Spence wrote:Some streaks I'll never see again in my lifetime...
Fourteen straight years end ranked Top 5
Fourteen straight bowl games without a loss
Fourteen straight ten win seasons (when you only had 11 games)
Two National Championships
Nineteen straight years in a January Bowl
I'll give Florida State credit for having some very good teams that last 20 years. Some really great teams, but a lot of the things you are refering to has to do with Florida St playing in a weak ACC. If you are the only elite team in a conference you can build some pretty good stats. Lets see how the 'Noles do in the next 20 with some big time competition.
Florida State played a weak schedule through their run:
MYTH
This run started in 1987 and ending in the year 2000. Florida State was not even playing in the ACC for 1/3 of the run. Let's compare schedule of the I-A teams over that period.
Florida State played 172 games from 1987 to 2000. Their .887 winning percentage is about 3 percentage points better than the second place team.
Florida State played 35 teams that finished in the top 10. That's 20.3% of their games and a higher percentage than all but 2 teams.
Florida State played 67 teams that finished ranked. That's 39.0% of their games and a higher percentage than all but 3 teams.
Florida State played 104 teams that finished with a winning record. That's 60.5% of their games and a higher percentage than all but 1 team.
Florida State played 90 teams that went to bowls. That's 52.3% of their games and a higher percentage than all but 3 teams.
Florida State's opponents combined for a winning percentage of .595, which is easily a higher percentage than any other team.
If there's a hole or two to punch in Florida State's opponents, only 80.8% of them would have been considered a "major" program and they played 5 I-AA schools. Other than that, there's no reason to knock Florida State for who they played.