FSU Football: 3 Takeaways From Florida State’s Loss to NC State

1. College Football Has More Parity Than Ever

College football is full of parity in 2017. The access the second-tier schools have to cool uniforms, nice facilities, combined with their penchant to hire up-and-coming young coaches gives them an equal playing field. Before services like Hudl, e-mail, and virtual reality it was hard to imagine programs like Duke, and Baylor being viable and a program like Purdue improving in only a few months under Jeff Brohm. When NC State was taken over by Chuck Amato in the early 2000’s, they gave FSU occasional scares and recruited the other guys at a high level.

Now with the “other teams” can recruit and monitor those players that slipped through the cracks in the 2000’s. That’s how NC State gets Bradley Chubb and FSU has a weak offensive line. Other issues are major programs suffering through players leaving early (FSU with Winston, per se) and program-wide deals on sponsorships.

To explain, a long time ago only Oregon could afford a plethora of cool uniforms thanks to Nike and Phil Knight. Now everyone has them, hell, even Maryland. What do kids like? You would think nice dorms and a pipeline to the NFL would be enough, but most are lured in my uniforms, barbershops in the field house, and the occasional golden handshake.

Next: 5 storylines across the ACC

With parity in the 2010’s and on, I can see an era starting with new national champions every year. Especially in the era of the College Football Playoff where four teams have a shot instead of two. The playoff adds to parity and with ESPN3, YouTube, etc voters can see anyone play even if it’s just highlights and the one hour abridged games.