Florida State Football: Redemption coming for Seminoles in 2017?
Football is back in Tallahassee, and it’s about time. Florida State football will be heading back to the drawing board in 2017.
Sure, the College Football Playoff’s National Championship Game was three months ago. It seems like it’s been an eternity, though. For Florida State football fans, there’s an even larger issue. If you ask them, the wrong team represented the ACC in the College Football Playoff.
Sure, their measure was taken again by the Clemson Tigers in what was supposed to be their chance to exact revenge for a loss that occurred the previous season. Yes, there was that embarrassing loss to Louisville and still another loss to North Carolina, but before any of that happened, many had the Seminoles, not the Tigers, representing the ACC Atlantic division in the ACC Championship Game. Some in the Florida State fan base are still agonizing over what could have been.
Florida State just held its annual spring game, and though most of you probably didn’t stay with it long enough to see the Gold’s 17-7 victory over the Garnet, we can say something with certainty. The ‘Noles will have four or five games circled on their calendar when the 2017 season kicks off.
It won’t get any easier in 2017
No one will accuse Florida State of running from a challenge. It opens with the Alabama Crimson Tide on Sept. 2. The Seminoles will then have their perennial battle with what should be a scrappy and physical Miami Hurricanes squad two weeks later on Sept. 16.
Throw in their clashes with Clemson and Louisville (the latter game will be played in Tallahassee this year), and that alone makes for a schedule that won’t make too many programs jealous. They close with the hated Florida Gators on Nov. 25.
If they want to retake their position as the premier program in a steadily improving ACC, it won’t easy.
A look ahead
Head coach Jimbo Fisher and company, again, hit the recruiting trail with a vengance. 247Sports sees the 2017 Florida State recruiting class as the sixth-best in the country. Rivals disagrees slightly as they see them as fifth. Their spring game revealed some things we already know.
Jacques Patrick, though not Dalvin Cook, is a nice option in the backfield. The defense appeared satisfactory for this point of the year. We understand there’s no preseason and offenses haven’t had too many reps. Still, preventing your teammates from completing a pass in the first quarter is still impressive.
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That being said, Deondre Francois is a tremendous talent. Florida State is five months away from playing games that actually count, but the passing game may still be one of this team’s weak links. Expect the Seminoles to be good, but it may be too early to pencil them into the ACC Championship Game. Lamar Jackson hasn’t left Louisville yet, and the Tigers will be as pesky and as well coached as ever.