After snub, Florida State’s ‘difficult month’ ends with record-setting loss in Orange Bowl

Mike Norvell’s voice quivered after the Florida State Seminoles’ dream season ended with a record-setting 63-3 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2023 Orange Bowl.

“Tonight,” the Florida State coach said, “was a very difficult night.”

Norvell then paused for a moment.

Four weeks of chaos and confusion rushed back through his head. It started with the College Football Playoff leaving the Seminoles out of its four-team field despite their perfect record. The hits to their roster — whether because of players opting out to think about their future or just getting hurt — didn’t stop until just days and hours before kickoff Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium.

No, it wasn’t just one challenging night for Florida State.

“It’s been a difficult month, to be honest with you,” Norvell added.

Four weeks earlier, the Seminoles were all but certain they would be spending this weekend in the playoffs. After a perfect regular season, Florida State beat then-No. 15 Louisville in the 2023 ACC Championship Game, without star quarterback Jordan Travis, to enter bowl season as one of only three unbeaten teams from the Power 5 Conferences.

A day later, the College Football Playoffs’ selection committee passed over Florida State, concerned by the Seminoles’ shaky performance in the ACC Championship Game and Travis’ broken leg. Florida State couldn’t believe it — the Seminoles (13-1) still can’t — and four awful weeks began.

When the Orange Bowl first announced its Florida State-Georgia matchup, the No. 6 Bulldogs were favored by 14 and the showdown looked like it had a chance to be one of the most intriguing bowl games of the postseason, with the Seminoles staring down the possibility of going undefeated and causing chaos by claiming a national title. Instead, Florida State’s chances at a season-ending upset likely disappeared before this weekend even arrived.

Nine Seminoles opted out of the Orange Bowl to begin preparations for the 2024 NFL Draft and 10 others, including second-string quarterback Tate Rodemaker, did the same after announcing their intentions to transfer. Six more did not play due to injuries with three defensive starters — defensive linemen Joshua Farmer and Brandon Fiske, and linebacker Tatum Bethune (Miami Central) — unexpectedly sitting out despite traveling to Miami Gardens.

In all, Florida State was missing its top two quarterbacks — Travis and Rodemaker — and six other offensive starters, plus eight starters on defense. The Seminoles only had 52 scholarship players dressed for the bowl game.

“It was hard to practice; it was hard to do everything in this last month,” Norvell said. “It was just kind of a perfect storm of challenge.”

No matter the caveats, the perfect storm still made for one of the ugliest losses in bowl history. The 60-point loss was the most lopsided ever in any bowl game and Georgia (13-1) set a Orange Bowl record for total yards. Florida State forced the Bulldogs into a turnover on downs on Georgia’s first drive, with defensive lineman Patrick Payton (Miami Northwestern) strip sacking Carson Beck to knock the Bulldogs off schedule and linebacker Omar Graham Jr. (Fort Lauderdale Stranahan) hurrying the Georgia quarterback on fourth down to force an incomplete pass.

And then the Bulldogs scored on nine straight drives to put together a historic blowout.

Norvell wished he had more players available, but also understood why NFL-bound stars such as wide receiver Keon Coleman and defensive end Jared Verse didn’t, and no one was going to push injured players to play through pain at less than 100 percent.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart echoed the same sentiment. The system, he intimated, was to blame for what happened Saturday in South Florida, not Florida State.

“It needs to be fixed. ... College football has got to decide what they want,” Smart said. “It’s really unfortunate for those kids on that sideline that had to play that game that didn’t have their full arsenal. It affected the game, 100 percent.”

College football and the powers that be got what they deserved for mishandling so many changes throughout the last few years. The Seminoles, Norvell insisted, did not.

Either way, a resurgent season for Florida State now has an ugly black mark attached to it, no matter how much they deserved a spot in the College Football Playoff.

“This is a championship-level team,” Norvell said. “I don’t care. You go back and watch 13 games and that’s what you saw. I’m fully confident in what this team did throughout the year and what we could’ve achieved.

“It’s something we’ll never know.”

This story was originally published December 30, 2023 at 9:02 PM.