FSU’s 6-6 bowl bid sets a new record, no matter what the NCAA and Virginia Tech say

1. Florida State is going to a bowl game for the 36th year in a row. The Noles will play in the Independence Bowl against Southern Miss.

2. FSU had been tied with Nebraska, which got to 35 in a row from 1969 to 2003.

3. The second-longest current streak is Virginia Tech’s, at 24 years.

4. Florida State won seven games and made a bowl game in both 2006 and 2007, right in the midst of this 35-year-long streak.

5. But the NCAA recognizes FSU’s record those years as 2-6 and 0-6, respectively. FSU had to vacate most of its wins from those years due to an academic cheating scandal.

6. One of FSU’s many vacated wins is the 2006 Emerald Bowl, which the Noles won against UCLA, 44-27. Florida State still lists that as one of its bowls in its program media guide, which makes sense, because it is a thing that exists.

7. The Noles note that the Emerald Bowl is vacated, which is different than saying it didn’t happen, because it did. To claim it didn’t happen is to be wrong.

8. But the NCAA doesn’t recognize FSU’s streak as 36 years. In its 2017 record book, updated after FSU got to No. 35 last season, only Nebraska is recognized as having the longest streak, while FSU gets diddly squat.

9. Virginia Tech has seized on this narrative from an alternate universe. The Hokies claim for themselves the longest running streak. From last season:

Look at that cute little fine print at the bottom, designed to prevent you, an intelligent person on the internet, from assigning any blame for this farce to VT.

10. This is a fiction. The NCAA can take away a program’s wins, and if you’d like to adjust a coach’s or a school’s all-time record, feel free. You don’t even have to be consistent about how you count things. The NCAA sure isn’t, which is why Ron Dayne’s bowl games didn’t count toward his all-time rushing total but Donnel Pumphrey’s did, and why Dayne isn’t officially recognized as the career rushing leader despite the fact that he is, unquestionably and inarguably, the NCAA’s career rushing leader.

11. But bowl appearances are not something you can pretend didn’t happen. These are massive corporate events! They have T-shirts and trophies! And FSU has participated in exactly 35 of them in a row, whether the NCAA will allow its wins to count or not. I understand that the NCAA likes to play God in these matters and pretend its sanctions mean that events that happened didn’t happen. But come on, Hokies. Don’t play along with this ruse. Earn your successes and live your truth.

12. Anyway, FSU is now 6-6 this year. The Noles extended the streak because they rescheduled a previously cancelled game with ULM to championship Saturday.

13. They’ll be playing in the bowl without Jimbo Fisher, who left the day before the season finale to go to Texas A&M in a record contract that is fully guaranteed.