With the biggest game of the season looming, it had been a chaotic week for Florida State long before the Seminoles took the field against fifth-ranked Notre Dame on Saturday night at Doak Campbell Stadium.
What was set to be just the second match-up of top 5 teams in 2014 was overshadowed by overtones of two-year-old sexual assault allegations, sophomoric missteps, Title IX investigations and the accusal of paid autograph signings without an actual accuser. All of course, surrounded Florida State sophomore quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston.
The defending national champion Florida State Seminoles were portrayed as a program in turmoil, an inmate-run asylum, led by Winston the ringleader and head coach Jimbo Fisher, the enabler.
Adding insult to the off-the-field injury was the absence of offensive line coach Rick Trickett, who sat out Saturday’s contest with a medical issue that arose just hours before kickoff.
As if the story lines off the field weren’t damning enough, the Seminoles were met with more adversity when they stepped onto it. Florida State went to the locker room behind 17-10 after being out-gained by the Fighting Irish 254-108 in the first half.
Frequently mentioned amidst all the off-the-field headlines for Florida State leading up to Saturday’s marquee match-up with Notre Dame was how well Winston was able to block out the distractions come game day. In the first half against Notre Dame however, it looked as though the many non-football distractions might finally be catching up to him.
Winston was just 8-for-15 passing in the first half for 92 yards, a touchdown and an interception resulting from perhaps the poorest on-the-field decision of his career. The second half however, would be a different story as the reigning Heisman winner misfired on just one of his 16 pass attempts, while throwing for 181 yards and leading three touchdown drives.
With the help of an offensive pass interference call and a second interception by freshman linebacker Jacob Pugh in the final seconds, the Seminoles were victorious for a 23rd straight time, 31-27.
After another emotional victory for Florida State, Fisher gave his star quarterback advice as heard by the Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds: “Now here’s what you’ve got to do. Don’t give them that over-exuberant look. Act very passive right here and get people back on your side. You understand what I’m telling you? Humble. Humble pie.”
To ESPN sideline reporter Tom Rinaldi, Fisher defended his program: “This is a high character team that’s ran the right way — on class, on dignity, in the classroom, off the field and on the field.”
Some may have seen Fisher’s remarks as a shot at recent media coverage regarding the Seminoles. It was, but he meant every word.
For everything that has been said, reported and misreported about Jameis Winston, Fisher has been portrayed as a head coach that puts wins and losses ahead of personal integrity.
While Fisher is paid on his teams’ performances, he has nothing left to prove on the field. In less than five years, Fisher is 52-10 and has taken a team that had not won as much as the maligned ACC in five years prior to his tenure, to consecutive conference titles, two BCS bowl victories and a national championship.
Some believe that Fisher is on his way toward building another dynasty at FSU as he continues to put together one top 10 recruiting class after another while his storied in-state rivals struggle to make bowl games in the talent-rich state of Florida. The Fisher-led Seminoles are in a position to win for a long time with or without Jameis Winston.
If Fisher were to wash his hands of Winston, he’d be commended by the same media talking heads that currently label him an enabler. Despite the constant media barrage, Fisher sticks by his quarterback, whose legal rap sheet includes a shoplifting citation from a local supermarket and zero arrests as if it shouldn’t be the clear-cut “easy thing to do”.
On Monday, Fisher walked out of the Birmingham Monday Morning Quarterback Club after a question was asked about how not kicking an ACC All-Academic team quarterback, who happens to own a Heisman Trophy, to the streets has hurt his reputation.
“Why is my reputation taking a hit? For backing a kid who has done nothing wrong?” Fisher said. “I don’t want to get into this. The questions weren’t supposed to be asked today. I’m done. I’m done.”
Few would agree that Winston has done nothing wrong, but the constant microscope certainly has to take its toll.
Regardless of who Florida State has on the schedule during a given week, the questions for Fisher are constantly centered on headlines from sports media outlets on Jameis Winston and not for his 20-0 record as a starter.
As Fisher’s team continues to expand on its school-record winning streak on the field, the foaming mouths in the press seek to pounce on anything that can further illustrate one of the nation’s top 100 universities as a blood-thirsty institution fueled solely by football victories.
While ESPN’s Darren Rovell continues to plead for anyone to come forward to say they paid Winston for an autograph, longtime and well-respected reporter, Pat Forde of Yahoo!, is busy hounding college students on Twitter to get quotes on anything the FSU quarterback may have said on campus.
Meanwhile, the New York Times, the mecca of all media outlets, insinuates on how Winston, a redshirted fourth-string quarterback at the time, became the first recipient of a full-fledged cover-up for an alleged sexual assault incident, from a law enforcement agency with a history of arresting Florida State starters, Heisman Trophy frontrunners, a school-record holder in the 40-yard dash, All-Americans, Butkus Award finalists, highly-touted prospects, future NFL Hall of Famers, and another two-sport quarterback, who happened to be Mr. Football and Mr. Basketball in the state of Florida coming out of high school.
Below these stories that are seemingly pounded out by the dozens are thousands of comments full of readers eager to plant the rapist label on Jameis Winston.
On social media, members of opposing fan bases more than sold on attesting to Winston’s guilt, bear none of their own for throwing around the “N-word” regarding Winston as if it were 1962. Making matters worse, such statements get “Likes, favorites, and retweets”.
Somehow, Florida State and Florida State alone, is the entity that’s out of control…
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