FSU Football: Is Alabama game the biggest in program history?

FSU football has waited all offseason for their monster opener against the Tide – but is it the biggest game regardless of when it has been played?

In just a matter of days, FSU football will open up their 71st season of college football in what has been maybe the most talked about opener in the history of the sport. If you’ve been living under a rock since last January, the third ranked Seminoles will be taking the field in Atlanta to face the top ranked Alabama Crimson Tide.

For a Florida State program who has made a living off of playing anyone at anytime, it will be just the 10th time that the Noles have started the season playing a ranked team. While FSU football has a 6-3 record in those games, just three of them have been against teams ranked in the top ten – with two of those being losses to Miami, including a 31-0 shutout against the defending champs to start 1988.

Not only will the Seminoles start by playing a team who played in the national title game the season before for just the second time in program history…not only will they be playing in the biggest opener in program history…but this is the biggest game that Florida State has ever played.

I know, the Noles have won three national titles and played for three more – but with all the talk, hype and insanity surrounding what this game means, this one could overtake all of it.

As far as openers go, this one is a no brainer. An Alabama team who has won four of the last eight national titles topples that 1988 Hurricanes team, which had won two of the previous five. Later openers against teams like USC, BYU and Texas A&M among others were decent, but they can’t hold a candle to this one.

The major reason why this one takes the cake? Because people are waiting to see if FSU football is going to do what they did last year – start the season ranked in the top five nationally and them crumble to three losses before November. Don’t forget that while we love the Seminoles, there are plenty of haters rooting on them to fail due to that high preseason ranking.

If the Seminoles can come out on top, they will likely become the top ranked team in the country and be in the drivers seat the rest of the way. A loss doesn’t start a freak out, but it could lead to room for panicking with a game against Miami two weeks later – a loss there after a Bama letdown and the free fall could begin.

Because two playoff favorites and two top five ranked teams are playing in the opener, people are losing their mind. The truth of the matter is that even if this game was played in the middle of November, it will still be the biggest game in FSU football history. It isn’t a rival like Florida or Miami – it isn’t for an ACC crown like a game against Clemson.

Next: Top FSU Football Wins Over Miami and Florida

It’s something more – it’s for setting the national title table and proving that Florida State is the elite program in college football right now.