The Other Road

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

In the mid-1970s, Interstate I-10 west of Tallahassee toward Pensacola and Mobile was not yet completed. Highway 90 was the main road spanning North Florida's bucolic landscape. Later, people began to refer to 90 as the 'other' road. And eventually, U.S 90 became just the 'old road', a slow but entertaining ride west through the lush countryside of forests, farmlands and sleepy small towns, some with stop lights, some without.

In 2022, author, and FSU alumnus, Dianne Roberts wrote, "Highway 90 is a path into the past, an unspooling ribbon leading me through the Florida that was -- the Florida before the interstates."

Yes, Highway 90 was Florida before the interstates. It was Florida before the meteoric rise of football powerhouses Florida State, Miami and Florida. In the eras of Bowden, Spurrier and Johnson, sportswriters liked to say that the road to the national championship ran though Tallahassee, Gainesville and Miami. But the roads they described were the muscular concrete swathes of I-10 and I-75. They were never referring to the other road, the picturesque two-lane asphalt ribbon that meanders leisurely through 15 different rural county seats in Florida's panhandle.

What does this have to do with the Florida State Seminoles? The answer has to do with the question of where are we now, and where do we want to go.

Last night I re-read a column that I wrote 25 years ago. It was published in late December 2000, just a week or so before we played Oklahoma for the National Championship in Miami's Orange Bowl.

It is a long column, light-hearted; it mostly concerned my plea to Seminoles to cover themselves in garnet for the game. FSU fans generally dressed in matching collections of Seminole sportwear, though not necessarily the garnet team color. In the Fiesta Bowl two years prior, we had been deluged by waves of Volunteer fans completely engulfed in Tennessee orange. I did not know until then that it was possible to make a living manufacturing orange socks.

The Oklahoma game would be our third National Championship bowl game in three years. There seemed no reason to think that this splendid run would not continue. Coach Bowden was barely 70 years old. The staff was stable; recruiting was on automatic pilot and player talent was consistently superior.

But it wasn't my lengthy appeal to color coordination that gave me chills as I re-read the column. I felt embarrassed by my own ignorance.

The first six paragraphs sobered me. We Seminoles had it all at the start of the new century. In 1999, ESPN Magazine featured an entire issue on the Seminoles, crowning FSU "The Cool School."

For a program used to playing for national championships, the symbolism of Interstate 10 is hard to miss. That road leads us west to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, then to the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, and on to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Woe be to the program that somehow takes a wrong turn and ends up travelling on another, lesser road. It might take decades to find a way back to the Interstate.

My column published before the 2001 Orange Bowl opened this way:

"Here we are, gathered like family at the annual reunion, back in Miami for another Orange Bowl. Again. Oh, it could just as easily have been Phoenix or New Orleans, the three destinations Florida State has graced with its presence these last thirteen years or so. It's wonderful to always be among the winners at the end of the season, but being the conference champion every year certainly does limit your choice of New Year's venues.

"I know we're spoiled, spoiled all the way through. We're spoiled rotten by thirteen years of Top 4 finishes and 10+ win seasons, and national championships and conference championships, and soul-satisfying victories over darker forces who struggle against our light.

"Of course we're spoiled, but I don't want to take the cure. The cure is Christmas in Shreveport. The cold turkey cure is to be revisited by the ghost of 1973. No wins, few fans and little hope. I barely lived through it the first time; I doubt I'm man enough to survive it again.

"Here we are, preparing to compete in our third consecutive national championship game, our fourth such appearance in the last five years, our fifth in the last eight seasons. We were cranky at the beginning of this year because the pollsters started us at the #2 spot in preseason and not the #1 position, thus denying us the opportunity to be the first team ever to go wire-to-wire, back-to-back. Please don't hate us just because we're beautiful.

"We do not know what will transpire on Wednesday night, January 3rd, 2001, but in terms of the long success and glory of Florida State football it matters less than most would think. The Dynasty has already been validated by last year's pre-season to post-season wire-to-wire #1 run, unprecedented in the history of college football. The enduring strength of this program has already been tested, finally emerging in triumph last year after overcoming a pressure cooker of stress and controversy that would have dismantled any less solid enterprise.

"Another national championship will shower still more glory on this storied program. A loss will be no less than a loss to the next national champion, taken in the title match. Chris Weinke's place in history along with that of all his teammates, is secure."

We know now that the game vs Oklahoma on January 3rd 2001, was like the final photo in a picture album of The Dynasty. The album closed after that night.

We had finished 13 consecutive seasons in the Top 4. Some felt that our #5 ranking at the end was an act of charity, considering the Seminoles did not score a single offensive point in the loss. Mark Richt had accepted the Head Coach job at Georgia, but remained on the FSU staff for the bowl. He coached his Seminoles during the day, but did not attend the usual FSU nighttime offensive strategy sessions.

Unless we deliberately sharpen our senses, time will blunt the memory of former glories, and cloud the identity of who we are destined to be. In the Middle Ages, peasants subsisted among the scattered remnants of the once great Roman Empire. They removed stones from aqueducts for their own shelter, with no understanding of what purpose the original structures served.

They had no collective memory of the grandeur that had been. They had no vision for their future beyond finding a morsel here or there on the ground.

When Coach Nick Saban retired, ESPN compiled a list of the greatest achievements in College Football history. The Number 1 spot of course belonged to Saban; it was his retirement that prompted the list.

And ESPN assigned the Number 2 spot to the Seminole Dynasty under Bobby Bowden. Fourteen years of Top 5 finishes and 10-win seasons. ESPN recognized that the level of consistency was unlikely to ever happen again. Even Saban in his prime had some years outside the Top 10. But people who know the sport appreciate what Bowden accomplished, and what it takes to be that good, consistently over time.

Beginning in 1987, the sudden emergence of The Dynasty came as a surprise to most Seminole fans. Previous seasons had served some disappointment as we watched Miami, Auburn and Florida rise.

But unknown to us, the roots of the Dynasty, even if out-of-sight, had already been firmly set. The hiring of Mickey Andrews in 1984, as well as recruiting success in the wake of scandals at Florida, formed a solid base for the next 14 years.

The landscape is different now. But the landscape is always changing. Some felt the excesses of NIL and the transfer portal would dampen fan enthusiasm. That has not happened. If such a thing is possible, college football is even more popular today than it has ever been.

U.S. Highway 90 is a fine and pleasant road. We've been travelling on it for a while now. We see other familiar faces as we go, other teams we routinely play. Many of those programs, most of them, have always travelled the secondary roads, and are just happy to enjoy the journey.

Highway 90 runs generally parallel to I-10, and through the trees we Seminoles can sometimes see the bright freeway lights. We can hear the roar of the big rigs moving fast. We've been there. We remember.

I want to believe that a bedrock platform - a solid foundation just out of sight for now - is being prepared by our current administration, coaches and players.

I was surprised in 1987 as the wonderful story of The Dynasty began to reveal itself.

I want to be surprised again. I want to find the on-ramp back onto Interstate 10.