Something came up in the chat that reminded me of this dumbass 'Nole trying (and utterly failing) to troll other teams. It was 2006. We got a date with tOSU in the BCS Championship Game.
FSU? 6-6. Barely bowl eligible. They got an invite to the Emerald Bowl, as in Emerald Nuts. It used to be the San Francisco Bowl, the Fight Hunger Bowl, the Foster Farms Bowl, and it is currently the Redbox Bowl. Frankly, it sucks.
Here's the sign at the game (this is earnest, it is neither photoshopped nor is it intended to be ironic):
Yes, who wants to go to the Rose or Sugar when you can go to the Emerald Nuts Bowl.
Somebody reminded me that part of the San Francisco bowl game experience was a tour of Alcatraz so of course we got tons of pictures of 'Noles in prison cells, their natural environment.
But wait, it gets even better.
FSU was embroiled in a massive cheating scandal the next year. They knew about it, but didn't suspend the players as their internal investigation wound its course so they could hit 6 wins and be bowl eligible (thus preserving their nation-leading bowl streak). If they suspended the players earlier, no way they would have gotten to 6 wins (they would have lost to BC and Maryland). They sat on it until after bowl bids were announced, then "self reported" and "voluntarily" suspended the miscreants. Bastards. They suspended 25 players for the 2007 Music City Bowl against Kentucky (which they lost). Later, the NCAA vacated a bunch of FSU wins, including the aforementioned Emerald Nut Bowl (5 of their 2006 wins and all 7 of their 2007 wins). Despite this, FSU (and the media) still credited FSU with the bowl streak.
Fcuk FSU.
Alex.