Florida State players grapple with emotions after ugly end to magical season

MIAMI GARDENS — Kalen DeLoach stood by himself for many of the final minutes of Saturday night’s debacle, with a towel in his hand, wiping sweat and tears from his face.

He received hugs from defensive ends coach John Papuchis and others on the field. Then from linebackers coach Randy Shannon and more teammates and coaches in the locker room.

Then when he sat in front of a roomful of reporters in Florida State’s postgame press conference, the senior linebacker got choked up once more.

Yet when FSU head coach Mike Norvell was asked if the Seminoles considered opting out of Saturday’s Orange Bowl altogether — a game that saw a depleted Florida State squad lose, 63-3 — DeLoach shook his head defiantly.

Having been through all the highs and lows of FSU’s program for the past five years, enduring a 3-6 season in 2020 and then winning 19 straight games and claiming the ACC championship this season, DeLoach made it clear that what happened Saturday in Hard Rock Stadium is not how he will remember his time as a Seminole.

“I’ve been there the whole time,” DeLoach said. “So just to see the growth, the buy-in, I’m gonna remember that forever. Because a lot of guys made sacrifices each and every day to go out there … they pushed every day to be their best. And I’m thanking them guys every opportunity I get for just (voice cracking) giving me the best senior year I could have. …

“The experiences and everything I got to go through, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

DeLoach obviously wasn’t the only Florida State player heartbroken over the way the 2023 season ended. Playing without 13 of 22 starters and several key backups — who either opted-out, entered the transfer portal or were injured — the Seminoles were able to provide no competition for the Georgia Bulldogs.

But Norvell’s message to his players in the postgame locker room was that this one loss won’t erase or diminish all of the great things they accomplished this year.

“I told them in the locker room, ‘This game will not define the season,’” Florida State’s fourth-year head coach said. “From now until forever, they’re going to walk into Doak Campbell Stadium, they’re going to see the 2023 ACC Championship, and they’re going to know they were 13-0 and unconquered throughout that time.”

And Norvell’s message clearly resonated with his players.

“You obviously don’t want to finish like that,” junior offensive guard Keiondre Jones said. “We’re way better than what we just put on film. There’s no excuses. It is what it is. It’s on film. That’s the score. That’s the game. It is what it is. But it doesn’t take away from what we did this year.”

“We can’t dwell on this loss,” said redshirt freshman linebacker Omar Graham Jr., who made his first career start in the Orange Bowl. “It doesn’t define this season. It doesn’t define what we did this season. So for us, we need to get over this loss, learn from this loss, learn from this season and get better for next season.”

Senior defensive tackle Braden Fiske, who was at Florida State for only one season after transferring in from Western Michigan, was one of several players who lingered in the locker room exchanging heartfelt goodbyes with teammates long after the game.

Fiske had been seen in a protective walking boot in the days leading up to the Orange Bowl and said he rehabbed his injury vigorously in hopes of playing. But he was one of three more injured starters, along with linebacker Tatum Bethune and defensive tackle Joshua Farmer, who were scratched before the game.

“The time frame for this game was iffy,” Fiske told Warchant. “We tried to make it work. We pushed it to the end. Once we got to it, it was a game-time decision.”

Like all of the Seminoles, Fiske was still bothered Saturday that Florida State wasn’t invited to the College Football Playoff after positing a 13-0 record and winning the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ‘Noles were the first undefeated Power Five champion to ever be snubbed in the nine-year existence of the four-team playoff.

He said he spent a lot of time over the past few weeks reflecting on the fact that the ACC title game, which FSU won despite playing with a third-string freshman quarterback, was the last time this 2023 team would really be together.

“It’s one of those things that, ‘What could have been?’” Fiske said. “That’s the hardest part to get over: ‘How special could it have been?’ It was already special to begin with, but what else could we have accomplished?”

Since they will never know the answer to that question, Florida State’s players and coaches insist they will spend much more time reflecting on all they did achieve in 2023 and looking ahead to even brighter days in the future, rather than dwelling on what happened with a depleted roster in the Orange Bowl.

“It doesn’t take away from anything these boys did this season, and what we accomplished as a team,” senior defensive lineman Dennis Briggs said. “And we’ll continue to build off of that.”

“Hell nah,” said Jones, when asked if Saturday’s game changes the outlook for Florida State’s program. “We know the work we’ve got to put in. We know what it took to get to this point. We’ll be back. We ain’t going nowhere. This is Florida State. We ain’t ever going nowhere.”

Talk about this story with other die-hard FSU football fans on the Tribal Council.

The post Florida State players grapple with emotions after ugly end to magical season appeared first on On3.