FSU Football: Fans must forget recent struggles and just move on

FSU Football finds themselves in a position that they haven’t been in decades – but in order to move on, it’s time to forgive the recent errors in coaching.

No matter what the outcome is for the FSU football team in their Sun Bowl game on December 31st against Arizona State, the Seminoles know that for the third straight season – win or lose against the Sun Devils – the garnet and gold will have finished their season with at least six losses.

For the record, the last time the Seminoles did that you have to go back well over four decades – to a span from the 1973 to 1976 seasons that saw the Seminoles go 9-35 over that period and go through three different coaches, with the best record being 5-6 in the first season under a coach by the name of Bobby Bowden.

At the same time, the Seminoles are preparing for the start of the 2020 season and the Mike Norvell era – hoping the young Texan can duplicate the success he had recently as the head coach of Memphis in his new job leading the FSU football team.

Florida State Seminoles Football

For the Seminoles to have any hope of succeeding in the near future to the standard that fans, alumni and all supporters expect, there is one simple thing that must be done: forgive the past errors.

The last three seasons – the final one under a coach whose name I promised not to use and the 21 games of the Willie Taggart era – are some that we have no expected or, in our worst dreams, thought would take place for a team that earlier this decade won 29 straight games and brought home a national title.

During his introductory press conference as the new coach at Florida Atlantic – a move that will save the Noles around $3 million in his buyout – Taggart admitted that the standard of recent success for the Seminoles had not been met.

"“I thought we had things going in the right direction and unfortunately we just didn’t get enough time to finish it,” he told the Palm Beach Post. “Florida State is a prideful place with great tradition and they’ve never been in a situation like that before. No one there really knew how to get out of it … they just wanted to win again. It don’t work that way.”"

Everything that Taggart said in that statement is true – we are a prideful place and haven’t been in that situation in the lifetime of many that chopped it up inside Doak Campbell Stadium of late. That being said, he didn’t help his case getting blown out to rivals like Miami and Florida and hiring assistants like Kendal Briles that couldn’t get the job done.

Nonetheless, there is nothing we can do about the past and we must all be in on the Mike Norvell era. Whether he gets us seven wins in 2020 or double digits like during this past season in Memphis, FSU football fans have to stick together on this one – and forgive the past errors of those who were in his spot.