Florida vs. FSU: Both rivals are desperate, for entirely different reasons
Desperation isn’t ordinarily a common thread when an unbeaten, top-5 team faces a 5-6 opponent, but desperation is an apt theme for No. 4 Florida State and the Florida Gators ahead of Saturday night’s tilt in The Swamp (7 pm, ESPN).
Yes, Florida and Florida State are in different places.
The Gators are on the verge of the program’s third consecutive losing season, which hasn’t happened since before integration ushered in the sport’s modern era. Florida has lost 4 consecutive games, last winning at South Carolina in the middle of October. Florida is a decidedly average football team, one with a good offense hamstrung by an imploding defense that ranks 129th (last in the Power 5) in yards allowed per play.
The Seminoles are an unblemished 11-0, on the verge of the program’s second College Football Playoff appearance. The Seminoles have the nation’s 3rd-longest active winning streak (Georgia, Washington) at 17, with their last loss coming in the middle of October 2022. They are an elite team, 1 of only 3 teams (Georgia, Michigan) with SP+ efficiency rankings in the top 10 in all 3 phases (7th offense, 9th defense, 4th special teams) and a résumé that, while not overwhelming, includes a blowout win over No. 15 LSU, a then-ranked Duke team, and at Clemson.
And yet, despite all that, thanks to a cruel twist of fate, the Seminoles enter Saturday’s contest desperate in every way.
The why, by now, is well-known, and that’s where the similarities begin to mirror each other, instead of melt away.
Jordan Travis and Graham Mertz deserve better. Let’s start there and let everything else follow.
Travis, whose college career ended with a gruesome leg injury last week against North Alabama, deserves to finish a program-changing career on the field. He deserves to be healthy, compete for a College Football Playoff championship, and buck the odds again when he arrives at the NFL Combine early next year. He deserves the shot at the ending I asked him about at ACC Media Days where, in his customary thoughtful, engaged manner, he said he “came back for my team, for this coaching staff who believed in me and believed in themselves when many people had written us off, and to pursue our unfinished goal of winning a ACC Championship and competing for the national championship.”
In a fairer world, Travis would get to pursue those goals on the field. Now he’ll lead a cheering section on the Seminoles sideline, with Noles and Gators fans collectively wishing him well off of it. A joy to watch and a privilege to cover as a writer, Travis made Florida State football fun again. Hopefully that joy finds its way to a NFL playing field in the near future.
Mertz deserves better, too.
Once a heralded recruit, Mertz was cast off to the island of misfit toys by most coaches after 3 tough seasons as the starter at Wisconsin. Billy Napier saw something he liked anyway and gave Mertz a chance, even as fans and writers alike lamented that the Gators didn’t pursue other flashier transfer portal names like Sam Hartman (Notre Dame) or Devin Leary (Kentucky). Mertz, ranked the worst SEC quarterback in the preseason by multiple outlets, became one of the league’s best, leading the SEC in completion percentage (73%) and ranking in the top 5 in the league in yards per game (5th), touchdowns (3rd), and TD-INT ratio (2nd). Mertz deserved to finish the second half of Florida’s ferocious effort at No. 9 Missouri, but was seriously injured while running over Missouri linebackers with Florida driving for the lead.
No SEC quarterback has been hit more this season, and Mertz, a testament to toughness and the way the portal gives good players and people a fresh start, deserved the opportunity to lead his team on Senior Day in The Swamp against a great rival. Instead, Florida fans will wait to see if Mertz uses his extra season of eligibility while Noles fans join the Gators in wishing Mertz a complete and speedy recovery.
Where does losing two great leaders leave Florida and Florida State on Saturday night?
Desperate, even if for different reasons.
Florida wants to play a bowl game. While the noise in the system surrounding Napier has reached a dull roar, especially in the toxic sludge of social media, the Gators have played hard for their young head coach, just as Florida State did in the rough and tumble early years under Mike Norvell. Florida nearly beat a top-10 team on the road for the first time since 2012 last weekend. Is there anything left in the tank for Senior Day at home? If Florida plays as desperately as facts suggest it should play, they’ll have a chance.
Florida State? They want to go to the College Football Playoff. A prerequisite to that dream is beating Florida in Gainesville, where the Seminoles last won in 2017. A loss to Florida ends that dream, even if the Seminoles rally and beat Louisville a week later in Charlotte to capture the ACC championship.
The Seminoles, who are a marvelous team based on analytics and résumé alike, will be evaluated for the College Football Playoff with the Travis injury considered. The Selection Committee protocols say as much, stating that in addition to on-field performance and strength of schedule, “other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players” that could “affect its postseason future” will be considered.
The Committee could consider Travis’ absence when seeding the Seminoles, but if Florida State goes 13-0, the Noles deserve to make the school’s second College Football Playoff appearance, with or without their starting quarterback and emotional leader. Any other decision adds insult to the Travis injury.
In a game where so many other common threads usually exist, from players who learned the game together on Pop Warner fields and played at the same high school, to divided families and shared hometowns, this wonderful rivalry game is always deeply personal.
This year, though, it’s defined by a shared desperation, born from the mutual agony of losing great leaders and young men and a deep desire for bigger endings.
If that sounds special, well, then that’s on brand.
After all, Florida and Florida State is always special.