Florida State begins CFP pursuit in Ireland on TSN2 after last year's snub

Two-hundred and sixty-four days ago, Florida State stood atop the ACC, the undefeated champion of a Power Five conference – a near-certain formula for earning a berth in the College Football Playoff.

Only they didn’t.

Anyone that followed college football last season knows the story. Florida State was 13-0 – a record matched in the Power Five by only Big Ten champion Michigan, and Washington, which won the Pac-12 – but was left on the outside-looking-in, in favour of Alabama and Texas, which each had a loss en route to winning their conferences. 

The selection committee’s reasoning did carry some weight – the Seminoles had, after all, lost star quarterback Jordan Travis to a broken leg in mid-November, and limped to wins over Florida in the season finale and Louisville in the ACC Championship, with fill-ins Tate Rodemaker and Brock Glenn combining to pass for less than 200 yards in the two games.

This year, Florida State will be without Travis again – he was selected in the fifth round of the NFL Draft by the New York Jets – but it has a capable replacement. The Seminoles plucked former Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagalelei out of the transfer portal in December, following the best season of his college career, where he passed for 21 touchdowns and ran for six more for a Beavers team that won eight games in the Pac-12. 

And even if things happen as they did for Florida State last season, its place in the playoff won’t be in question.

Watch Florida State's 2024 season opener against Georgia Tech in Dublin, Ireland this Saturday at Noon ET/9am PT on TSN2, TSN.ca and the TSN App. This will be the ninth collegiate game played in Ireland, but the first international game for Florida State.

College football expands to a 12-team playoff in 2024, with the Power Four champions (down from five, with the dissolution of the Pac-12) nearly-guaranteed a first-round bye, provided a Group of Five team doesn’t take the NCAA by storm. If things go as they’re almost certain to, the ACC champion will be automatically through to the second round, along with the winners of the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12.

There’s been a major overhaul in Tallahassee. Travis is gone, as well as top rusher Trey Benson and standout receiver Keon Coleman. Defensive end Jared Verse, who had 18 sacks in two seasons at Florida State, went in the first round to the Los Angeles Rams. 

In all, an ACC-high 10 Seminoles were drafted in April, and 14 of Florida State’s 22 regular starters are gone, leaving head coach Mike Norvell with significant gaps to plug on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

And in this age of college football, the process begins early. 

The Seminoles were active in the transfer portal, landing Uiagalelei to replace Travis, edge rusher Marvin Jones Jr. from Georgia, and Roydell Williams and Malik Benson – a pair of playmakers from Alabama that are primed for bigger roles with Florida State.

Reason enough for Norvell to think the Seminoles won’t skip a beat.

“Our objective this year is to just get better,” Norvell said last month at ACC media days.

“Coming off a 13-0 regular season and championship game, something that was really a special experience for our entire program…It sets the stage for us to continue to push, to continue to elevate this program to ultimately where it deserves to be, and that’s among the nation’s elite.”

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It’s called the “Conference of Quarterbacks” for a reason, and this year’s ACC assembly fits the bill.

Along with Uiagalelei, Heisman candidate Cam Ward moved from Washington to Miami, Grayson McCall joined NC State following three Sun Belt player of the year awards at Coastal Carolina and Kyle McCord transferred to Syracuse after winning 11 games as Ohio State’s starter last season. Tack on returnees Cade Klubnik (Clemson), Haynes King (Georgia Tech), Preston Stone (SMU) and Kyron Drones (Virginia Tech), and the ACC has what might be the deepest collection of quarterbacks out of any conference in college football.

Uiagalelei is no stranger to the conference, after an uneven tenure as Clemson’s starter in 2021 and 2022. The Tigers won a total of 21 games in those two seasons, but Uiagalelei was benched on three occasions in the latter year in favour of Klubnik, including for good in their ACC Championship win over Drake Maye and North Carolina. 

This year, it’s Klubnik – now a junior, with a 19-touchdown season as a starter under his belt – and Miami’s Ward, that are expected to pose the biggest challenge to Florida State’s bid for a third straight conference title. The Seminoles enter as the favourite, ranked 10th in the nation in the AP preseason poll, followed by the 14th-ranked Tigers and 19th-ranked Hurricanes.

Florida State’s strongest competition is attacking from different angles.

Of the record 2,707 FBS players entered their names in the transfer portal in December and April, not a single one ended up at Clemson. Head coach Dabo Swinney has been steadfast – and even defiant – in his approach, sticking with a roster that finished 9-4 last season and failed to win double-digit games for the first time since 2010. On a SiriusXM radio show in May, Swinney claimed most of the players in the portal simply “aren’t good enough” to play for the Tigers.

The Seminoles’ in-state rival took a bit more of a modern approach, at least by the current standard. Miami added 15 players via the portal in addition to Ward, including running back Damien Martinez, who rushed for 1,185 yards as a teammate of Uiagalelei’s last season at Oregon State. The Hurricanes also added Sam Brown from Houston, to pad an already-stacked receiver room that returns Xavier Restrepo and Jacolby Brown, who finished second and third in the ACC in receiving yards in 2023.

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This year, Florida State doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even need to win the ACC to reach the playoff.

If the Seminoles do qualify, they’ll be battle tested come December.

On top of matchups with Clemson and Miami, they face a range of challenges: Memphis, which Norvell coached for four seasons prior to coming to Florida State, pays a visit in Week 2, and SMU – which won the AAC last season before moving to the ACC this year – hosts the Seminoles at the end of September. On Nov. 9, Florida State goes on the road to face Notre Dame under the lights in South Bend.

Last year, Travis was the unquestioned leader, and had his name in the Heisman conversation beginning with a blowout over LSU and eventual winner Jayden Daniels in the season opener. An overtime win on the road against Clemson later in September only padded that resume, as did his eight other victories – the majority of which were convincing.

And while Travis is easing his way back onto the field this summer in Aaron Rodgers’ shadow at Jets’ training camp, Florida State is adapting to its new leader.

It’s a role Uiagalelei is embracing.

“(I’m) just trying to be the best teammate I can,” he said earlier this month. 

“Travis is an unbelievable person, an unbelievable teammate. The way everyone had his back throughout the entire season, I think that just shows and speaks to the type of person he was and the type of leader he was for this team.”

A big void to fill, but Uiagalelei is vowing to do his best – albeit with a twist.

“I wanna strive to be just like him, but at the end of the day, my name is DJ Uiagalelei, so I can only be myself.”