TheoloJeep

Part Fifteen: Thirteen and Oh

By 2023, Florida State had spent years trying to find its way back.

The 2013 championship seemed like another lifetime.

Jimbo Fisher was gone. Willie Taggart had come and gone. Mike Norvell had taken over a program that had fallen farther than I ever thought I would see it fall.

Then, in 2022, the Seminoles won ten games.

It wasn’t a championship.

But it felt like the beginning of something.

Then came 2023.

And this time, I wasn’t just watching it from home.

We Were There

Liz and I went to several games that season.

So did Tim.

By then, Tim had somehow grown into an even bigger Florida State fan than his dad. He had grown up with the Seminoles, but his passion for them had become something all his own.

Jordan went to games, too, along with his little family—Destiny and their daughter, my granddaughter Peyton. Jordan’s soon-to-be wife was there with him, and our family was beginning to look a little different from the one that had watched the 1999 championship together.

That mattered to me.

I had started this story as a kid sitting on the west side of Doak Campbell Stadium.

Now I was walking into that same stadium with my wife, my grown sons, and my granddaughter.

We were there for Southern Miss.

Florida State won 66–13.

We were there again for Virginia Tech.

The Seminoles won 39–17.

Those weren’t necessarily the games that would define the season, but they’re some of the moments I’ll remember because of who was there with me.

Tim.

Jordan.

Destiny.

Peyton.

Liz.

My family.

And Florida State was good again.

Really good.

The Season

The season had actually started with LSU in Orlando.

Florida State entered the game ranked No. 8.

LSU was No. 5.

By the end of the night, Florida State had won 45–24.

Jordan Travis threw for 342 yards and four touchdowns and added another touchdown on the ground.

That wasn’t just a good opening-night performance.

It was a statement.

The Seminoles weren’t trying to sneak back into the national conversation.

They had arrived.

Then came Southern Miss, Boston College, Clemson and Virginia Tech.

The Clemson game was especially memorable.

Florida State trailed in the fourth quarter, then Jordan Travis threw the game-winning touchdown pass in overtime.

The Seminoles kept winning.

Some games were comfortable.

Others weren’t.

Boston College pushed them all the way to the end.

Duke was another fight.

Pittsburgh wasn’t pretty.

But the record kept moving in the right direction.

One win.

Then another.

Then another.

By November, Florida State was 9–0.

And I was paying attention to the rankings again.

I was doing what I had done as a kid.

Looking at the other contenders.

Watching what happened around the country.

Thinking about what Florida State needed to do to keep its championship hopes alive.

Only now, I wasn’t the kid in the west-side bleachers.

I was watching with thirty-four years of Florida State memories behind me.

The Injury

Then came North Alabama.

It should have been a comfortable night.

Instead, Florida State fell behind 13–0.

And then Jordan Travis went down.

A gruesome lower leg break.

The stadium went quiet.

The Seminoles eventually rallied behind Tate Rodemaker and won 58–13, but the win didn’t feel like the others.

Jordan Travis had been at the center of Florida State’s return.

He had endured the losing.

He had stayed through the rebuilding.

He had become the quarterback who finally helped bring the program back to prominence.

And now, with the season still undefeated, he was gone.

Florida State still had work to do.

Thirteen and Oh

The Seminoles beat Florida 24–15 in Gainesville.

That made them 12–0.

Then came Louisville in the ACC Championship Game.

It wasn’t pretty.

The offense struggled.

But the defense took control.

Florida State won 16–6.

Thirteen and oh.

ACC champions.

Undefeated.

The Seminoles had gone from a 3–6 season in 2020 to a conference championship and a perfect regular season three years later.

For someone who had watched the entire journey, that meant something.

I had watched Florida State win national championships.

I had watched them lose national championships.

I had watched Bobby Bowden build the program.

I had watched Jimbo take it to another level.

I had watched the Lost Decade.

I had watched the program hit bottom.

And now I was watching Florida State go 13–0.

There was only one thing left.

The College Football Playoff.

The Decision

I watched the selection show knowing there was nothing else Florida State could have done on the field.

They had won every game.

They had won the ACC.

They were 13–0.

But Florida State was ranked No. 5.

Alabama was No. 4.

Florida State was out.

The Seminoles would play Georgia in the Orange Bowl instead.

I know there are arguments on every side of what the committee should have done.

I don’t need to settle that argument here.

What I remember is the feeling of watching an undefeated Florida State team get left outside the playoff.

After all those years of trying to climb back, we had finally reached 13–0.

And somehow, the season still wasn’t going where we thought it was going.

It became something that broke the program for the immediate future.

The Orange Bowl

By the time Florida State played Georgia, the team looked nothing like the one that had beaten LSU in September.

Jordan Travis was gone.

So were a number of other key players.

Injuries and opt-outs had stripped away much of the roster that had gone undefeated.

Georgia took advantage.

The Bulldogs won 63–3.

It was one of the worst losses I had ever watched Florida State suffer.

And yet, even that score doesn’t tell the whole story.

The team that played Georgia wasn’t the same team that had gone 13–0.

That doesn’t make the loss easier.

But it does put it in perspective.

The season ended 13–1.

And when I look back at 2023, I don’t think first about the Orange Bowl.

I think about everything that came before it.

I think about being in Doak with Liz.

I think about Tim, who had somehow become a bigger Seminole fan than me.

I think about Jordan walking into the stadium with Destiny and Peyton.

I think about watching my granddaughter experience Florida State football.

I think about looking around the stadium and realizing that the story that began for me in 1989 had somehow reached another generation of my family.

That’s what made 2023 special.

Not just that Florida State was good again.

Not just that they were undefeated.

But that I got to experience it with the people I love.

The kid who once leaned against a chain-link fence on the west side of Doak was now a husband, a father and a grandfather, walking into that same stadium with his family.

And for one season, Florida State gave all of us something to share.

Thirteen and oh.

I’ll always remember it that way.

I was still watching.