FSU Football and their long, painful history against teams wearing orange

FSU Football has an undeniable problem with the color orange. Whether its the teams they play or the stadiums they play in, FSU has an orange issue.

This past weekend, I found myself in Gainesville, Florida – no, this wasn’t my ideal way of spending the bye-week but sometimes a FSU football man has to do what he’s got to do and sometimes that’s making certain people happy via attending an arch-rival’s homecoming game.  Trust me, I was a fish out of water as I witnessed the Florida Gators take down the Auburn Tigers.

But as I sat there in “The Swamp” I couldn’t help but feel almost suffocated by the vast amounts of orange. Seriously, it was everywhere. Between UF homecoming and Auburn coming to town, Gainesville was basically painted every shade of orange you could imagine.

Perhaps all of this orange exposure made me a bit hypersensitive to that awful color. But, as I made my way home that Sunday, all I could notice was car after car donning either an orange Auburn logo or an orange Florida logo. One by one, one after the other, assorted little orange logos slapped on the back of windshields, as far as the eye could see heading north bound on I-75.

Florida State Seminoles Football

Each their very own putrid shade of orange: Auburn’s resembling that of a carrot, and Florida’s being a bit like a traffic-cone. That’s when I really got to thinking (I’m talking that boring car-ride, deep-train of thought type of thinking) and realized just how much orange a Florida State fan has got to endure on a seasonal basis.

Then it really struck me: no matter how hard we may try to avoid it, Seminole fans will never be able to completely escape the reoccurring exposure to the color orange. Forced to eternally endure that gaudy color, time and time again, season after season.

Seriously think about it: our biggest rivals (UF, Clemson, and Miami) all have orange as their primary color. The three most hated teams that FSU is guaranteed to play every single season, all just happen to have orange in their color scheme. Also, I noticed that out of the 12 regular-season games on FSU’s schedule, 6 of those teams have orange in their color scheme.

That’s half of our schedule, engulfed in orange. As a matter of fact, three of our next four games are against orange teams. One of which is a team (Syracuse), literally called the “Orange.” Their mascot is an actual orange with legs and a face. Seriously?

Also, Florida State’s only losses so far this season have come against teams donning some kind of  orange (Boise State and Virginia), and they’ll probably add a third one to that ledger after the Clemson game this weekend.  Think I’m going overboard?

How about this: the conference Florida State plays in (ACC), has their bowl tie-in with the Orange Bowl. Speaking of which, did you know Florida State won its first national championship in the Orange Bowl (also blew quite a few chances for a few more national championships because of losses in said Orange Bowl). Speaking of national championships: did you know that the last two national titles FSU has won, came against teams with orange in their color scheme (Virginia Tech, Auburn) ? Coincidence?

Honestly yes. All of these weird citri-cal circumstances are nothing more than unfortunate coincidences for Seminole fans. But, Florida State’s lengthy history with the color orange cannot be denied. Still, the fact remains that FSU is forever subjected to endure this catastrophe of color; more so than any human should ever have to.