What a distinction a 12 months makes.
In 2023, the Florida State Seminoles have been top-of-the-line groups in school soccer. They went 12-0 in the course of the common season, received the ACC, and doubtless would have been within the four-team Faculty Soccer Playoff if beginning quarterback Jordan Travis had not been injured.
Regardless of lacking out on the playoffs, after which getting blown out of their bowl recreation, the Seminoles nonetheless entered 2024 as a preseason top-10 staff with ACC championship expectations.
They don’t seem to be going to return near matching them, and with Saturday’s 52-3 loss at No. 10 Notre Dame, their season has formally gone from dangerous to embarrassing.
Additionally it is one of many worst 180 wrong-way turnarounds in school soccer historical past.
The Seminoles are usually not solely 1-9 on the season, they haven’t even been aggressive in most of those video games.
Saturday’s loss at Notre Dame was already their sixth loss by not less than two scores and the fourth time they’ve misplaced by not less than 20 factors.
The Seminoles accomplished simply 10-of-26 passes for under 88 yards, whereas additionally throwing two interceptions together with a pick-six late within the fourth quarter. They have been out-gained 453-208 total.
Sure, Florida State misplaced quite a lot of expertise from final 12 months’s staff, together with Travis and high working again Trey Benson. However once more, this was nonetheless a staff that entered the 12 months with a top-10 rating and was 23-4 the previous two seasons. To not solely lose 9 of their first 10 video games however to get dominated in most of them is a nasty search for all people concerned, from the teaching employees all the way down to the gamers.
Additionally it is uncharted territory for this system. Whereas Florida State has had some mediocre seasons lately, it has not often been this dangerous. That is Florida State’s first nine-loss season since 1974.
If there’s a silver lining to take from all of it, it’s that the Seminoles not less than have two winnable video games remaining to shut out the season with Charleston Southern and Florida nonetheless on the schedule. The previous needs to be a win, whereas the latter is perhaps a 50-50 coin flip given the best way each groups have performed this season.