13 Musings on the New Year

By Charlie Barnes, Guest Columnist

There is a term – triskaidekaphobia – that describes the affliction of those who fear the number 13. Regarding our Seminoles, I think there is much more reason for optimism than anxiety, even though this is being written in mid-January and we do not yet know what new adventures 2013 will bring.

Here are thirteen musings on the Seminole sports landscape, looking toward the coming year.

On the Seminole Football Coaching Carousel

It’s natural for aggressive and ambitious college coaches to want to move up. Assistants want to become coordinators and coordinators want to become head coaches. Professional college coaches today do not expect to stay in one place very long.

Many built-in impediments burdening Florida State are offset by considerable advantages on the plus side. We’re in Florida, so we have access to the best high school talent in the country. And thanks to our history of success the Seminoles remain a solid national brand, popular and familiar to college fans across the country. Coaches – whether assistants, coordinators and even head coaches – would love the opportunity to come here. It’s not always about financial compensation; sometimes it’s about the chance to get noticed and to have a realistic shot at winning conference and national titles.

Jimbo’s method of assembling his staff appears to be like Bill Peterson’s. Coach Pete was here from 1960 through the 1970 season, and he recruited the very brightest and most capable assistants, knowing that they would move on and up after a few seasons.

Peterson’s legacy in that regard is beyond extraordinary. Assistants who coached at Florida State under Peterson went on to win five Super Bowls and four major college national football championships. Eventual head coaches included Don James (Washington), Bobby Bowden (West Virginia and FSU), Vince Gibson (Kansas State, Louisville), Joe Avezzano (Oregon State), John Coatta (Wisconsin), Al Conover (Rice), Y. C. McNease (Idaho), Joe Gibbs (Redskins), Dan Henning (Falcons), Ken Meyer (49ers) and Bill Parcells (Air Force Academy, Giants, Patriots, Jets and Cowboys).

On the other hand, Coach Bowden liked to build his staff with an eye toward long-term stability. Bowden also had his share of assistants who became head coaches (Amato, Richt, McDowell, Schoolfield, Scott) but he credited his long dynasty run in the 1990s in part to keeping his key offensive and defensive coaches in-house for extended stays.

One scheme is probably as effective as the other; it’s just a matter of the particular head coach’s style. As always, the important thing is winning.

On Why We Joined the ACC in 1991

It was a casual insult, a small thing and almost certainly unintended. It was simply the product of a copywriter assuming he knew the correct story because that’s what he had always been told. I saw it in a Barnett Bank advertisement as I flipped through a 1983 Seminole game program, almost a decade before FSU made the decision to join the ACC instead of joining the Southeastern Conference.

The Barnett Bank ad on page 18 of Tribe magazine (Homecoming, 1983) was a black and white photo of what appeared to be a college football game around the turn of the century. The copy read: “In 1906, Floridians cheered their first college football game. And Barnett celebrated its 29th year in Florida.”

But of course, you know that Florida State College played football for three years before that, defeating the newly named University of Florida (in Lake City) in 1903 and in 1904. The Florida Times-Union’s College Cup trophy recognizing the State of Florida Football Champions was presented to Stetson in 1903 and to Florida State College in 1904.

But that record disappeared from the general public view over the years, because only one set of voices was speaking, and those voices had decided that football in Florida started in 1906. The record of history depends on who’s telling the story, and I suppose, who’s telling it the loudest.

When only one set of unchallenged voices shapes the history, that version takes root in the public mind and other histories can simply disappear. A 2003 exposition on university architecture in the Daytona Beach News-Journal pointed out that while the University of Florida and Florida State University were older institutions, Stetson University (1883) “is the oldest continuously operating university in Florida still at its original site.”

But, you already know this casual bit of misinformation is wrong. The hill where Westcott stands is the oldest continuous site of higher education in the State of Florida. Florida State endured inaccurate and condescending commentary from journalists for decades because most of them were privy to only one story.

By joining the ACC in 1991, Florida State University finally had the chance to craft our own unique story and develop our own equitable associations with some of America’s finest institutions of higher learning. We could define our own experience, free of the imposing shadow of our rival.

Many of us were anxious in 1991 when the decision was made. Was it the right move for Florida State? Someone shrugged and said, “Well, in ten years we’ll know.” It’s been twenty years now and the debate today seems as fresh as it was then.

Someday I am going to write the real story of how Florida State came to be in the ACC. It’s a somewhat different story than the one you might assume you know.

On the New Football Dorm

“The Burt” as players used to call Burt Reynolds Hall, was opened with great fanfare more than 25 years ago. At that time Reynolds was the top male box-office draw in the world, and he participated in all the weekend’s activities, bringing along with him a parade of his Hollywood celebrity pals including his wife, actress Lonnie Anderson.

The Burt housed our entire football team and it was a wonderful recruiting tool as well as an indispensible advantage for the coaches. The concept of an all-football dorm originated with Bear Bryant Hall at Alabama and all the big schools in the south quickly followed suit.

But an under-the-radar campaign initiated by coaches from the northeast and Midwest – a campaign in which Joe Paterno played no small role – resulted in a new NCAA rule that dismantled the all-football dorms. The rule says that no student housing facility can be more than 49% athletes.

The practical effect was that The Burt was now occupied mostly by freshmen and sophomore players. Older players lived off campus where, as Coach Bowden noted, they were harder to track down. (“They all got those dad-gum caller ID things on their phones.”)

In addition, as time passed The Burt lost some of its glamour as trends in student housing became less spartan and more in keeping with the wants of a new generation of students.

Jimbo Fisher’s No. 1 facility priority was the Indoor Practice Facility now under construction. A housing facility where the coaches can have access to all the football players at once is probably priority “No. 1-A.”

Such a new facility will be under construction soon, nearby the stadium and close to the original Burt Reynolds Hall. It will be large enough to accommodate 72 football student-athletes, plus 73 non-athletes. Income from the rents will offset the cost of running the facility.

On CollegeTown

CollegeTown is the new community of apartments, restaurants, shops, plazas and party locations along the roads east of the Intramural fields where our fans park and stretching toward the Civic Center. It’s been under construction since mid-2012, and many of the venues will be open when you bring your family to the games this fall.

CollegeTown is a fabulous addition to the Seminole Game Day experience, and even better, it will eventually create a revenue stream to help support Seminole Athletics.

On Coach Fisher

Count me as a Jimbo fan. I think he’s the guy. I’m glad he’s here and I want him to stay. Jimbo Fisher really did embrace the Seminoles as his favorite team when he was a young college player, and he has always thought FSU would be his ideal job.

Earlier, some of us were discussing an inconsequential legal point and the attorney said, “Well none of that stuff is important ... until it is.” There was a lot of anxiety this year over what appeared to fans to be Coach Fisher’s conservative play calling, especially in the second half. Like the lawyer said, it’s not important until it is. When you win, none of the minutiae is important. When you lose, well you heard the lawyer.

Lots of threads interweave to create the game plan. Sometimes the coaches will share their strategy with the fans but very often they will not, for all the reasons you would guess.

Coach Bowden used to say over and over that he had learned through painful experience not to sit on a lead. And yet, over and over we watched him do exactly that. Each time he had his reasons, and the decibel scale of fans’ reaction to the game plan hinged on whether we won or lost.

Jimbo impresses as a deliberate sort, not given to impulse or ego during a game. He’s stronger in that regard than a lot of other coaches today.

For an example, look no further than the 1994 game against Florida in Tallahassee. We were defending National Champions yet we were down 3-31 on our own field as the fourth quarter began. Fans were starting to leave; Gator players were strutting and posing on the sidelines.

You know the story. Our Seminoles scored 28 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to tie the game, and then FSU won the re-match in the Sugar Bowl billed as “The Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter.”

Coach Bowden said, “You know, all Steve had to do was run the ball. If he had just slowed down for one series, we never could have come back that far. But he kept throwing, and we kept intercepting and scoring.” Coach Bowden just shook his head. “You know, for us to ‘win’ that game every single thing had to happen exactly the way it did. If Steve had done any one single thing to keep the ball out of our hands we would have lost.”

It was Spurrier’s personality. Two seasons later Florida played Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl for the National Championship. The Gators lost 62-24. The score was 49-18 at the beginning of the 4th quarter, but Coach Spurrier kept throwing out of his own end zone.

Spurrier is a great coach, no doubt. But I’d rather have Jimbo than Steve, and I believe the next several years will bear that out.

On Seminole Boosters: The Mickey Andrews Principle

As the story goes, back in the day Coach Andrews and his staff were displeased with the effort of his defensive players in practice. Mickey called the players together and gave them a very simple message.

He explained that he and his fellow defensive coaches were professionals with families and careers and they did not intend to beat themselves up trying to motivate college kids beyond the players’ capacity or interest.

“I want you fellows to all go meet over there under that tree,” Andrews said, “And decide how good you want to be. If you just want to have a winning season, that’s OK; then that’s how we’ll coach you. If you want to play for a national championship, then we’ll take it up a notch. You decide what you want and what you’re willing to do, and then we’ll coach you to that level.”

Seminole Boosters asks similar questions of our loyal fans and contributors. How good do we want to be? An intercollegiate athletic program that wants to compete for championships requires funding at championship levels.

Some universities have no realistic chance of winning championships. They don’t have the student population or the demographics or the access to championship talent. But like Mickey Andrews’ defensive players, Florida State possesses all the innate talent to achieve any ambition.

We fans and Boosters just have to decide how good we want to be.

On Seminole Football, 2013

I believe we will be better than advertised, but I’m not prepared just yet to say why.

Such is the passion for college football that immediately following the national championship game, sports sites elbowed each other to be the first to publish far-too-early predictions and rankings for 2013.

Bleacher Report jumped the gun on everyone and published their first 2013 rankings on December 28th. They have LSU at No. 1 going into 2013. Florida is No. 7 and FSU is No. 20, behind both Clemson and Miami. Bleacher Report opines that FSU’s odd schedule this year turned out to be so weak it is hard to tell how good this FSU team really was in 2012 - and without several departing key playmakers on both offense and defense predicting 2013 is a mystery. They say the Seminole defense will still be very good, but not nearly as good as this year. Bleacher Report predicts LSU and Ohio State will win all 12 games, Alabama wins 11, the Gators win 10 and FSU wins nine.

USA Today waited until January 8th to make their Top 25 predictions for 2013. They have Alabama at No. 1, with Ohio State, Stanford, Oregon and Florida following in sequence.

There are a couple of surprises. Northern Illinois is 24th just three down from Oklahoma at 21. Did you think you’d live long enough to see Oklahoma ranked below Oklahoma State in a pre-season scenario?

Indulging our fantasy that counts Louisville and Notre Dame as ACC members right now, our conference contributes four teams to the Top 25. Florida State is 6th and Clemson is 12th, along with Notre Dame at 8th and Louisville at 16th.

Now that you know, you can relax over the spring and summer and just let it come to you.

On the Dunlap Indoor Practice Facility

When you visit Tallahassee for the spring Garnet & Gold Game you may be shocked at the size of this monster. Photos don’t really give a good indication of the scale. Groundbreaking took place Thanksgiving weekend and the facility should be ready for the team to begin practice in August.

On Conference Realignment

Everything you’re seeing - all the movement - is driven by money. Conferences now are not so much associations of universities with common cultures; today they tend to be little more than alliances of financial convenience. We watched the real estate bubble burst. I wonder if there is not a similar bubble expanding around televised college football advertising. So much money has been promised in so many massive contracts; some of the numbers now sound other-worldly. The question is whether or not those obligations are sustainable.

Conference media money is a complex issue. Trying to compare financial apples to apples can be misleading and is never simple. Important contract details are closely held; we don’t really know who’s receiving how much money and in what form.

An analogy is the distribution of bowl money. Let’s say a particular team gets a $4 million bowl payout; it’s hard to understand how that team can lose money. First, the conference will take most of it. Then, the bowl requires each school to purchase a specified number of tickets at a set price, and the bowl assigns each team a specific hotel in which the school must purchase a set number of rooms for their players, coaches and administration. Participating teams get the worst tickets in the stadium because the prime tickets go to sponsors who fund the bowl payout. Savvy fans will buy their tickets from sources other than their school’s ticket office, placing an even greater financial burden on the program.

Conference memberships will continue to shift in 2013, following the money. What’s certain is that we have no idea what the landscape will look like in a year or two years from now.

On the NCAA

When Joan of Arc stood before her inquisitors and declined to confess her sins, she was shown the instruments of torture. She fainted.

We do not know if Penn State President Dr Rodney Erickson fainted upon being shown the instruments of torture the NCAA high priests threatened to inflict upon on his University.

Penn State elected to endure the tortures rather than embrace several seasons of death. In a few years death may prove to have been preferable. Joan never confessed and was burned at the stake. President Erickson did confess and they burned his house down anyway.

This brief essay is not about whether justice was done to Penn State. Seminole fans have expressed passionate opinions in the full range of extremes, from ‘burn the campus to the ground’ to ‘Penn State should sue.’ We’re not taking sides here.

The subject here is something else. The Draconian penalties imposed on Penn State are just one example of how the NCAA has established a much more aggressive role for itself. How the member schools accept this new imperial NCAA is yet to be seen. NCAA President Dr Mark Emmert’s actions suggest he possesses ultimate authority over all the many elements that define big-time college football, without much regard to due process or traditional legal safeguards.

The NCAA has no subpoena powers, depending instead on voluntary compliance with its investigations. In November, Dr Emmert announced a new approach. The NCAA sent letters to former Miami Hurricane players and coaches suspected of wrongdoing directing them to confess voluntarily or the NCAA will assume guilt and punish the University of Miami accordingly.

Some years ago, then-Director of Athletics Dave Hart speculated that the top 60 or so Division I football programs might eventually form themselves into one combined league with the bargaining power of a half-dozen conferences. He also speculated that this super-league might partially detach from the NCAA and form what would be in effect a Division IV.

If the NCAA accelerates along this current path, Dave Hart’s earlier musings may take on substance in 2013.

On Coach Bobby Bowden

Just a hunch; maybe a little more than that. Don’t be surprised to see him at a game next fall.

On the Orange Bowl

Do not concern yourself in the least with people who say that the Orange Bowl was a lose-lose proposition for FSU. We won the conference and then became Orange Bowl Champions on New Year’s Day. No one will ever care nor will they remember who we beat. The Seminoles hold the longest active record of consecutive bowls, and we may be the current holder of consecutive bowl wins. Enjoy.

On The Bowl Games

“If we call a tail a leg,” the old riddle goes, “then how many legs does a dog have?”

Well, not five. A dog has four legs because a tail is still a tail no matter what you call it.

But just for today let’s call Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame ‘ACC Teams’ even though they’re not quite that yet. Six ACC teams won their bowl games – the same number as SEC teams. Two ACC teams beat the SEC in bowl games; three SEC teams returned the favor. In our contrived scenario, the SEC sent only nine teams to bowl games vs. the ACC’s ten.

This is not to suggest that ACC football has gained parity with SEC football yet. But this year’s bowl record was a welcome and refreshing whiff of oxygen to the supporters of ACC football.

As the old country song says, “No, it’s not love ... but it’s not bad.”