Can FSU Football really make it to New Year’s Six bowl game?

FSU football finds themselves in a shocking position after what took place last season with one outlet predicting them to win double digit games in 2019.

In 1976, the FSU football team had a losing season for the fourth straight year as then first year head coach Bobby Bowden led the Seminoles to a 5-6 record – all before the following season finishing with 10 wins, including a Tangerine Bowl victory over Texas Tech, for the first double digit win season in program history.

In 2018 (if you didn’t get the memo on it by now), the Seminoles finished with the first losing season in over four decades under first year head coach Willie Taggart – but could history repeat itself and the Seminoles not just finish with double digit wins but also get a spot in one of the six coveted bowl games?

This past week, ESPN released their first Football Power Index for the upcoming season and, while things still could change before the opening games of the season starting August 24th, FSU football found themselves predicted to be much better in year two under Taggart.

Florida State Seminoles Football

At this point in the offseason, the Seminoles are ranked No. 21 in the country – the second highest ACC team behind the No. 1 ranked team, Clemson – and are currently favored to win 10 games in the upcoming season.

Now, we would all love that to take place – and we even wrote about it a few weeks ago as to why it can take place – and this even caught me a little bit off guard because, at this point, most predictions have had the Seminoles back in a bowl game but with either seven or eight wins at this point.

If that were to take place and FSU football finishes as the second highest ranked team behind the Tigers from the ACC, that would send the Seminoles back to a New Year’s Six bowl game – this time, it would send Taggart and the Noles back down to Miami Gardens to take on a SEC or Big Ten team in the Orange Bowl.

It’s a catch-22 situation for the Seminoles as they don’t want to get too high on things after what took place last season, but the way things are playing out on the schedule – at this point, at least – there is a legit chance that they could end up with enough wins to put them high enough in the rankings for a trip back to South Florida.

The FPI rankings have the Seminoles as a heavy underdog to both Clemson and in the year ender against rival Florida, but no worse than a 15 percentage point favorite in each of the other games listed with the closet game being the conference opener on September 14th at Virginia.

If the Noles can play up to the potential of talent that we all know is on the roster, it’s absolutely possible – but after what took place last season, it is going to be hard to convince some in garnet and gold to think that positive at this point.