Greg McElroy defends his Top-10 ranking of Florida State

Few teams have had as impressive, if not just outright surprising, first two weeks of the season as Florida State. That’s why, despite having the weekend off down in Tallahassee, Greg McElroy has the Seminoles in the Top 10 of his Top 25.

McElroy released the latest edition of his own Top 25 during ‘Always College Football’ this week. That ranking included FSU at No. 9, down a spot from last week at No. 8 but still quite the leap considering he had them unranked coming into the year, as they followed up their upset of No. 8 Alabama with a 74-point blowout of East Texas A&M.

“At number nine, the Florida State Seminoles,” McElroy said. “Very few teams were as dominant as they were last week.

“A lot of people laughed at me and said, ‘You’re putting them in the Top 10?! Based on what?’ Just watch them. Like, watch how they execute, watch the level of efficiency. Look at this past week, when they not just showed their ceiling, but, we’ve seen in the past, Florida State be in dog fights against less than stellar competition. That was not the case last week – 49-0 at halftime.”

Again, much of this is still based on Florida State winning 31-17 over No. 8 Alabama to open the season. However, the Seminoles’ winning 77-3 over the Lions last weekend was impressive in its own way, as FSU started out up 70-0 and finished with 729 yards of offense, outgaining their FCS opponent by 532, while scoring 11 touchdowns. The lone drive where they didn’t find the endzone resulted in a fumble and the field goal allowed, suggesting that turnover was likely the only difference in what could’ve been a 10-plus score shutout for the ‘Noles.

As we all know, this comes after as disappointing a season as anyone had last fall in the sport when Florida State went 2-10. The AP Poll also has the Seminoles at No. 10, as the thought now is what they can be from here in the ACC, if not being in early projections to make it into the CFP.

We won’t truly know more about Florida State for a few weeks here with a bye week this weekend before playing Kent State, which is 2-24 over the past three seasons as a program out of the MAC. But, from there, the ‘Noles will enter conference play in the ACC, where they can further justify some of these rankings in the Top-10.

“Florida State is on a mission this year, and I’ve loved what I’ve seen so far,” McElroy said. “That’s why they live, currently, in the Top 10. They’re No. 9. A bye this week, so we’ll see where they are in a couple weeks. No Florida State this week, but they are comfortably in the Top 10. Nothing has changed my opinion on that.”