One Point

Florida State lost the National Championship by one point last night.



NC State 17 – FSU 16.

It was a thrilling game with the winning score made by NC State with 16 seconds left. NC State’s final drive featured 3 fourth down – must make this or the game is over – plays.

Overall – FSU clearly has the talent, speed and size. But for some reason, they just didn’t have it working last night. NCSU’s defense somehow, improbably, kept making stops. Keeping FSU to one touchdown in the first half and then a shut out the second half.

Overall though – this game hurts both FSU and the ACC.

First – the ACC now does not have any chance of having a team in the National Championship game. FSU, ranked number 3, was that team. Maybe, there’s an outside, long odds, chance that this one loss by one point might allow FSU to rise in the BCS rankings to make it back. And – a lot of undefeated teams will have to lose as well. This scenario is too far fetched and won't happen..

Second – if FSU had gone undefeated and won the ACC Championship and then went to the National Championship game – then – the ACC Championship game runner up would have gone to the Orange Bowl. The ACC would have had 2 teams in BCS games. Clearly, that’s not going to happen either.

So – huge win for NC State. Huge loss for FSU and the ACC.

The crowd at Carter-Finley was awesome. That’s one of the loudest games I can recall.

Without the crowd (which forced possibly two FSU timeouts) pumping up the players – we would not have won that game.