It wasn’t pretty on Saturday at Doak Campbell Stadium, but Florida State was able to get the better of Boston College 20-17, thanks to a late field goal by Roberto Aguayo. With the win, the Seminoles improved to 11-0 on the season and completed a perfect ACC slate for the second year in a row.
Over the last three seasons, Florida State has taken a stranglehold of the conference as it did in its heyday during the 1990s. From 1992 until 2000, the Seminoles lost just twice to ACC opponents. Over the last three seasons, FSU is 23-1 against the ACC and 25-1 if you included the pair of conference championships.
Despite being the last undefeated team from a power conference, the Seminoles aren’t receiving the praise they did last season when they ran through the competition. Florida State has played a lot of close games and has needed quarterback Jameis Winston to engineer four game-winning drives in the final quarter over the last five games, but what FSU has been able to do over the last three seasons has been nothing short of impressive.
Many like to scoff at the ACC as a football conference and some like to speculate how the Seminoles may do in a perceived stronger conference like the SEC or Big XII.
Though it may be fair to question the Seminoles’ legitimacy or the strength of the conference, beating up on the ACC isn’t something that’s come easy to some of the nation’s powers outside of the conference. In fact, over the last three seasons, Auburn, Florida, Notre Dame, Ohio State and USC all have more losses to teams from the ACC than Florida State and in obviously far fewer games.
Losses to #ACC teams over the last three years: #FSU 1 #Florida 2 #Auburn 2 #OhioState 2 #USC 2 #NotreDame 3
— Noled Out (@Noled_Out) November 23, 2014
Of the teams mentioned, only USC has failed to finish ranked in the top 10 over that span. Other SEC powers like Georgia and LSU have lost to ACC teams over the last three seasons just as often as the Seminoles.
Florida State is also the only team to win BCS bowls in each of the last two seasons and the Seminoles this season, own as many wins over currently ranked teams as Alabama and Mississippi State, who each rank in the top 4, combined.
Whether or not Florida State is again a legitimate national championship contender will be determined in the weeks to come, but if people want to shut FSU and its presently proud fan base up, the solution is simple: beat the Seminoles. That’s something that hasn’t been done in 27 games.
