TheoloJeep

My History as a Seminole Fan — Part Eleven: The Return

There are seasons you remember.

There are seasons you never forget.

And then there are seasons that seem to bring everything that came before them into focus.

For me, 2013 was that kind of season.

I had been a Florida State fan for almost twenty-five years.

I had watched Peter Tom Willis from the top of the west-side bleachers.

I had watched Casey Weldon.

I had watched Charlie Ward win the Heisman and lead Florida State to its first national championship.

I had watched Danny Kanell.

I had watched the Choke at Doak.

I had watched the 1999 team go wire to wire at No. 1.

I had watched Bobby Bowden’s final game.

And I had watched the program struggle to find its way through the 2000s.

Now, somehow, we were back.

And Then There Was Jameis

The 2013 season began with something I had never experienced as a Florida State fan.

Anticipation that felt different.

Not blind optimism.

Not hoping that maybe this would finally be the year.

There was a sense that something special was actually there.

Jimbo Fisher had spent three years rebuilding the program.

The defense was loaded.

The offense had weapons everywhere.

And at quarterback was a redshirt freshman who hadn’t played at all the year before.

Jameis Winston.

I don’t think any of us knew exactly what we were about to see.

Florida State opened the season against Pittsburgh.

And Winston looked like he belonged.

The Seminoles won 41–13.

Then came Nevada.

62–7.

Bethune-Cookman.

54–6.

Boston College.

48–34.

The points kept piling up.

And so did the feeling that this wasn’t the Florida State of the previous decade.

This was something different.

Clemson

Then came the game everybody had been waiting for.

Florida State traveled to Clemson for a matchup between two teams ranked in the top ten.

Clemson was No. 3.

Florida State was No. 5.

Death Valley was rocking.

And then the Seminoles absolutely exploded.

51–14.

At halftime, Florida State led 38–0.

Thirty-eight to nothing.

Against the No. 3 team in the country.

I remember watching that and thinking:

Oh.

This isn’t just a good team.

They’re back.

The old Florida State swagger was back.

The speed.

The talent.

The confidence.

The expectation that once the Seminoles got rolling, the other team might not be able to stop them.

And Jameis Winston was suddenly at the center of it all.

The Seminoles Couldn’t Stop Scoring

The rest of the season almost became surreal.

NC State.

49–17.

Wake Forest.

48–0.

Miami.

41–14.

Syracuse.

59–3.

Idaho.

80–14.

Duke.

45–7.

Florida.

37–7.

The Seminoles weren’t just winning.

They were destroying teams.

Florida State scored at least 40 points in nine games during the regular season.

They finished the regular season 12–0.

And the team that had spent the better part of a decade trying to rediscover its identity was suddenly the No. 1 team in the country.

Again.

Watching It With My Boys

And this is where 2013 felt different from 1993 and 1999.

In 1993, I was the young fan.

In 1999, I was a husband and father watching Florida State win another championship.

But in 2013, my boys were old enough to understand what they were seeing.

Isaac was sixteen.

Jordan was fifteen.

Timothy was thirteen.

They had grown up with Florida State football.

They knew the stories.

They knew Bobby Bowden.

They knew Charlie Ward.

They knew about 1993.

They knew about 1999.

But they had also lived through the years when Florida State wasn’t what Dad remembered.

They had grown up hearing me talk about what the Seminoles used to be.

Now they were getting to see it for themselves.

And that made the 2013 season something I couldn’t have experienced any other way.

I wasn’t just watching Florida State return.

I was watching my sons experience it.

The ACC Championship

Florida State’s final hurdle before the national championship game was Duke.

Yes.

Duke.

Somehow, after everything that had happened during the season, the Seminoles were playing for the ACC championship against a Duke team that had actually won the Coastal Division.

And Florida State did what Florida State had been doing all year.

They scored.

And scored.

And scored.

The final was 45–7.

Florida State was 13–0.

ACC champions.

No. 1 in the country.

And headed to the national championship game.

There was only one thing standing between Florida State and a third national championship.

Auburn.

The Championship Game

Auburn had its own incredible story.

The Tigers had gone from nowhere to the SEC championship and had just beaten Alabama on one of the most remarkable endings in college football history, a long field goal that fell short before being fielded by Chris Davis, who then returned it for 109 yards to knock off the Crimson Tide.

Now they were facing Florida State.

The No. 1 Seminoles.

The SEC champion.

The ACC champion.

Two teams.

One championship.

And for the first time in fourteen years, I was watching Florida State play for the national championship.

I had waited a long time for that feeling to come back.

But the game didn’t start the way I wanted.

Florida State struggled.

Auburn controlled the game.

At halftime, the Seminoles trailed 21–10.

Then the fourth quarter arrived.

And Jameis Winston did what great quarterbacks do.

He found a way.

Florida State scored.

Then scored again.

Then took the lead.

Auburn answered.

And suddenly, with seconds remaining, the Seminoles were driving.

Winston moved the offense down the field.

Then, with 13 seconds remaining, he found Kelvin Benjamin in the end zone.

Touchdown.

Florida State.

34–31.

For the third time in my life as a Seminole fan, Florida State was national champion.

But this one was different.

Because I wasn’t that kid in the west-side bleachers anymore.

I wasn’t the teenager watching Casey Weldon from the doorway of my bedroom.

I wasn’t the young man watching Charlie Ward win the Heisman.

I wasn’t even the young father watching the 1999 team go wire to wire.

I was a father watching his sons watch Florida State win a national championship.

And maybe that was the most satisfying part of all.

The story had come full circle.

The boy who fell in love with Florida State football in 1989 had spent the next twenty-four years watching the program rise, fall, and rise again.

And now, sitting in a hotel room with my family, I got to watch my sons experience the same thing that had captured me all those years ago.

The feeling that there was something special about this team.

Something bigger than a Saturday.

Something that could become part of your life.

The Return

Jameis Winston won the Heisman Trophy.

Florida State finished 14–0.

They scored 723 points, an NCAA record at the time.

They won the ACC.

They won the national championship.

And they did it after spending nearly a decade trying to find their way back to the top.

The Lost Decade was over.

Florida State was back.

And for me, it wasn’t simply a football comeback.

It was the return of something I had carried with me since I was a kid.

The sound of the crowd.

The garnet and gold.

The expectation.

The Saturdays.

The arguments.

The heartbreak.

The celebrations.

All of it.

Twenty-four years after Uncle John first took me to Doak Campbell Stadium, Florida State was national champion again.

And this time, I didn’t have to experience it alone.

I had Liz.

I had my boys.

And I had the strange privilege of watching the next generation fall in love with the same team that had captured me when I was their age.

The kid in the west-side bleachers had finally come full circle.

But the story wasn’t over.

Not even close.