It is true that Everett Golson might not start (or maybe even play in) Florida State’s huge game this Saturday at Clemson. The Seminoles and head coach Jimbo Fisher are keeping their cards close to the vest, as they should. There’s no real need to announce to the world which man will start against the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings. Sean Maguire could have the day all to himself.
However, would you really want to wager that Golson won’t see the field in this game?
Though perhaps physically limited, Golson was born to play in this kind of contest, to step into this kind of crucible.
He’s done so on several previous occasions, with mixed results. You know he wants one more bite at the apple, and that in many ways is the central drama of Saturday’s showdown in Death Valley.
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Last week, we saw Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn play Sean White at quarterback for most of the Tigers’ game against Ole Miss, but Jeremy Johnson found his way into several plays, and at a few points in the contest, Malzahn went play-to-play with his two signal callers.
This tactic was best used in a game Florida State lost, back in 1997 to Florida. Steve Spurrier had Doug Johnson and Noah Brindise go in and out of the game, play after play. Two quarterbacks who would have had a very tough time playing the whole game on their own were very effective when given play-specific coaching and a reduced workload. This is an option for Fisher and the Seminoles’ coaching staff on Saturday afternoon, but if it’s felt that FSU must give entire possessions to its quarterbacks, Golson ought to get most of them or — at the very least — the biggest ones.
He has been through these wars to an extent Maguire has not. He hasn’t always conquered them, but he knows exactly what to expect this weekend in the ACC game of the year, a possible portal to the College Football Playoff for the Noles. (It’s a likely portal to the playoff for Clemson, which would merely need to avoid a slip-up in its remaining games against clearly inferior opponents.)
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In late October of 2012, Golson — then a young pup — was thrown into the fire in prime time against a brand-name opponent. He had to face the Oklahoma Sooners in their home ballpark at night. Golson felt his way through most of the game, but in the fourth quarter, he came alive. A dynamic demonstration of his football skills helped the Irish and Manti Te’o score 20 points in the final stanza. Notre Dame thumped the Sooners, 30-13, en route to the 2013 BCS National Championship Game against Alabama. Golson, in his first year at the controls (not wire to wire, but in the latter half of the season), started that championship game, and even though it was a disaster, the mere act of getting that far represented a more-than-encouraging start to his collegiate career.
Since then, Golson’s journey has taken some very unexpected and mostly unwelcome turns. He had to sit out 2013 because of a lack of academic integrity. He returned for the 2014 season, and on Nov. 8 — 52 weeks before this Saturday’s game at Clemson — what had been a promising season in South Bend turned sour. Golson could not protect the ball in a road trip to Arizona State. A flood of turnovers doomed the Irish in a loss which knocked them out of the playoff race and sent them into a November tailspin. Golson had once again faltered in a big game, recalling the memories of the 2013 BCS title tilt and making the Oklahoma victory an ever more distant occurrence in the mind’s eye.
Yet, while November of 2014 represented the fall of Everett Golson on the football field, another game earlier that season remains instructive as a moment when Golson personally succeeded… but his team did not. All the other moments mentioned above possess an unmistakable clarity: Golson either helped his team win (Oklahoma), or was part of a dismal performance in a loss (Alabama, Arizona State). One game stood between those two polarities, and it’s the one most worth recalling before Seminoles-Tigers this Saturday.
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Before Everett Golson came to Florida State, he lost to the Seminoles. He did so on a night when he was absolutely magnificent, better than he was against Oklahoma in 2012 without any shadow of a doubt.
Golson engaged the reigning Heisman Trophy-holder, Jameis Winston, in an epic quarterback duel, trading throw for throw and punch for punch deep into the Tallahassee night. Golson was about to taste the sweetest of victories in the final seconds of regulation, with his Notre Dame offense poised to ruin the Seminoles’ unbeaten season. However, the (correct) call of a pick play on an apparent game-winning touchdown turned victory into defeat. Golson walked in that liminal space between personal satisfaction and big-picture barrenness. He did his best, and his team did its best as well… but the result didn’t emerge.
For Golson to then transfer to Florida State in the offseason, the thought must have been hard to shake: “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
Now that Golson is wearing Seminole colors, he will get his reunion with an ACC Atlantic foe, just a different one from the team he faced last year in Doak Campbell Stadium.
Assuming Golson receives a meaningful chance to play from Jimbo Fisher, and assuming his body doesn’t overpower his abilities, this quarterback — who has traveled so many miles along so many different roads — will gain one more chance to leave a defining imprint on a season and his own career. Sometimes, Golson has truly failed and flunked in a big game. Other times, he’s triumphed. Last year against Florida State, he soared but couldn’t exult when 60 pulse-pounding minutes had run their course.
This Saturday, Everett Golson — if his coach is willing, and if his body is able — will taste one more seminal moment in a rich yet rocky collegiate journey.
Golson hopes to turn that seminal moment into a Seminole moment, permanently reshaping the texture of the 2015 college football season.
