trailed 30-27 at half but never trailed by more than four points, with its defensive attack effective in shutting down a lethal Colorado offense. In the second half, it was the Seminoles who managed to separate at first, leading by as much as 10 before the Buffaloes found a groove near the 13-minute mark of the game.
FSU separated things once again after Warley had a dynamic back-to-back bucket sequence, putting the Seminoles up 55-49 with 6:47 to go, but Colorado managed to storm back and grab a three-point lead with 2:51 in the game. Watkins hit a jumper to cut the lead to one and then a free throw by Warley tied things up with 1:11 left.
Neither team scored a bucket for the rest of regulation, with the Seminoles having a chance at a final shot but a messy sequence saw Watkins turning the ball over to send things to overtime in the World’s Most Famous Beach.
With 38 seconds to play Colorado managed to hit a jumper but a fast break dunk by Warley again pushed FSU’s lead up to seven with 32 seconds to play. Colorado would get a basket in the aftermath, but forced to foul with 20 seconds to go, allowed the Seminoles return trips to the charity stripe to push it to 75-69 with 14 seconds.
Warley, who missed two free throws but hit one, committed a shooting foul — Colorado hit both shots, with the score now sitting at 75-71. With nine seconds left, Green Jr. hit both of his free throw attempts to separate the Seminoles by six, a margin that would hold up after Colorado missed a desperation three in the closing seconds.
It was an impressive defensive performance from start to finish against a Colorado team that fields one of the top offenses in the country — the Buffaloes, entering into the game, averaged 85 points per game (No. 28 in the country) and were shooting 48.6% from 3 (No. 3). On Tuesday night, Colorado shot just 35% from the field and 25% (5-20) from beyond the arc.
With the win, the Seminoles have now won each of their overtime decisions since a 101-90 double overtime win over Syracuse on January 13, 2018 in a game played at the Donald L. Tucker Center in Tallahassee — 14 games in a row, an NCAA record.
Next up for Florida State (4-1) is a home matchup vs. the Georgia Bulldogs on Wednesday, November 29 as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge.
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