FSU Football: Noles named fourth best program since 2010

FSU football was so dominant that a terrible 2017 season couldn’t stop them from being rated as a top five program since 2010

I think about the 2017 FSU football season a lot unfortunately. It was painful to watch and even more painful to write about.

It was night and day difference from the 2012-2013 years where FSU dominated foes on its way to back-to-back ACC championships and eventually a national title in 2013.

The 2014 season saw FSU have success ultimately, but in hindsight the writing was on the wall as they had way too many close games with the talent they had on the roster.

The program was sort of like a race car at NASCAR trying to finish a race with bad tires. They really needed to pit for a fresh set, but were willing to take their chances fishtailing out of every curve.

Florida State Seminoles Football

Ultimately, the tires finally gave way and the car crashed into the wall with the 2017 season.

What’s crazy is just how talented those teams had to be to overcome things that were going on in the program.

They were so talented Bleacherreport named FSU football the fourth best football program since 2010:

"Details: 85-23 record, 2013 national champion, 2013 Heisman (Jameis Winston), 2014 College Football Playoff semifinalist, 2012/2013/2014 ACC champFour of the five teams at the top of this list won at least 12 games in 2017. Not only are they among the best teams of the past decade, but they were the cream of the crop in the most recent season.And then there’s Florida State, which only won seven games in what was arguably its most disappointing campaign of the past four decades. Expectations for the Seminoles in 2018 are also well behind those of the rest of the top five, so recency bias might make them feel a bit out of place this high on the list."

Thoughts

It does seem weird to have the Noles on the list after last season, but they have won 10 games every year since 2010 besides 2011 and 2017.

That equates to a 78.7 winning percentage which includes last season which was clearly and outlier due to several circumstances.

Recruiting is the life blood of a college football program and the Noles were elite in that department as well. Their recruiting classes have a ranking average of 5.1 from 2010-2017.

The other impressive thing is FSU football routinely plays one of the toughest schedules in the nation with the ACC Atlantic Division being arguably the deepest in the country.

What’s even crazier is the Noles could easily have a record similar to the three programs ranked ahead of them. The 2017 season really put a damper on that overall record over the last eight seasons.

The good news is Willie Taggart has inherited a more talented team than the previous regime. So it’ll be interesting to see what he’ll be able to accomplish going forward.

Can he match or surpass what the previous regime accomplished? Let us hear what you think!