Seminoles still the ACC's best

Originally Published: September 10, 2003

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By Gregg Doyel
Special to ESPN.com
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For years we've been writing that Florida State was losing its grip on the ACC, that someone from the nether reaches of the league power structure was finally ready to mount a challenge to the Seminoles. We wrote it again this year, and the thing is, this year we actually believed it.

Our bad.

It's FSU and the eight dwarves all over again, a syndicated version of the 1990s ACC when the Seminoles were clearly the class of the league.

"You know," says FSU coach Bobby Bowden, "we have to prove it, but I think we might have that kind of talent again."

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Hey, Chuck Amato warned us. Amato, the fourth-year NC State coach who had been Bowden's No. 1 assistant for the previous decade, said in the preseason that the Seminoles, until proven otherwise, ruled the ACC.

But, Amato was asked, what about the 2002 season when Florida State went 9-5 and slipped to No. 23 in the final poll, and Maryland looked good, and Virginia looked good, and of course Amato's own Wolfpack looked good, and ...

"What did Florida State do in the league?" Amato shot back.

So we looked it up, and darned if the Seminoles didn't go 7-1 in the ACC last season. And darned if the Seminoles don't look like they'll go 8-0 this season.

At this point, with Florida State coming off back-to-back maulings of North Carolina and Maryland, only one ACC team looks to have any kind of a shot at the Seminoles -- Virginia. And that's based on two things: that Oct. 18 game will be in Charlottesville, Va., and by then defending ACC Player of the Year Matt Schaub ought to be back and 100 percent from his shoulder separation.

With Schaub, Virginia went from eighth in the 2002 preseason ACC poll to a nine-win team that beat NC State and obliterated Maryland and West Virginia. Without Schaub, the Cavaliers lost 31-7 Saturday to a South Carolina team that, frankly, isn't very good.

Maryland is 0-2 after a troublesome opening loss at Northern Illinois and an embarrassing 35-10 loss Saturday at Florida State. NC State is 1-1, but its defense looked suspect against Division I-AA Western Carolina and was proven to be so in a 38-24 loss to Wake Forest.

Unlike Maryland, for whom the bell has tolled, the Wolfpack has a shot at redemption Saturday at No. 3 Ohio State. A game that once looked to be the biggest non-conference battle in Wolfpack history remains big -- although not nearly as big -- because NC State can right itself and reaffirm itself as an elite team with a victory. First it will have to learn how to tackle.

As for Wake Forest, the only reason the Deacons don't join Virginia (from this viewpoint) as a legitimate 2003 challenge to Florida State is because their game with the Seminoles will be in Tallahassee, Fla. Granted, the Deacons won in front of what was essentially a neutral crowd Saturday when Wolfpack Nation invaded Winston-Salem, but an angry, 83,000-strong crowd of FSU fans is entirely different.

"The biggest surprises of the year is Wake Forest beating Boston College and NC State," Bowden says. "The reason I say that is, Wake Forest lost everybody (from 2002). You look at your schedule, and you say, 'Gee, there's not but one team over there we can count on beating.' And dang if they ain't playing better than everybody."

Don't listen to him. Florida State is simply too good right now for Wake Forest and probably anyone else in the ACC. After two off years, the Seminoles have the kind of big-play receivers they had throughout the 1990s, plus perhaps the fastest defense in the country, and a developing leader in junior quarterback Chris Rix.

In Raleigh, Amato is gloating as much as another head coach in the ACC can gloat about the return of the Seminoles.

"Oh my word," Amato says, holding his face in his hands in mock amazement. "A frightening thought -- Florida State is good."

Yeah, but just wait 'till next year.

Gregg Doyel covers college football for the Charlotte Observer and can be reached at gdoyel@charlotteobserver.com.