Jared's Addition to the FSU Post

Jared's addition to the Initial FSU Post:

I too feel like it was more than time for Bowden to retire. That isn't taking anything away from what he did. When you hear a guy like Pete Carrol say that what he accomplished in the 14 years will never happen again you know he did something special. I always hear Bowden talk about death after coaching. I think maybe he is afraid to die and that is why he held on so long.

My first memories of Florida State football were way back in the day when every game wasn't on tv. In fact not many were. If you didn't have tickets to the game or it was away, we were listening to it on the radio. That is where Gene Deckerhoff comes in. The man has the best voice for play by play on the radio ever. I can remember going to my ear during the FSU games and I would have my own football and I would try and re-enact the plays my self while he was calling the games. I am sure everyone in my family remembers me outside throwing the football to myself. Just so yall know a lot of those drops were on purpose because that is what had happened in the game.

I too remember the Seminole Rap. The Deion days are the start of my memories and probably the first player I remember. I can still see the skinny dude with a towel hanging down past his knees pointing to the end zone on a punt. Sure enough he took it back for a touchdown. Take that Babe Ruth. After Deion and for the next few years at least FSU had some of the best defenses ever, which made this year so hard to watch. That all changed when Charlie Ward came in with the "fast break" offense. To my knowledge FSU was the first team to use the no huddle offense outside the last two minutes of a game. The 1993 season was a blast to watch except for the second to last game against Notre Dame which we need to thank Boston College for coming in the next week and beating them. I also remember the 31-31 win we had over Florida. We can call it a win because we went and got them in the bowl game. We were down 31-3 going into the fourth quarter. We lived in Orem and everyone in our family had given up hope. I always go down with the ship so of course I am staying to watch. After we got the score to within two scores I waited for a commercial and went to round up the troops. At first there was some resistance to them coming back to watch it. Then we scored again and were within one score. I was successful in getting them back to watch the final touchdown for the tie.

I missed a national championship while on my mission. I do remember looking forward to the newspaper clippings that my family would send during that season.

I had to let Stacy know why Florida State football was such a big part of our lives during the fall. I called Travis and asked if he could get us some tickets to the first game of the season. FSU vs. Miami. Beside the Florida game there isn't a bigger game on the schedule so I thought that would be a good game to take her to. It was a night game on a Monday so Jason took us fishing. Jason caught a tarpon over 6 feet long and let me reel it in while he directed the boat towards the fish. Obviously I am naive because besides seeing the fish jump out of the water a few times I didn't realize how rare a catch of that size was. Jason asked me when we were going home from fishing if I would like to have that fish or an FSU win. It wasn't close and to Jason's surprise I said a Florida State win for sure. Well luckily I got both that year. After a four year streak of losing to the Canes Florida State pull out a 3 point win after Miami bobbled a snap on a tying filed goal. It was great for Stacy to see how almost all of Tallahassee shuts down on game day. All the cars have something FSU on them and most people in the mall have on FSU gear.

After having a successful trip to see FSU in Tallahassee we decided to go to the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco. Same results only it was a crowed that heavily favored UCLA. In fact one of the guys sitting next to us wasn't shy about telling the people he was with how much he hated Florida State and all their fans.