FanPost

In Jimbo We Trust

Good ol' Florida State fans are some of the best fans in the country. Sure we have our blithering idiots, drunken college kids and myopic die-hards but we all support our Seminoles through and through. However, one thing I have noticed this season is that while FSU seems be reliving its unprecedented run from 1987-2001, there is very little praise (in my opinion) for Jimbo Fisher. Of course it helps to have an all-world and mature beyond his 19 years quarterback rifling passes and shaking off would be tacklers like Barry Sanders commanding the team. But we mustn’t forget this is the same head coach who had to hire six assistants this off-season and was criticized left and right over the past few seasons for bad losses that seemed to become a moniker of the resurrected program.

Under Jimbo's short tenure as the head coach he's already won 40 games with three regular season games remaining and possibly five when you include the ACC Championship Game and a guaranteed bowl game (wherever that may be). He’s also one win away from another back-to-back 10-win season giving him three in his first four seasons as head coach. Projecting forward, Jimbo will have an eye-popping winning percentage of 82% in his first four season as well. Not to mention if all goes accordingly he'll have won a second straight conference title and second straight BCS game, if not the national title game. During this same time span he also has two top 16 draft picks and a total of 20 players drafted since 2011 (the first draft after Jimbo's first year as head coach). Also, since becoming head coach in 2010, Jimbo is 3-0 in bowl games and has amassed a 6-1 record versus in-state rivals Miami and Florida with the lone loss coming to #4 Florida in 2012 (FSU has yet to play Florida this year). And his lofty winning percentage isn't just against in-state rivals, he is 3-3 verse top-10 teams and 6-5 overall versus top-25 teams. In comparison, during Bobby Bowden’s first four seasons he was 1-1 in bowl games, 5-3 versus Miami and Florida, 0-2 against top-10 teams, 3-3 overall verse top-25 teams, amassed 34 wins (granted back in Bobby’s first four season FSU only played 11 regular seasons whereas Jimbo plays 12) and had 12 players drafted with the highest draftee in the second round (note: the draft was 12 rounds up until 1994 when it was changed to seven rounds).

While the outcome of Bobby’s fourth year isn’t something Seminole Nation would like to see Jimbo repeat, losing in the national title game, but getting to the title game just four years after resurrecting a program that previously had a win-loss record of 66-38 during 2002-2009 is something to admire. Conversely, when Bobby took over the program FSU had gone 40-37-1 in their previous eight seasons. Yes, that does include the dreadful 0-11 season during Larry Jones’s final year at FSU.

So what I am spelling out for you Seminole fans is that we saw Bobby produce a powerhouse during his 33 years as head coach at FSU. While their first four years are fairly comparable (edge to Jimbo Fisher), we did realize that we Seminole fans did have a diamond in the rough back then and just needed to be patient and let the process develop instead of being one of these fan bases that oft times has knee jerk reactions to what is happening down the street in efforts to keep up with the Joneses. As Jimbo always says, it’s a process and you have do the little things and if you respect the process and do the little things right, everything will fall into place.

So far this season, everything seems to be falling into place.

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