PASADENA, Calif. — The noise funneled upward through the Oregon section in the north corner of Rose Bowl Stadium with 1:43 left in the third quarter.
Florida State, facing a 39-20 deficit and a fourth-and-5, called a timeout. Then Twitter got its first memorable — check, that — “meme”-orable — moment of 2015.
Jameis Winston rolled left, spun back into the middle of the field then, well, you saw it. Tony Washington hadn’t even crossed the goal line yet before the Seminoles and their 29-game win streak were pronounced DOA. Ding. Dong. The champs are dead.
Winston’s “unfortunate play,” as he called it, morphed into the biggest single-quarter meltdown since Doug Williams and the Redskins hung a 35-spot against the Broncos in the second quarter of Super Bowl XXII.
Florida State committed four turnovers. Oregon scored four touchdowns.
It turned a 18-13 game into a 59-20 rout. That was enough for “Modern Family” star and Ducks superfan Ty Burrell to proclaim, “Wow, what a game!” in an eerily Phil Dunphy way from the sideline. How did that third quarter feel for second-year coach Mark Helfrich?
“A lot of fun,” Helfrich said. “At the same time, these guys were able to retain a tremendous focus.”
Florida State? Not so much. Catastrophic. Cataclysmic. Catatonic. We wanted Winston to apologize for this disaster. So what does he say to reporters in the postgame conference?
“This game could’ve gone either way,” Winston said. “If everybody in this room just wants to be real with themselves, this game could’ve gone either way. We turned the ball over a lot. We beat ourselves.”
That, right there. That’s why Florida State’s meltdown drove the news cycle for the last two years. This shouldn’t be about Florida State. This should be about Oregon. That is what's “unfortunate.”
The Ducks validated a program, Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, Helfrich and a culture that is one win away from the program’s first national championship.
The Ducks aren’t soft, so stop with that. Soft teams don’t have a tight end like Evan Baylis dragging defenders 15 yards down the field or have a pair of bruising running backs like Royce Freeman and Thomas Tyner dragging defenders into the end zone. The more physical team won here. Soft teams don’t convert every trip in the red zone into points. Soft teams don’t stop Winston on the 1-yard line on fourth down after six plays in the red zone.
That narrative should be a closed-and-shut book. Just like they did all week, Helfrich, Mariota and Washington took the questions, rolled out the clichés and refused to take any bait. That’s the confidence that comes with knowing you’re this good.
Washington was asked to tear down Winston’s comments about not being stopped, he smiled.
“I feel like that’s the mentality you kind of have to have to play offense,” he said. “They can be down by multiple touchdowns, but they always come out on top.”
Not Thursday night. Oregon’s just as responsible for Florida State’s thermonuclear meltdown as the Seminoles were. Mariota provided the kick-start with 56- and 30-yard touchdown passes to Darren Carrington, who had two TDs coming into the season.
That stretched the lead to 39-20. Washington’s TD fumble recovery and Erick Dargan’s interception capped the nightmare quarter for the Seminoles. Was that the craziest quarter ever?
“Yeah, one of them,” Dargan said during the post-game ceremony.
But at some point in the last 10 years, almost every other Pac-12 school has taken one of those. They could do it again next week. Oregon fans chanted, “We want Bama” in the final minutes. Win on Jan. 12 and there will be no more questions about this program.
Florida State did a bunch of things it normally doesn’t do not limited to the third-quarter meltdown. Rashad Greene dropped a pass late in the first half. Roberto Aguayo clanked a 54-yard field goal attempt off the cross-bar. Freshman Dalvin Cook fumbled twice. At that point, there’s almost nothing you can do.
“When turnovers come, they change momentum,” Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher said. “Momentum is different than making adjustments when guys are driving the football.”
Winston, meanwhile, fielded perhaps his last question in a college uniform with the same defiance that drove all that social media bile into overdrive when he fumbled away the last chance for a comeback.
“Tonight was unfortunate it wasn’t just they were stopping us,” Winston said. “We were never stopped at all.”
That’s why anyone not rooting for Florida State rooted against Florida State. Don’t worry, though, they’ll find someone else to turn against.
Who knows? Oregon might be next.
