Florida State to the Big XII has been some of the bigger NCAA chatter this week and the Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi weighed in early regarding the Seminoles’ flirtation with another conference after two decades in the ACC.
The notion is that Florida State feels snubbed in the Atlantic Coast Conference, as it’s not considered an “elite” football league and the TV contract pales in comparison to the SEC, Big Ten and Big XII.
To his credit, Bianchi tells Florida State to look in the mirror, citing that they’re the root of the problem, as is Miami, who joined the ACC in 2004 and is yet to seven sniff a conference title game, yet a berth and BCS appearance.
Miami’s downward spiral coincided with the conference move and was simply an imperfect storm for the Hurricanes. Larry Coker took over a loaded team in 2001, but lesser recruiting classes in 2002 and 2003 had UM looking much different when taking the field year one in the ACC.
Talent wasn’t being developed, needs weren’t being met position-wise and the Canes were no longer getting the type of players it was picking up in the Butch Davis era; guys who were ready to get on board, lead, make a difference and put team first. It got the opposite, actually.
Guys who were front-runners, wanted to join a championship caliber program and came in with a sense of entitlement, forgetting that the “U” on their helmet had to be earned, while those top five rankings and BCS berths were the result of the hard work put in by those who came before them.
The decline continued. 9-3, 9-3 and 7-6 on the heels of 12-0, 12-1 and 11-2 were what got Coker fired and from there, the hiring of Randy Shannon, many of the same issues, little progress – 5-7 to 7-6 to 9-4, before falling back to 7-6 again.
It’s not hard to reverse engineer Miami’s decline from the Davis era to the program Al Golden took over in December 2010. Sub-par head coaches, bad personnel decisions, poor recruiting, worse player development, entitled kids and a culture of lethargy are the reason UM is now 41-35 since the 2005 Peach Bowl drubbing courtesy of LSU (40-3). But what’s Florida State’s excuse?
The Noles’ decline started around 2001 when offensive coordinator Mark Richt left Tallahassee to become Georgia’s head coach. Bobby Bowden chose nepotism over logic, promoting son Jeff Bowden to offensive coordinator and the Florida State offense became a shell of what it was in the dominant nineties.
The Seminoles joined the ACC in 1991, but didn’t compete for the football championship until the next season. It then won, or split, the conference title nine straight seasons (seven outright wins) and won three of the next four. Since then, a six-year ACC title drought.
The elder Bowden ran the show through 2009, wrapping up with an unearned Gator Bowl berth after a 6-6 regular season. Prior to that, four- to six-loss seasons were the new norm for a program that like Miami, was in the title hunt annually and was accustomed to losing a game or two a year, max.
Jimbo Fisher took the reigns in 2010 and went 10-4, earning a top-five preseason ranking for 2011, but the Noles again limped to 9-4, falling way short of their season goals and not even winning the ACC Atlantic, let alone competing for a national title.
It’s wild to think that after eight years in the same conference, Miami and Florida State are yet to meet for an ACC Championship, when that was the mindset between putting them in separate divisions.
As Bianchi stated, the conference title game spent the few several years in the Sunshine State, with the belief that the Canes and Noles would tussle every so often – starting in Jacksonville, moving to Tampa and eventually to North Carolina year six, when the game became an afterthought due to poor ratings and lesser match ups. Virginia Tech dominated the Coastal, but Florida State spent a handful of seasons looking up at Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Boston College before Clemson repped the Atlantic last December.
Even more puzzling, the fact that Miami and Florida State have struggled in a conference that doesn’t even measure up well against the rest of the country. Over the past few years, everyone can see where the Canes have fallen short, but what’s the excuse for the Noles dropping off in a conference that is 2-13 in BCS bowl games since it’s inception?
Florida State’s desire to leave for a better football conference and bigger money makes sense, but the sense of entitlement that their football program belongs elsewhere or deserves better – that’s asinine based on their recent on-the-field performances. – C.B.
The ACC has a very agressive revenue sharing agreement, but the conference office does not print the money. It comes from the schools. I have the formula from 2001, but basically the ACC takes bowl money, acc tourn money, acc TV money and a slice of home ACC football and mens basketball revenue. The formula can be gotten under a “freedon of information request” from and of the state schools. Of course the schools get “travel” money, etc.
Why was Miami invited. We for sure NOT for basketball. That,s for Syracuse, etc. it was for baseball and football.
I think it,s fair to say that UM is not keeping up it,s share of the deal. They have let football go into the tank (hence no revenue share from home ACC football) and baseball is about to follow unless there is an immediate turnaround.
You just gotta contribute your share, and UM has been coming up short with the low home football attendance.
It might be a good idea to publish the appropriate revenue sharing rules on this site.
Further comment regarding FSU. Yes football performance has declined but they still get the attendance. The ACC revenue sharing formula takes MONEY from attendance and not performance.
FSU and Miami need to pick it up. They are both turning it around at the same time. Not sure about FSU though. I just can’t comprehend for the life of me what is going on up there. Top recruits, good coaches (Bowden, Fischer), tradition, etc. Miami has had the same with the exception of good coaching which is why we have been down so long. It doesn’t take much thought to realize Coker and Shannon were not up to snuff. But FSU just baffles me. I will say this though, I have a very strong feeling Miami is going to turn heads this year. I think they will compete with Virginia to get to the ACCCG. When all those under classmen left I thought it would be a 5 at most 6 win season. But something tells me the canes will win minimum 8 games this year.
FSU may claim that the ACC is weaker than the Big 12, but then why haven’t they won an ACC title since 2005? Funny. I love college football, but its becoming a game of musical chairs with teams not wanting to be left standing. I, for one, don’t want Miami to be left out in the cold. Yes, we have been sub-par for the past several years, but I belive that Golden will get us back to the top. In today’s world, you are only as good as your conference. I don’t think the commissioner has been very proactive, when compared to the SEC and even the Big 12 (which is an overrated, top-heavy conference). The ACC TV deal is paltry compared to the other major conferences for starters. I hope our President and AD both are looking ahead to best position the Miami program to stay on the topside of college football as we shift towards a playoff and mega-conferences. I love Miami. We deserve better, and we need to look out for ourselves like every other school is doing.
I agree FSU needs to look into the mirror, if the conference doesn’t think it’s a dominant team. Miami is the same. If this move was back in the 80s and 90s, it would of been a total different story. I believe Miami and Florida State’s new coaches will bring their respective programs back to prominence but, it may take a few years. If FSU wants to bail, I say let ’em go. Never liked them, never will. Yes, that would be a big hit for the ACC, but with all the conferences moving around and making these “so called” super conferences so be it.
It would be weird with UM/FSU maybe not even playing every year, but some other teams making moves do not make sense to me either.
WVU in the Big 12 (where is the rival? the state of Texas? hardly. That move seems bizarre and a lot of road time getting to those pesky away games.
FSU and VT will bail at the first opportunity. These 2 schools draw big crowds = $$$$$ for football.
The networks like to show games where they don,t have to be careful panning the bleachers (like on kickoffs).
UM has to fix the home attendance issue, and that will be tuff in bull-fighting country.
I have been wanted to give my “two-cents” for a long time now, but it would be interesting to see in the next two years, if and when a new post-season format were to be introduced. If the “powers-that-be” do not implement the “L. Scott formula” (of only a top-ranked team champion from a two-divisioned, power conference a playoff birth automatically), then we won’t see the emergence of the “mega-conferences”; in fact, the opposite could be true.
Haven’t said that, I think a FSU departure for greener pastures could spell ruin for the ACC as a potential “powerhouse” in football. And it serves the conference right for being too greedy. Does FSU have a legitimate excuse to bolt from the league due to PERFORMANCE on the field? Absolutely not! Do they have a right to leave the ACC? Yes, definitely! More power to them.
I was confident then and remain so now, that dragging Miami into the same league with FSU, back in 2004, was doomed to fail. I am not even sure if these two programs will ever play against each other in a conference championship game, as so many dupes in the ACC and elsewhere would like to see. So here is a “hypothetical” scenario for you, and there are no easy answers to this one: If FSU were to bolt to the Big XII or elsewhere for that matter, what would Miami do then? The accessions of Pitt and Syracuse didn’t do the ACC any favors; it remains a sorry football conference, and it will only get worse for them. There are no easy answers, as I said, but the one viable option for UMiami is to think about life on its own….return to football independence. Sure, the football program needs to win games to be respected indeed, but I think the school could go a long way if they go beyond “winning football games.” They need to broaden their brand to attract new, committed fan base beyond the south Florida area and generate more revenue. The school needs to be more proactive and innovative…….somehow, if the top brass would stop kidding themselves and think about the school’s future for a chance.
Jorph – FSU will do whatever they need to do, but that’s still not the point of Bianchi’s article, which I still side with.
If you look at Miami’s decline, you can at least pinpoint what went wrong. Butch Davis left the cupboard full and back-to-back, incompetent, never-should’ve-been-promoted head coaches killed it all over the next decade.
What is Florida State’s excuse? A program that honestly never recovered from the loss of offensive coordinator Mark Richt after the 2000 season.
Was the combination of Jeff Bowden at OC and Chris Rix at QB really enough to send the Noles into a tailspin? After dominating the late 80s and all of the 90s, Florida State football went in the can starting in 2001, where four-, five- and six-loss seasons became the norm. (Three six-loss seasons this past decade??)
Even in the Jimbo Fisher era now, four losses year one and five losses last year — despite top-ranked recruiting classes and boatloads of talent signing on? FSU hasn’t seen better than a three-loss season since 2000 … again, all without the pitfalls the Miami program has had to deal with regarding back-to-back sub par head coaches.
If Florida State wants to go, good riddance. They have to do what’s best for them and Miami will do what’s best for in, as college football continues to be a train wreck across the board.
Still, to Bianchi’s point, for Florida State to have any ego or an elitist attitude when they haven’t accomplished a thing in over a decade, time to get over themselves. They’ve won the Atlantic Coast Conference ONCE since Miami came aboard in 2004 and last year, when pegged as a dark horse to win it all, couldn’t even reach the title game.
Florida State is getting very Florida-like as the years pass. All the “mutual respect” UM and FSU used to have for each other, when top-ranked, hard-fighting competitors, seems to be long gone. These days it’s a battle of average ACC teams, with FSU still believing their 90s hype.