FSU Football: Embrace turnover backpack despite public ridicule

FSU football unveiled their new turnover gimmick in the Samford game – and while it’s getting ripped by many, the Seminoles must own and it and love it.

With 11:54 left in the second quarter of last week’s FSU football game against Samford, A.J. Westbook intercepted a Bulldogs pass for the first turnover of the season for the Seminoles. The Noles would get a fumble before the half and three more interceptions in the last two quarters to get the first five turnovers for the Seminoles all season.

After each one, the player who got the turnover returned to the west sideline and was given the honor of wearing…the new turnover backpack.

Yes, that’s right – the FSU football team has adopted a backpack (albeit a nice one) as a symbol according to head coach Willie Taggart of “securing the bag”, or getting that money bag that comes with a resume full of turnovers (h/t Orlando Sentinel).

"“I love it when we get five takeaways and hopefully everybody else start loving it, too, because we’re getting a lot of takeaways,” Taggart said with a smile."

(Okay, this is the part of the article where we as FSU football nation just talk and no one else can read what we’re saying: at the first sight of this thing, my thought was “What the heck” and my second one was to hum the theme to Dora the Explorer – but we all bleed garnet and gold, so lets keep a united front and just keep this between us, right?)

As I was saying, the turnover backpack has been one of the talks of the college football world this week – where it was almost universally panned by those outside the FSU football program and even by some fans of the Seminoles.

It’s being labeled as a copycat to some of the other items teams use – namely that ugly turnover chain in Miami that was probably paid for with ponzi scheme money or from someone who went to Miami-Dade Community College or FIU and couldn’t find Coral Gables on a map.

While there may be some hesitation from the Seminole family to fully embrace the turnover backpack because – well, because it’s so God awful on the surface – it’s something we need to do for a variety of reasons.

For starters, if people from Gainesville or Coral Gables or points elsewhere don’t like it, who cares? We’ve never wanted their opinion on things before and, quite frankly, they don’t matter to us so we should just to our thing. Secondly, if it means FSU football gets five turnovers a game, I don’t give a damn if it is the actual backpack from Dora the Explorer – whatever works.

So, wherever you are from as long as you rock the garnet and gold, find a backpack near you and represent what brings the ball back to the Seminoles’ offense.