LOS ANGELES — Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston walked to his booth, clutching a backpack before taking a look at the two-deep row of cameras at the Los Angeles Downtown Hotel on Monday.
“Same bat time, same bat channel,” TV analyst Rick Neuheisel blurted out.
“Yes sir,” Winston answered. He didn’t even sit down before the first loaded question was fired.
“Good morning,” Winston interrupted.
From there, the same unofficial prosecution of college football’s most complicated superstar began again. Florida State (13-0) plays Oregon (12-1) in the first College Football Playoff semifinal on Thursday, and the focus forever remains on Winston. Maybe it’s time to give the kid a break and let him play football. Maybe it’s time to give ourselves a break from over-analyzing Winston.
The perception is that all those close shaves mean the end of the Seminoles’ 29-game win streak. This team is tight, right? Predictably, Winston doesn’t see it the way we want.
“I feel like we were loose the whole season,” Winston said. “We enjoy this game of football. It’s more about how we play than the win-or-lose factor. I think our will to win is very strong.”
Just as strong as last season, when we nitpicked how Winston said “strong” in the postgame interview at the BCS championship. It’s been open season on Winston in social media since. Crab legs, vulgarities at the student union, even what he said about not being afraid of Seattle’s Richard Sherman on Sunday.
How could he do that? How could he say that?
At least Winston answers our questions with more than dismissive one-word answers, unlike Sherman’s teammate Marshawn Lynch. Winston has faced every question over and over again, and sometimes it’s impossible to syphon what’s fair and unfair in an innocent-until-guilty-by-1,000-retweets culture.
Former Florida State quarterback and ESPN analyst Danny Kanell draws a line, even if it comes across as controversial.
“As far as the stealing crab legs, the yelling obscenities in the union, that’s absolutely deserved, and I was harsh on him too,” Kanell said. “Those are immature things to do especially when you have allegations. I just personally think it’s unfair people label him a rapist. To me that’s just unacceptable, but unfortunately that’s what a lot of the country believes.”
Winston was cleared last week at a student code of conduct hearing involving allegations of a sexual assault two years ago. Last year, only a few weeks before Florida State’s BCS game, the Florida State attorney decided not to charge Winston with sexual assault regarding the same incident.
If you ask Florida State players, we don’t know anything about Winston. Teammates Rashad Greene and Nick O’Leary took turns telling the media as much Monday. Inside those closed doors, they say Winston is a teammate, a leader, a winner. Outside, we’re still wanting him to pay a check for all those incidents off the field.
Winston spent a lot of the last two seasons at Greene’s apartment to decompress, not from the pressure of playing the most important position for the defending national champions, but to get away from off-field circus. Greene serves as a bodyguard of sorts when Winston goes out in public in Tallahassee.
“You’re absolutely wrong about him,” Greene said. “To get to know that personally to be around him, your whole outlook changes. I’ve never felt sorry for him because he doesn’t feel sorry for himself.”
O’Leary puts it out there in more simple terms.
“He probably likes us a little more,” O’Leary. “We’re with him every day. You guys aren’t with him every day.”
Winston has faced more criticism than fellow Heisman Trophy winners Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin III did in college. Those two haven’t handled it in the pros. Provided Winston’s off-field transgressions stop, he might actually be better-equipped to handle the pressure at the next level given what he’s dealt with at Florida State.
“I can’t really control what other people think,” Winston said. “The guys in the locker room know who I am. The people who aren’t involved in our family don’t know who I am. Perception is reality.”
Leave it to Winston paraphrase William Blake, who once wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” That’s the existential truth we’re looking for. Jim Morrison used that to found The Doors, one of the underappreciated rock-and-roll bands of all time, not too far down the road in Los Angeles from where Winston spoke Monday.
If Winston can lead the Seminoles to two more wins and cleanse those perceptions, then he’ll go down as arguably the greatest college football winner of all time. You can choose to focus on the 17 interceptions this season or the 27-0 record in two years as a starter.
O’Leary knows where Winston’s focus is, and it’s not on our questions, the NFL or anything else. It’s on Oregon.
“He’s out there working like everybody else,” O’Leary said. “He hasn’t lost yet, so …”
So leave him alone for a few days and let the truth come out Thursday.
