Introducing our top 100 plays in FSU football history series, and the criteria used to rank them

Welcome to our 2018 summer series, which will countdown the 100 days until the 2018 Florida State football season commences. Last year, we counted down the top players to wear each uniform number as a Seminole, and we had a blast watching how y'all voted for each number.

This summer’s series will work a little bit differently, as we’ve already ranked the top 100 plays. However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be considerable debate about which plays should have been ranked higher, or lower, and why. With that said, we thought it only fair to offer an explanation of just how the rankings you’ll be seeing — beginning tomorrow with No. 100 — came about. Arguments will definitely still flourish, and that’s only natural, as well as fun; but at least our readers should be aware of just how these specific plays came to be ranked where they are.

A select group of Tomahawk Nation contributors ranked triple-digit plays, and those rankings were then averaged together to arrive at a composite rank for the plays. The top 100 made the cut. Pretty simple.

But precisely how does one place one play over another? After all, as the cliche goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, we agreed upon a set of ordered criteria that dictated where emphasis should be placed. This is how we defined the “top,” in “top 100”:

1. How significant was the play to the program— did it change the direction of FSU football?
2. How important was the play to the season in which it took place? Did it help shape one of the Seminoles’ more memorable campaigns?
3. How big was the play to the game in which it transpired? Did it help decide the outcome, or was it merely a highlight in a blowout? Was it a rivalry game? Was it a bowl game, and, if so, how meaningful was that bowl game?
4. How jaw-droppingly spectacular was the play, on its own merits and independent of the above context?

As we anticipate a number of discussions about the rankings to follow, we suggest that you bookmark this article— I mean, we fully encourage the debates that will ensue; that’s a big part of the enjoyment behind an inherently subjective series like this. But let’s just make sure that we’re disagreeing along the same lines.

All of that said, enjoy. Tell us why we’re wrong, or, and we’re not holding our collective breath here, how we’re spot-on accurate. And be sure to check back for No. 100 tomorrow!

In the meantime, whet your appetite with a handful of plays that just missed the cut:

Geno Hayes ices the game with a pick-6 off Matty Ice:

Stanford Samuels pulverizes Roscoe Parrish:

Greg Allen romps 81 yards during a shootout win in Tempe:

Neon Deion leaps over Andre Rison for the interception:

Ponder to Owens for the 98 yard TD strike:

Travis Rudolph stiff-arms his way into the endzone: