FSU Football: Why Samford was most embarrassing win in program history

FSU football was in danger of losing for the first time ever to a FCS opponent this weekend before pulling the game out – but they shouldn’t brag at all.

Over five hours after the game was originally scheduled to kick off (mostly because God wanted everyone to talk about the Virginia Tech game a little more, so there was a near 90 minute rain delay), the FSU football team walked off the field of Doak Campbell Stadium with a hard fought, 10 point win over ninth ranked Samford.

No, not the Stanford Cardinal and their Heisman Trophy candidate Bryce Love – not even Fred Sanford and his son from the hit 1970’s NBC comedy show. That’s right, the Seminoles had to fight back just to come out on top of the ninth ranked team in the Football Championship Subdivision and get their first win of the 2018 season.

Florida State Seminoles

If that’s not depressing enough after what took place in the opener against the Hokies, I’ll add this little hot take for you – the win over Samford will go down as the worst victory in the history of the program.

Now, there are going to be plenty of people who are going to jump on that take and bring up what took place in the 2009 season when FSU football scored 12 points in the final minute to avoid a horrible loss to another FCS foe, Jacksonville State.

When you look at things based just on the opponent, the similarities are there as the 2008 Gamecocks finished with an 8-3 record while the Bulldogs finished last season with an 8-4 record and spot in the FCS playoffs – so the caliber of competition was similar in that regard.

Here’s why this one was worst: because this FSU football team is, on paper, supposed to be light years better than what was on the field for the Seminoles during that season.

On offense, you’re taking about a team right now that has Deondre Francois as opposed to Christian Ponder, two running backs in Cam Akers and Jacques Patrick as opposed to Jermaine Thomas and wide receivers like Nyqwan Murray and Keith Gavin against that team of Rod Owens and Bert Reed.

Wanna take a look at the defense? I’ll give you this years team of Brian Burns, Demarcus Christmas, Levonta Taylor and more as opposed to that unit whose best players were Markus White, Budd Thacker, Dekoda Watson and Patrick Robinson.

I don’t care if Samford was the ninth ranked team in the country and could have beaten that Jacksonville State team easily. I don’t care that the Bulldogs have one of the best quarterbacks in the FCS – this FSU football team had no business needing two touchdowns in the final five minutes, including a pick six, just to avoid the upset loss.

People will say that a win is a win – but this one may feel like the closest thing to a loss that actually wasn’t one in a long time for the Seminoles, maybe ever.