Florida State went 12-0 during the 2023 college football regular season and won the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship over Louisville. The Seminoles proceeded to miss out on the Playoff and got absolutely smacked by Georgia in the Orange Bowl after a large majority of its starting lineup opted out.
Their new ACC rings do not reflect the single loss…
Here’s the thing. There is no reason to hate on the rings themselves. They are deserved. College football programs have presented their players with a ring for far lesser accomplishments. UCF proudly declared itself as the “state championship” in 2022, which was super lame.
Florida State had a reason for the rings. It claimed back-to-back state championships in addition to an actual achievement. It was not the lone reason for the ring.
And the Seminoles’ rings look great!
I have one singular issue with its celebratory hardware and that is the big ’13-0.’
That is simply untrue. Florida State went 13-1. Check the official record!
We cannot choose to just ignore the Orange Bowl loss because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
Look, I get it. I’m not dense. The Seminoles went 13-0 through the ACC Championship. These are ACC Championship rings.
However, if we’re going to count the postseason — we need to count the entire postseason. 12-0 would have made a lot of sense. 13-1 would have made sense, but nobody wants to see the 1. 13-0 reflects a false reality.
Even though we have all collectively decided to write off Florida State’s loss as a fluke because of all of the opt outs and injuries, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t count. This middle ground of 13-0 is bogus.
The rings look great and the rings are well-deserved. The inclusion of a 13-0 record, which toes the line between reality and selective memory, makes them entirely unserious.
All of these things can be true.