FSU Football: Why 2000 Seminoles were best team not to win title

FSU Football has played for a national title officially six times, with a chance to win back to back crowns being the best team to come up short.

This coming season, the FSU football program will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of their first national title during the 1993 season as well as the fifth anniversary of their most recent championship during the 2013 season – one of six official national title games the Seminoles have played in during their history.

That number gets bumped up to seven if you count the appearance by the Seminoles in the College Football Playoff during the 2014 season – but while the Noles have come out on top during half of their official appearances, three times they have fallen short with all of them coming during a five year span.

The best of that trio was one that came after FSU football made history by going unbeaten for the first time since becoming a major program – the 2000 Seminoles, who arguably were a better team then the one who brought home a title the year before.

The season started with a convincing win over BYU and a five point nail bitter against Georgia Tech – before the Seminoles dominated with wins in nines of their next 10 games all by 23 points or more, including five FSU football wins by 44 points or more over that span.

Florida State won their ACC games by an average of 38.6 points a contest and beat three ranked teams – N.C. State, Clemson and fourth ranked Florida – by an average of 38 points each game while having the number one ranked offense (after being 12th the season before) in all of what was then called Division 1-A behind Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke and future NFL receivers Anquan Boldin and Snoop Minnis.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Seminoles finished sixth in the nation in total defense – after being 16th in Division 1-A the season before – led by Lombardi Award winner Jamal Reynolds. FSU football allowed more than 14 points just twice in the entire season – the close win over Georgia Tech and their only regular season loss of the season to rival Miami.

Heck, even the losses were ones where there was a level of positivity. Unlike in the 1996 season where the Seminoles lost by 32 points in the title game and the 1998 campaign with a 17 point loss to N.C. State, the Noles loss to the Hurricanes was a last minute, three point defeat – in a game that might be one of the classics in recent decades, despite the outcome -while the title game 11 point loss to Oklahoma was inflated by a late fumble and short Sooners touchdown.

In that title game, FSU football actually had better offensive numbers than the Sooners – all without Minnis, who was ineligible for the game – but were facing the eight ranked defense in all of Division 1-A, by far the best they had played all season.

Next: Top FSU wins all-time in ACC games

While the ending didn’t turn out the way FSU football would have wanted with a back-to-back national title campaign, the 2000 Seminoles were a team that can stake a claim to being not just one of the best in program history – but one of the best in college football over the last few decades.