Note: this is obviously not the in depth spring game preview that I promised for today. That will come tomorrow.
Today is April 8, 2015, which can also be written as 4/8 or 4-8. Or as FSU fans like to call it, “Gator Day”. You know, to commemorate the Gator football team going 4-8 back in 2013. Hilarious.
I’ve already gotten some jokes about that on our various social media handles, so I came up with a nasty little response: FSU’s record in BCS, College Football Playoff and National Championship Games. Warning: it’s really, really bad.
Let’s run through it: in total, FSU is 3-7 in BCS/CFP/National title games. Four of those seven losses came by double digits, and in two of those four, the Noles completely embarrassed themselves with 30+ point losses. The best part: The Gators themselves dealt them what was the worst one of all until just this past year. Now, we’ll have to settle for second in that department.
Some of those losses were historically bad, too.
Oregon set three different offensive Rose Bowl records against FSU: most points in a game (59), most points in a half (41) and most yards in a game (641). The Ducks’ Tony Washington also recorded the Rose Bowl’s longest return of a recovered fumble (58 yards) on the Famous Jameis slip and fall, a fact that has little significant value but that I’m just throwing in to rub salt into the wounds. And you’ll have to go back to 1948 to find a larger margin of defeat, when Michigan destroyed USC 49-0.
In addition, the 52 points the Noles surrendered against Florida in January of 1997 still stands as a Sugar Bowl record. That was also the most lopsided defeat in any Sugar Bowl since the 1950 game, when Oklahoma clobbered LSU 35-0.
If you’re wondering what Florida’s record in such games is, it’s 6-3, with wins over FSU (1996), Syracuse (1998), Maryland (2001), Ohio State (2006), Oklahoma (2008) and Cincinnati (2009), and losses to Nebraska (1995), Miami (2000) and Louisville (2012). Not astounding, but pretty good.
So, I see your 4-8 and raise you 3-7. You didn’t see any Gator fans celebrating FSU’s complete and utter failure in big games on March 7th (which coincidentally is my birthday), but that’s no real shock. Leave it to FSU to invent a holiday celebrating a rival’s failure from two years ago.
