ACC Player Haterz Ball: Florida State

Remember how you felt every time you were watching a Maryland road game over the past year and the fans started shouting "A-C-C! A-C-C!" in unison at the Terps? It's time for the Testudo Times crew to respond! Moving along alphabetically, it's time to bid adieu to our friends in Tallahassee, Florida State. Be candid with us, FSU, you're a little jealous, right? No, not of our athletic teams. Yours are just fine and we're not disputing that. Here's why you're jealous of us: we're leaving the ACC and you're still stuck there. Admit it, you want out too. Do you really want to share a football division with Wake Forest and BC for the rest of your lives? We didn't think so. On to the Ball!

Player we couldn't help but like:

Pete: LaMarcus Joyner. He just left for my Rams, which helps, but he's a freakish athlete who could make really improbable plays in the secondary. Watching him play was kind of like a dream-scenario Kenny Tate taking the field again (Tate, funnily enough, had his best game against Florida State, but we'll talk about that later).

Todd: I probably won't have something to say about every school here but I'll toss some thoughts in as they come to mind. In this case, I'd say Natasha Howard. A skilled player who just worked her butt off every time I saw her play. As a senior, she was about all they had.

Andrew: Lee Corso! The "Sunshine Scooter" played at FSU from 1953-1957, afterwards serving as a GA at his alma mater before taking a QB Coach position at...the University of Maryland! Now look at him.Getting body slammed by Bill Murray, dropping some f-bombs and generally making me excited to wake up early on fall Saturdays.

Dave: Gotta go with Peter Boulware. He was an awesome FSU linebacker but had a fantastic career as a Baltimore Raven, which obviously made me forget about his decision to go to FSU.

FlaTerp: Old guys like me can remember two of the greatest college football players in history, Charlie Ward and Deion Sanders, lighting things up in Tallahassee. Ward, I'd have loved to see him choose the NFL over the NBA but that's water under the bridge. He was a special quarterback and a good enough athlete to be a NBA starter at point guard. His pro career is a poor reflection of what an amazing college football playmaker he was. And Sanders was the Michael Jordan of cornerbacks, only Michael Jordan hilariously tried to cross over into baseball while Sanders hilariously tried to cross over into .... I have no idea what this is. Anyway, FSU over the years has had a knack for getting really special athletes (and then underachieving with them) and Ward and Sanders were two of the best ever.

Grant: Derrick Brooks is just one of those guys that is impossible to dislike. He played ball at FSU and was drafted to stay in the Sunshine State by Tampa Bay. It says a lot about a guy who spends his entire career with one team, especially nowadays, so hats off to Brooks.

Player we loved to hate:

Go away, Boris. Image by Bob Donnan, USA Today.

Pete: Boris Bojanovsky. Go away, Boris Bojanovsky. Go away forever. I don't want to think about you anymore.

Todd: Let's see. FSU doesn't have men's soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, wrestling, gymnastics. Just can't work up the energy to hate a women's soccer player.

Dave: How about Chris Rix for his wonderful ability to get parking tickets for parking in handicap spots on campus. Real winner right there.

Andrew: #FSUTwitter

FlaTerp: Sam Cassell. Dude looked just like a hammerhead shark. He should've come to Maryland; his son should've come to Maryland. Two strikes is plenty.

Grant: What in the world did scouts see in Christian Ponder? He shouldn't have been a first, second, third or fourth rounder IMO. I never liked watching him play, and it makes me even more angry that he has millions of dollars, a friendship with Adrian Peterson and a smoking hot wife.

Game to remember:

Pete: November 20, 2010 -- Florida State 30, Maryland 16. Yes, it was a two-touchdown loss, but it was our two-touchdown loss. I was at this game, under the lights and on national television, watching Kenny Tate put on a clinic in the secondary against a team that overmatched Maryland in nearly every single way. It was also the last time the Terps could play on the same field as the Seminoles without rampant embarrassment.

Todd: February 24, 2008 - Maryland 92, Florida State 84 OT. It was senior day for Crystal Langhorne, Laura Harper, Jade Perry and Ashleigh Newman. (No, I didn't forget Sa'de Wiley-Gatewood but well...) Over 16,000 in Comcast and the Terps trailed by 8 with about 3 minutes to go after blowing a double digit lead earlier in the half. Marissa Coleman scored the tying basket with five seconds left. Kristi Toliver hit a game tying three-pointer in the overtime and Crystal Langhorne scored to put the Terps up for good. Maryland hung Langhorne's jersey in the rafters after the game.

Dave: October 30, 2004 - Maryland 20, Florida State 17. It was my senior year. Maryland was struggling. During my previous three years in College Park, we'd been preeeeeeetty spoiled; ACC Title/Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, & Gator. But in 2004, with Joel Statham at QB, Maryland was 3-4 heading into a home match up with #5 Florida State, a team Maryland had never beaten. I was so confident Maryland would lose, I reversed jinxed them into a win by telling some friends that I'd wear a blonde wig for a week if Maryland won. Yadda yadda yadda, I wore a blonde wig for a week. Prior to that game, some folks I know also put together this awesome banner, snuck into Byrd in the middle of the night, and unrolled it in the upper deck. Still one of the coolest things I've seen Maryland students do. And that really inspired the Athletic Department to work with students to do cool things at big games, like having the student wall make a giant Maryland flag and coordinating awesome flash mobs.

Andrew: Ask me this question a month ago and I'd have said Seth Allen popping off for 32 this past season. That seems now like something I'd rather forget, so let's go with something more obscure. February 4th, 2010, Greivis Vasquez lead Maryland goes into Tallahassee, having just lost at Clemson and beats what was a really solid Seminoles squad 71-67. I remember after the loss to Clemson being concerned that the team might fall apart and struggle down the remainder of ACC play. It looked like they might when they let a 9 point second half lead evaporate, but they held on and won. I knew that team was for real after that...well until they lost by 21 at Duke ten days later. I questioned them again then.

FlaTerp: 2006! Leading 27-24, Jeremy Navarre blocked a FSU field goal attempt with 40 seconds left, the Terps beat the ‘Noles for the second time in three seasons and became bowl eligible too (and went on to smoke Purdue in Orlando that December, with FlaTerp in the crowd!). The Byrd fans rushed the field. Life was good. FSU owned Maryland in football, but when you consider their massive physical advantages at pretty much every position on the field, those times the Terps put a scare into FSU, and especially the wins in 2004 and 2006, were to be truly savored.

Grant: Maryland beating the #5 FSU in the ACC baseball tournament this past year. The Terps were scorching hot and come off the Virginia victory with even more steam and defeated Florida State. This memory is just one of many on a fantastic season for the baseball team.

Game to forget:

Pete: March 13, 2014 -- Florida State 67, Maryland 65. Boris Bojanovsky, the latest in a long line of freakishly tall Florida State players to dominate Maryland and nobody else.

Todd: February 28, 2013 Florida State 72, Maryland 71 This one is in Tallahassee and Maryland, with their infamous 8 player roster and down by 17 with four and a half minutes to play, goes on a 24-7 run to tie the game then gets called for a lane violation when an FSU player misses a free throw with 7 seconds left. Given a reprieve, she makes the second opportunity and the Terps lose by one.

Dave: October 5, 2013 - Florida State 62, Maryland 0. After starting off the season so well, blowing out West Virginia and finally cracking the Top 25, the Terps got smacked back down to earth. Now, FSU was obviously the best team in the country that year, but it still sucked to feel like Maryland football was finally "back" only to be knocked back down into oblivion by the Noles.

Andrew: Can't really do much worse than Pete or Dave's answers. Completely crushing and for very different reasons.

FlaTerp: I'm being redundant, I know, but last season's football loss was such a kick in the gut after a promising start. The Noles knocked out C.J. Brown on a dirty play, they ran a 2-minute offense up 42-0, they ran up the score, they humiliated Maryland in every way possible and there was nothing the Terps could do about it. You know, I want to like Jimbo Fisher and Jameis Winston, but their actions starting that day and continuing through the various Jameis controversies (crab legs, anyone?) since then make it difficult.

Grant: January 30, 2013 when Michael Snaer daggered Maryland and hit another buzzer beater for the Seminoles. He was just Mr. Clutch at the time and I remember thinking there was no way he could possibly hit another game winner. And low and behold, Snaer sent the fans chopping.

Parting Shots

Pete: Join the 21st century, Florida State. The Tomahawk chop is boring and racist and to make matters worse you have a white person play your offensive Native American mascot while wearing war paint and feathers. Yes, I am aware that the local Seminole tribe is fine with it. You know who isn't? Just about every other Seminole tribe across the country. Yes, yes, you guys are on the verge of a legitimate dynasty in football and Leonard Hamilton squeezes out wins from nothing with regularity, and I wish I could enjoy the unparalleled athletic domination of your football program, but I can't. Come at me, #FSUTwitter. I've got all day.

Todd: Not to mention the stupid chant.

Dave: Dear FSU Band - You have talent. Please learn more than the three songs in your repertoire: the Tomahawk Chop, The FSU Fight Song, and your Alma Mater. Also, when Maryland did beat you (i.e. in sports not called football, mostly), it was always fun to sing our own lyrics to the Tomahawk Chop when Maryland was ahead which went something like "Weeeeeeeeeeee are winning. Yoooooooooooou are losing."

P.S. - #PrayForPeteForPokingTheFSUTwitterBear

Andrew: It's amazing what fans will do to ignore their clearly racist mascots/team names/traditions. How in the world does FSU get away with a white guy in facepaint and a headdress riding a freaking horse onto the field and THROWING A SPEAR. Then the masses of fans mockingly wave their arms/hands like a tomahawk. It's horrifyingly offensive and instead of hearing the announcers recoil in disgust, they are always like, "Wow what a moment, the flaming spear in the ground and all the fans, THIS is what college football is all about." Sorry, no. College football is not about a bunch of drunk Floridians co-opting the culture of a people they decimated and then paid off to stop complaining.

The thing fans don't get is that changing the mascot or team name isn't a big damn deal. When you're 45-year-old fans are tweeting at high school recruits, and hooo boy are they good at that, it's not much harder to type #catsfam or #bearsfam than #nolesfam.

Grant: Retweet everything the gentlemen above me said. Florida State needs a mascot change, pronto.

FlaTerp: And crab legs. Get the ‘Noles some crab legs too, just so no one else has to go rob the grocery store.

Pete: And bad news -- you're still in the ACC, no matter how hard you close your eyes and pretend you're in the SEC. Have fun strengthening that resume against Wake Forest and NC State. But hey, you guys have pretty much beaten Miami into submission, so there's always that!