Florida State opened the 2017 season with consecutive losses for the first time since 1989. In between, the Seminoles had 26 years of 10-win seasons, national championships, conference championships, and very few losses. In the 27 games since the 2017 season opener, Florida State is 13-14 and has narrowly avoided three consecutive 0-2 starts after 26 seasons without one.
Entering Florida State's Week 2 game at Virginia, seven days after a hideous overtime win over mighty UL Monroe and 14 days after a fourth-quarter meltdown against Boise State, it's clear this isn't the same program that ripped off 59 wins from 2012-16.
The Seminoles aren't good at football. But when was the last time Florida State was this bad?
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They're worse than last year. And they're worse than the 2017 team that crawled to seven wins, which they also did in three of Bobby Bowden's final four seasons: 2006, 2007, and 2009. None of those four seven-win teams were good, though none were this bad.
Bowden led three more seven-win seasons in the 1980s, along with a six-win team in 1981 and five-win in 1976, his first season as head coach. The five-win team started 0-3, failed to score more than 30 points in a game, and lost to an atrocious Clemson team. They did, however, whoop Boston College and hung with Oklahoma and Florida, the three of whom combined for a 26-9-1 record.
A year earlier, in 1975, Florida State sucked at football.
In fact, it was the third straight year in which Florida State sucked at football. They went 4-29 from 1973-75, including 3-8 in 1975. Their three wins came against teams with a combined 10-22 record, and they failed to score at least 10 points three times, including a 30-0 shellacking at the hands of Georgia Tech. The Seminoles, in Darrell Mudra's second and final season as head coach, averaged 17 points per game, scored 38 points over a five-game stretch, threw more interceptions (12) than touchdowns (11), and scored only 19 touchdowns in 11 games.
It's been 44 years since Florida State football was this bad.
Glass-half-full note: No other FBS team can say it's been four decades since they sucked at football. Congrats, Florida State?
