FanPost

10 Worst FSU losses since 2006

Well everyone, I know you are probably feeling the same way I am about right now---starved for some college football. It is the middle of the summer and we are still a few months away from college football and you all are just wondering what you are going to do to pass the time. Well I decided to go through and rank the top 10 worst losses I have seen since I became a FSU fan in 2006 (my freshman year). I know there are many, many losses that are probably worse than this, but I am only doing post 2006. I hope you all enjoy reliving some of these heart wrenching losses, but I feel that we can best appreciate the great successful run from the past few years when we can see how bad it was just a few years ago….

Also this is my first fanpost like this, so be kind :)

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

UF 2006 – 11/25/2006, #4 Florida vs Florida State, 21-14: Anyone that wants to put this in the top 10 would not be wrong. We could have beaten them and stopped them from going to the national championship game. This game was a much closer loss than many of the UF games during this time span so I feel that this was a wasted opportunity of an upset from FSU.

NC State 2010 – 10/29/2010, #16 Florida State vs NC State, 24-28: Until 2012, this was the worst loss we had to NC State in my time. I can still see Ty Jones bumping Ponder and causing the fumble to occur. I could see the guy wide open in the endzone. I CAN STILL SEE THE WIN! Sigh but we didn’t win, and this really could make the top 10 worst losses I had seen. This is similar to the Georgia Tech entry below in the fact that we stormed back at the end only to come a few yards short of the win. Dammit Russell Wilson!

Georgia Tech 2008—11/1/2008, #16 Florida State vs Georgia Tech, 28-31: This hurt because of how close we came to beating GT. FSU was down 32-20 before we scored with 6 minutes left in the 4th. We clawed back and had a 1st a goal to win it, but we ended up fumbling in the endzone on 2nd down. GT recovered the football with 45 seconds to go to seal it.

Kentucky 2007—12/31/2007, Kentucky vs Florida State, 35-28: This is on the honorable mention list because it is a bowl loss. Before losing to Oregon in the Rose Bowl, this was our last bowl loss. FSU came into the game with 34 players out, in large part thanks to the academic cheating scandal that had just been finalized. We should not have lost to Kentucky and it burns me that we did. This also became Bowden’s first loss in a December bowl game.

The Top 10:

10) VT 2010 – 12/4/2010, #20 Florida State vs #12 Virginia Tech, 33-44: This game hurt for me because this was FSU’s first change at winning an ACC title since I came to FSU. This was my senior year and I finally thought we were going to get over the hump and into the promised land (or being a good team versus being just plain awful). I truly thought we had a good chance to get the ACC championship and I had a good amount of confidence after we finally beat UF that year. It was a cold, rainy game where EJ Manuel had to play for an injured Ponder. We did go on to beat South Carolina after, which helped to build momentum for the future, but it was tough to miss out on winning the ACC that year.

9) Clemson 2006 –9/16/2006, Clemson vs #9 Florida State, 27-20. This was my first loss at Doak. First time I got to experience heartbreak as a Seminole. It was a tough game, but really fun to watch. I think the main reason I have this on my list is because we should have won this game if only for Tony Carter. Clemson had 2 of their kicks blocked (extra point and a field goal) and both were returned for points (2, 6) by Tony Carter. I don’t think we will ever see something like that again, and honestly this should have been a game we won. If I remember correctly, FSU had the ball at around midfield with 5 minutes to go and punted instead of trying to win the game (or at least go to OT). Clemson ended up getting the ball after the punt and scoring rather easily.

8) Oklahoma 2010—9/11/2010, #17 Florida State vs #10 Oklahoma, 17-47: Full disclosure—I am also a Texas fan so this loss to Oklahoma hurts even more for me. We thought we were so close to being ‘back again’ and being one of the elite teams and we go and get blown out by 30 points. This game was a big test for us, which we failed. Oklahoma absolutely thrashed us from start to finish and were never looked as good as we did before the coin toss. Yes, the next year’s loss in Tallahassee against Oklahoma was bad, but at least they were the #1 ranked team so the 10 point loss was justified. The 2010 game was flat out embarrassing on national TV.

7) UF 2012—11/24/2012, #4 Florida vs #10 Florida State, 37-26: This one stings for a few reasons. Finally a big top 10 matchup between the two teams and we blow it. Not just blow it by losing, but we let UF score the last 24 points to come back and win. The 4th quarter was quite awful and I refuse to go back and rewatch that (it was so bad at the end that we scored the last meaningless TD with no time left and the UF player nearby taunted us with a TD signal). We should have won this game and sent Florida away from going to a BCS game and it would have made our current streak against the Gators much longer. We had a really good defense and UF didn’t have the greatest offense and lo and behold, Mike Gillislee goes off running for 2 TDs in a span of 9 minutes in the 4th. I hate losing at home.

6) Miami 2009—9/7/2009, Miami vs #18 Florida State, 38-34: Thankfully there have not been many Miami losses since I came to FSU for me to cringe about. This loss was not a fun one for me to be at. This was a home loss to Miami and those always hurt, but this game could have been won a handful of times by FSU, but we just couldn’t pull out a win. We were leading until late in the 4th when we let Miami get a long completion in double coverage and then went on to score to put themselves ahead with about 2 minutes to go. FSU got down the field and into 1st and goal fairly quick and then 3 straight incompletions to Jarmon Forston to end the game and Miami is storming the field. I was on the opposite side of the field and it looked like Forston actually scored (the ball bounced but he picked it up and acted like he caught it—I will never forgive him for toying with my emotions like that), but alas we did not. I guess if there is anything positive, that was the last time we lost to Miami so there’s that…

5) NC State 2012 – 10/7/2012, #3 Florida State vs NC State, 16-17: Sigh this game. I think I will always hate NC State because of this and the 2010 loss. 2012 was just a bad, embarrassing, and uncalled for loss. We were a really good team in 2012, had destroyed the first 3 teams we played by a score of 176-3, beat Clemson and avenged our loss to South Florida so things were looking up for this game. I thought we were going to come out swinging and have pay back for the 2010 game. And we did---for one half. We came out swinging and were up 16-0 at half. Easy win right? Well you would be wrong, and to watch that 2nd half was a slow tortuous mess. You knew that by the time NC State was driving at the end that we were going to lose. I still do not forgive Jimbo for not letting the best kicker in college football (Dustin Hopkins) try a long 40 or a short 50 yarder to put the game out of reach. What do we do instead? Oh just punt the ball and let NC State drive down to score to win with basically no time left. Mike Glennon….MIKE GLENNON!

4) USF 2009 – 9/26/2009, USF vs #18 Florida State, 17-7: This game really pisses me off still. We had just come back from a huge win against BYU away so I cannot believe we lost to USF and honestly there is no reason we should have! Yea we got ‘revenge’ on them in 2012, and will hopefully be delivering a beat down to them this year, but my god 2009 makes me sick. This was also another whammy to FSU as USF’s QB was BJ Daniels, a local Tallahassee recruit, who was largely ignored by FSU. Ponder played awful as did our whole team. This reminds me a little of the loss we suffered to Wake Forest the year before were it looked like neither team wanted to win (we lost that game 12-3. Yes 12 to 3.)

3) UF 2008 – 11/29/2008, #2 Florida vs #23 Florida State, 45-15: This is probably the worst loss I have felt by either of our Rivals. This pretty much epitomizes everything Tebow-Meyer era at UF, and everything wrong with FSU in the lost decade. I remember sadly going to this game and the monsoon that occurred before and during the game. I have never been that wet, and I remember my print at home ticket ending up looking like a pulpy soup. I knew we didn’t really have a chance, but I was really hoping we would at least make it close. This is a top loss for me because we had the possibility, slim as it was, it was still a chance (The quote from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind…) to stop UF from playing the national championship game. Well needless to say, we got absolutely thrashed and embarrassed on our own field. UF Fanboys have posters of Tebow with our garnet paint gleefully running down his face and jersey. Oh I also went to this game with my good friend who is a Gator alum so that was the topping on the cake!

2) Oregon 2014 – 1/1/2015, #2 Oregon vs #3 Florida State, 59-20: This game could easily be ranked #1, but I feel that we overachieved last year and were very lucky to be even playing in the College Football Playoff. That being said, this game was horrible in the 2nd half. First half was frustrating, but it went just like every other first half had gone, so there was no reason to think we wouldn’t sneak one out at the end. And then the 3rd quarter started, and the fumbling and turnovers started, and then it was game over. I still haven’t (and honestly I don’t know if I ever will) watched replays or sat down to analyze that game. I feel like it is best for my mental state to just ignore what happened and act like we never played Oregon.

1) Wake 2006 – 11/6/2006, #19 Wake Forest vs Florida State, 30-0: This game being ranked #1 should come as no surprise to most of you. This is the low point in FSU football history I would have to say. There are a lot of really bad stats from this game, so please do not cry too hard when you read them: First time Wake beat FSU in 33 years (1959), first shutout allowed in 232 games (1988 season opener), worst home loss, and the first home shutout of Bowden’s career. Drew Weatherford (sigh) summed it up pretty well, "the worst football game that (I) have ever been a part of." I guess the only silver lining in this (I’m reaching) is that Wake was ranked, which is pretty rare for them so it’s not like we lost to an awful Wake team….

Please feel free to comment with your opinion or any other games you think are worthy. Full disclosure—some of these were hard to re-read about…. :( Also I am not an English major, so deal with any grammatical mistakes or sentence structure problems.

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