Florida State eyes a third straight ACC championship on Saturday as the Seminoles look to notch a spot in college football’s first playoff and extend the nation’s longest winning streak to 29 games. The streak for Florida State is by far the longest in school’s history and as FSU seeks a 15th ACC title, it’ll be returning to the location and facing the team with which the streak began.
The hype was minimal when Florida State and Georgia Tech met on December 1st, 2012. The Yellow Jackets actually finished third in the Coastal division that year with an overall record of 6-6, but got the nod to go to Charlotte since both North Carolina and Miami were dealing with sanctions.
Florida State was coming off a loss at home to rival Florida as it looked for its first ACC crown since 2005. Florida State had won the ACC Atlantic two years prior, but had no answer for Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor in a 44-33 loss to the Hokies for the conference title.
Early on in the 2012 ACC Championship, it looked as though it would be the 10-2 Seminoles’ night. Florida State raced to a 21-3 lead against a seemingly over-matched Yellow Jackets team.
Georgia Tech’s defense stiffened in the second half and the offense managed to chip away, drawing an 18-point deficit down to six before getting the ball back with two minutes to play. The crushing of Florida State’s ACC dreams however, were not to be as sophomore safety Karlos Williams deflected a Tevin Washington pass to himself for the game-sealing interception.
The 21-15 win lifted a huge weight off a program that had gone six straight years without a conference crown after winning the ACC 12 times in the previous 15.
A narrow victory over a 6-6 team in the ACC Championship didn’t exactly bring much national acclaim for Florida State nor did its 31-10 take-down of MAC champion Northern Illinois in the Orange Bowl, but few knew at the time that it was the beginning of something special.
Following Florida State’s Orange Bowl victory over the Huskies, head coach Jimbo Fisher talked about how the recent accomplishments set the standard for FSU moving forward as a football program. Boy, was he right.
The duration of Florida State’s ongoing streak which has spanned parts of three separate seasons has taught us a number of things, including that no two teams are the same.
The 2012 team which became the first at FSU in 13 years to win a BCS bowl and first in nine to finish in the top 10, often played down to its competition, particularly away from home.
The 2013 squad bulled through the competition winning by an average of six touchdowns-per-game, but when the going got tough, the Seminoles showed the heart of a champion, rallying from 18 points down to top Auburn 34-31 in the final BCS National Championship.
Things have not come nearly as easily this season, but the ability to battle through adversity has remained as Florida State has been forced to mount a game-winning drive in the final quarter four times while erasing five halftime deficits. The teams have been different, but the one constant has been winning.
It’s been over two years since the winning streak began for Florida State and with a berth in college football’s first-ever playoff on the line Saturday against 11th-ranked Georgia Tech, the ‘Noles are hoping the streak can extend into the 2015 calendar year.
Few would have guessed two years ago that a 6-point victory over a 6-win team would have such a lasting impact, but that 21-15 victory in Charlotte gave FSU the title of “champions”. That’s a title the Seminoles have been unwilling to relinquish ever since.
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