If the first eight weeks of the 2017 season were bad for Florida State, Week 9 just made it infinitely worse.
It was a well-known storyline that the Seminoles were suffering through a down year before Friday night, but an embarrassing 35-3 loss to Boston College showed they hadn't actually come close to hitting rock bottom. This is rock bottom. The Eagles scored on an early double pass to go up 7-0, but this was not a beatdown of the gimmick variety. Florida State was simply outplayed and outcoached for four quarters.
Remember, the Noles were the preseason No. 3 team in the country, marking a surreal spiral of historic proportions.
Now it's time to take what happened and digest what it means. From Florida State's potentially historically bad season to Boston College's sudden resurgence, here are the three things to know from Friday's game.
1. Florida State's 35-year bowl streak is in legitimate jeopardy: This has been a growing hunch for a few weeks, but now the panic button can officially be pushed. At 2-5, Florida State must win its final four games -- vs. Syracuse, at Clemson, vs. Delaware State, at Florida -- to be guaranteed a bowl berth. The last time the Seminoles missed a bowl was 1981, and the last time they finished with a losing record was Bobby Bowden's first season in 1976. Finishing under .500 seems likely at this point and the Week 2 game against Louisiana-Monroe, canceled due to Hurricane Irma, looms large. But for that reason, it's possible Florida State could get a waiver as, say, a five-win team. Or it could get in if its APR score is high enough. Any chance FSU has at getting to a bowl, coach Jimbo Fisher will want to take. Those extra practices will be much-needed.
2. Things wouldn't have been much better if Deondre Francois was healthy: Now that we know what's at stake for Florida State, let's talk about how it got here. The season-ending patella tendon injury to Francois against Alabama in Week 1 was plain unlucky. It can feel like the wheels started to fall off after that, but by no means was the season unable to be salvaged. Freshman quarterback James Blackman has been fine as a replacement, all things considered. Florida State's problems are larger than Francois' absence. The defense was clearly overrated coming into the season as it has given up big plays and struggled with assignments and discipline. Special teams miscues -- return man Tarvarus McFadden had two bad plays in the return game on Friday night -- have been rampant. This is a heavily penalized team. And yes, Fisher's offense has been streaky at best while oftentimes non-existent and unoriginal at worst. Injuries have played a role in this throwaway season, but there's a need for reflection from Fisher when this season is all said and done. When you throw out the trash, you have to replace it with something better.
3. OK, let's actually talk about Boston College being good: We can marvel at this new-look BC without overstating what they're doing. The Eagles averaged 4.3 yards per play. Two touchdowns came on short fields deep in plus territory and another was a manageable 62-yard drive off of a Florida State turnover. That's a lot of hidden yards. Still, those stats don't show a couple of drops on perfectly thrown balls from quarterback Anthony Brown. This also marks the third game in a row in ACC play that Boston College has scored at least 30 points when it previously had not done so once against a conference opponent since 2014. A bowl appearance looks promising for Steve Addazio's team, and a Nov. 11th game against NC State is suddenly the ACC game you didn't know you needed to watch until now.