You never know what a season will bring

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

Chris Weinke and Bobby Bowden gave each other a boisterous hug during celebration this July of "Seminole Showcase." The Showcase brought fifty-five former Seminole stars back to campus to interact with one hundred prospective young football recruits.

It has been ten years now since Bowden and Weinke last hugged on the field of their greatest triumph, the 1999 National Championship.

Ten years ago Florida State was a more prominent feature on the college football landscape, but those things do change with time and there are many of us who believe Florida State will once again shine on the national stage and reign in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

By the time you read this it will be September and the new season underway. Today however, we are still in the doldrums of August with no football to distract us and all we have is the clever predictions of colorful pundits and their pre-season magazines.

College football fans tend to have unusually short memories. Perhaps it's part of the emotional infrastructure of team loyalty. The personalities of universities and their fans are shaped by their histories. Some have a chip on their shoulder while others view glory as an entitlement.

Timeless icons of college football like Notre Dame, Southern California, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the like all fall into passages of dreadful disrepair from time to time only to re-emerge and act as if they've always been at the top of the pyramid.

That self-assured attitude can be a dependable source of strength. Belief that your program is innately exceptional bolsters confidence that no matter how dark the night, tomorrow the sun will shine more brightly than ever.

In August, 1998, The Harris Poll announced their national survey showing Florida State to be the second most popular team in America behind Notre Dame. Rounding out the top five were Penn State, Michigan and Tennessee.

Yes, the great names do endure but not without difficulty. The sun will be up for the Seminoles before too long.

Ambitious programs like Utah and Boise State are often treated dismissively, yet here they are in 2009 pre-season, cluttering up the Top 20 and aching to shove the prima donna programs into the dirt. The ESPN Top 25 this August includes TCU, Boise State and Utah, all three ranking ahead of Notre Dame and Florida State which are #23 and #24 respectively. Michigan doesn't appear at all, having been nudged out by #25 Rutgers. Miami is absent as well.

Rivals.com ranks both Oregon and Oregon State among their Top 25 but there's no Michigan and no Miami. Boise State and Utah are there, and also the South Florida Bulls. Florida State comes in at #16.

Thirty years ago the cover of Gameplan Magazine 1979 featured Bobby Bowden and his dual quarterbacks Jimmy Jordan and Wally Woodham. In 1979, FSU began the season ranked #7 by Gameplan; no ACC teams were listed among that pre-season Top 20.

Gameplan's Top Five in 1979 included Southern Cal, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Penn State. It's interesting that in 2009, both ESPN and Rivals.com produced a pre-season Top Five list nearly identical to Gameplan's choices from thirty seasons ago. The difference of course is that the Gators top those charts in 2009.

The 2009 Gators have duplicated our 1999 Seminoles' feat of leading nearly every pre-season list. Ten years ago, The Sports Illustrated Top Five pre-season picks included Penn State, Arizona, Tennessee and Ohio State, as well as FSU. Our eventual opponent for the national championship that year, Virginia Tech, began down the list at #17.

In 1999, Athlon magazine described FSU as the dominant team of the 1990s, "and in 1999 returns its entire receiving corps, its top five rushers and nine of its top ten scorers. And the defense has a penchant for mayhem." Our Seminoles put an exclamation point on the '90s by becoming the only team in NCAA history to go undefeated to a National Championship ranked #1 from pre-season to post-season, wire-to-wire.

One of the many wonderful things about college football is that each season starts fresh; all hope begins new each fall. You never know what's going to happen. You never know.

Back in 1979, Ohio State did not appear anywhere on Gameplan's Top Twenty radar. In fact, their assessment was grim, predicting OSU would finish no better than 5th in the Big 10. "They have seen the defection of too many key performers…We don't see much more than seven wins for the Buckeyes."

But, Ohio State went undefeated in 1979 and played for the National Championship in the Rose Bowl, barely losing 17-16 to Southern California.

Ten years ago, Virginia Tech was ranked in the pre-season right about where Florida State is this August. You never know.