Photo Credit: www.seminoles.com
This past Saturday night Arlington, Texas housed the Cowboy Classic between #1 Florida State and Oklahoma State. To many Seminole fans, coming off a 14-0 National Championship season with the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, Jameis Winston, this game should have been an easy first win on their road “from Dallas to Dallas” and the 2015 National Championship.  The last time that Florida State Seminole’s had taken the field, Winston had thrown the winning touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin to clinch the crystal football trophy for the Noles. With a 37-31 victory over Oklahoma State, this season opener was anything but a cake walk.
The Seminole’s dominated the first quarter, Winston moving the offense quickly down field to score a field goal in only ten plays. While Nate Andrews of the defense was able to tip a pass thrown by OSU to run back for a touchdown, leaving the Cowboys with 10 unanswered points.
Welcoming a new defensive coordinator, Charles Kelly, who was the special teams coordinator for the 2013 season, and logo, this Florida State team seemed as ready as ever to build off their success last year.
In the second quarter, Jimbo’s team still looked like a strong force shutting down the OSU running game and forcing them to pass. Oklahoma State answered their point deficit by rushing for 161 yards to Florida State’s 106, as the FSU defense struggled  in rounding up the Cowboy running backs and gave the OSU team momentum.
The second half gave way to an out of sync Seminole offense, Winston only completing 25 passes out of 40 attempts and throwing two interceptions, as well as a plummeting third down success rate, all of which helped the OSU Cowboys come within one touchdown of the Noles.
Though a W is a W, this 37-31 victory is far from the usual 55-10 scores racked up back the Noles last year.
Despite months of hype from both the fan base and media, the Seminoles Football Team under head coach, Jimbo Fisher, planed to focus on one team at a time and not fall under the pressure and expectations given to reigning champions. Winston, having coined the phrase “from Dallas to Dallas” when accepting the Davy O’Brien award in Texas, created an unnecessary hype for the Seminole team and fan-base, who appeared more cocky during the first two quarters of play than focused.
Fisher’s advice to his team was “don’t buy into everything everybody’s telling you- how great you are, how this, how that. Don’t be the rat that eats the cheese.”
Though the team may not have another 14-0 season, through staying focused and not crumbling to pressure surrounding team hype and the high expectations placed upon them by the fans, another winning season can easily be achieved. Â Seniors, Cameron Irving and Christian Green, returns to the Noles offensive line and hopes to help build off the 84 touchdown passes and NCAA record of 723 points scored in a season. The offensive line itself should have no problem giving Winston ample time to develop plays, with four returning starters and five starting seniors.
The defense also has expectations, last season only giving up 156.6 passing yards and accumulating 521 tacks and 11 sacks. With three starters in the backfield the Seminoles have a strong starting lineup both offensively and defensively.
With this being said, high expectations are still in place, but, after the lackluster win against the Oklahoma State Cowboys it’s safe to say,  “Maybe they ate the cheese.”
