Florida State enters do-or-die final stretch for bowl streak

Mulligans gone and no losses to spare, it's do-or-die time for Florida State.

The Seminoles (4-6, 2-6 in ACC) have two games left in the regular season.

They'll need to win both of them to extend their NCAA record bowl streak to 37 seasons.

That was something FSU head coach Willie Taggart was extremely aware of at his weekly press conference Monday.

"This week is the beginning of a two-game season for us," Taggart said in his opening statement.

"(The streak) is important to us. It's important to our players, it's important to our fan base, it's important to the teams that came before us that we keep it going and we talked about it as a team and our guys understand what's at stake, it's important for our seniors to leave here and not be that senior class that didn't go to a bowl game.

"It's important for a lot of reasons and we need to approach it that way in everything we're doing, the way we go to class, going to practice, in meetings or whatever we're doing, there's a lot of people counting on us."

This will be no easy task for the Seminoles.

FSU enters Saturday's matchup against No. 22 Boston College (7-3, 4-2) having been outscored 148-51 over its last three games against Clemson, North Carolina State and Notre Dame.

That's the most points allowed over a three-game span in program history.

"For me, personally, watching our team and every week I stand up here and tell you guys and every week I feel good about our football team going in the game and our chances of winning. The frustrating part is they're not showing what they're capable of doing on Saturday and we got to help them as coaches however we can," Taggart said.

"We got to keep trying to find a way so they can go do that. I told you before, I love this team and I believe in us and I believe we can win every ball game, but we can't win them doing the things that we have been doing. Especially against really good football teams.

"I think it can happen at any time. Because of how our guys, our attitude, our practice, the way we do things it's just we got to do it on Saturday, we got to do it under the spotlight when it counts. So I'm confident this week, but we got to play a lot better."

In many ways, what FSU needs to pull off this year mirrors how last season played out in Tallahassee.

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The Seminoles entered the season as the preseason No. 3 team, but an injury to quarterback Deondre Francois and the splinter that followed both in the locker room and from a coaching staff with one foot out the door led to FSU losing five of its first seven games.

Entering this week a year ago, FSU was 3-6 and needed to win its final three games to extend the bowl streak to 36 years, breaking the tie with Nebraska for the longest in NCAA history.

"It's a bunch of guys that have played here last year when backs were against the wall and we had to win those games and there are some guys here that they can help the young guys out," Taggart said.

"It also allows those guys to believe that they can get it done and not have to, not sit back and think that it can't happen, they believe and know that they can get it done."

But this season's path to bowl eligibility is tougher to find. While last season FSU rallied with wins over Delaware State, a 4-6 Florida team and Louisiana Monroe, this season it's a pair of ranked teams.

Even if FSU gets by the Eagles this weekend, No. 16 UF (7-3, 5-3 in SEC) will still stand in the Seminoles' way.

Still, Taggart was clear about his belief of knowing what it's going to take to get the job done.

"We just got to channel those things in the right direction in how we win and go out and play how winning teams play and we're going to have to do it in order to win these games. Our guys know the issues that we're having and we got to correct them," Taggart said.

"Coaches and players got to correct all the things that we're doing to ourselves that cause us not to be in these ball games or win these ball games. And we're working towards that and if we're going to win these two ball games and get those goals that we want in front of us, that's got to happen."