In one of the more dramatic finishes of the BCS era, Kelvin Benjamin’s 2-yard touchdown grab against Auburn gave Florida State its first national championship in 14 years. After what some consider a lost decade, Florida State’s rise back to the top of college football was a long, arduous journey. The Seminoles endured three six-loss seasons, an academic cheating scandal and the forcing out of a legend that built the program.
In what will be a 10-part series, we take a look back on events that led to Florida State’s resurgence back to the top of the college football world. After finishing in the top 5 every year from 1987 until 2000, the Seminoles went 13 years without winning a major bowl game. The countdown’s order is mostly chronological rather than in terms of importance. In the next to last part of our series, we look at how re-gaining stability at quarterback propelled Florida State back to the top of college football.
For years under head coach Bobby Bowden, Florida State quarterbacks usually didn’t become mainstays at the position until their redshirt junior years. Such was the case with Casey Weldon, Charlie Ward, Danny Kanell and Thad Busby from 1990-97 while 2000 Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke was a 26-year-old redshirt sophomore when he finally made his first start for the Seminoles in 1998. Weinke however, was forced into action thanks to a preseason injury to projected starter, Dan Kendra.
As the 2001 season got underway, that all changed. Prior to the start of the year, converted wide receiver Anquan Boldin was expected to assume the starting quarterback role. A stellar athlete and former high school quarterback at Pahokee, Boldin suffered a season-ending knee injury during spring practice which forced Bowden to start a redshirt freshman named Chris Rix.
Though Florida State finished just 8-4 in 2001 and failed to win the ACC for the first time since joining the conference in 1992, Rix had instilled hope for the future in the fan base, throwing for more than 2,700 yards and 24 touchdowns. While Boldin returned to the receiver position, Rix would spend the next three years fighting for his job.
Whether it was Adrian McPherson or Wyatt Sexton that Rix was competing against, there always seemed to be a quarterback controversy in Tallahassee. Rix started the majority of the contests for Florida State in 2002 and every game in 2003. FSU won the ACC in each of those two seasons, but it came with eight combined losses — the most for Florida State in any two-year span since 1983 and 1984.
After an injury early in the 2004 season against Clemson sidelined Rix, Florida State looked to have found more hope for the future in redshirt sophomore Wyatt Sexton. Sexton led Florida State to a 41-22 victory over Clemson in relief and though inconsistent, the Seminoles were rallying around their new signal-caller.
In a mid-October match-up against sixth-ranked Virginia, Sexton played the best game of his career, completing 20 of 26 pass attempts for 275 yards and a touchdown in a 36-3 Florida State victory. Two weeks later however, Sexton struggled mightily in a loss to Maryland and FSU spent the remainder of the season playing musical quarterbacks with he and Rix.
After seizing the starting quarterback job the following spring, Lyme disease would force Sexton to miss the 2005 season. He would never play again.
The quarterback competition for the starting role in 2005 was between two of the state’s most accomplished high school quarterbacks ever in redshirt freshmen Drew Weatherford and Xavier Lee. Weatherford would win that battle, but after leading Florida State to an ACC title as a freshman, he would spend his final three seasons fighting with Lee and the younger Christian Ponder to keep his job.
With Weatherford getting the majority of the starts, the Seminoles finished just 7-6 in 2006 and 2007. Lee briefly took over as the team’s starter in each of those two seasons, but left school after his junior year.
As a senior in 2008, Weatherford assumed a backup role while redshirt sophomore Christian Ponder led Florida State to nine wins — its most in four years. Though Ponder was never the All-American quarterback that Florida State had waited for since Weinke, he brought stability to the position.
After Ponder’s junior year was cut short due to a shoulder injury, Ponder’s senior season under first-year head coach Jimbo Fisher served as the beginning to FSU’s resurgence. While Ponder battled an arm injury in 2010, he managed to lead the Seminoles to their first 10-win season and first win over rival Florida since 2003 as well as their first ACC Championship appearance since 2005.
Ponder’s successor followed in the mold of Bowden’s former quarterbacks as E.J. Manuel finally took over as the Florida State starter in 2011 — his redshirt junior year. While Manuel sat behind Ponder for three years, he had six starts under his belt and helped lead a strong finish to 2009 as a freshman.
Manuel missed a pair of starts early in 2011 as the Seminoles began the year just 2-3, but returned to lead Florida State to victories in seven of its final eight games. The strong finish made way for Florida State’s best season in more than a decade in 2012.
As a senior, Manuel passed for nearly 3,400 yards and 23 touchdowns while finishing in the top 10 nationally with a 68 percent completion rate. Manuel led Florida State to a school-record tying 12 victories, its first ACC title in seven years and just its second BCS bowl victory with a 31-10 win over upstart Northern Illinois in the Orange Bowl.
For former offensive coordinator and current Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher, getting the most out of his quarterbacks was simply par for the course. As an offensive coordinator under Nick Saban at LSU, Fisher helped the Tigers win their first national championship in nearly half a century with a game manager in Matt Mauck under center in 2003. Three years later, Fisher helped transform rifle-armed Jamarcus Russell into the top pick in the 2007 NFL Draft.
After playing musical quarterbacks for seven years with Rix, McPherson, Sexton, Weatherford and Lee, Fisher finally brought stability to the quarterback position at Florida State. Like Russell at LSU, Ponder and Manuel would each be selected in the first round of the NFL Draft.
As most know by now, redshirt freshman Jameis Winston would lead Florida State to the 2013 national championship, winning the Heisman Trophy in the process. Had it not been for Fisher’s success with Ponder however, Winston may never have chose the Seminoles over other schools including Alabama, who plays its home games just miles from Winston’s hometown of Bessemer. The number of skill players instrumental to Florida State’s run to the BCS in 2013 may have also elected to play elsewhere if the expectations were of an ongoing quarterback carousel in Tallahassee.
While Winston has certainly become Fisher’s best quarterback and may finish as the best ever to play at Florida State, it was the end of instability at the position that ultimately began Florida State’s climb back to the top. After rotating quarterbacks for seven years from 2001-07, no Florida State starter has lost his job as a result of poor play since. The results: three 10-win seasons, two ACC titles, two BCS bowl victories, two top 10 finishes and the school’s first national championship in 14 years.
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Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #3 Winning the ACC
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #4 Ability to Rise to the Occasion
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #5 Beating Florida
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #6 Fisher’s First Class
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #7 Emphasizing Defense
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #8 Maintaining a Championship Atmosphere
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #9 2009′s Strong Finish
Reasons for Seminole Resurgence: #10 Hiring Jimbo Fisher
