Florida State fell short of expectations this season after a nice national championship run two years ago. With an inexperienced team, the Seminoles dropped to No.9 this season after losses to Georgia Tech and Clemson. Now the team must figure out how to find the right motivation to end the season as they prepare to play a Houston Cougars team ready for the upset in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl.
Houston is loving the college football postseason as this is new territory for the team. The Cougars finished the year ranked No.18 after getting the win in their American Athletic Conference beating Temple in the championship game. The Cougars have a knack for pulling off the upsets. They got big wins over Navy, Memphis, Cincinnati and Louisville during the season while falling short of perfection after a loss to Connecticut. The Seminoles were eyeing perfection too after winning their first six games, but an upset against Tech took the win out of their season.
Houston will be led by the dynamic quarterback Greg Ward Jr. Ward has been outstanding this year for Houston. He rushed for a team-leading 1,041 yards and 19 touchdowns while putting up 2,590 yards and 16 touchdowns through the air. The quarterback has been thriving under the new coaching staff and it will be a matchup to watch to see how he performs against the best defense he has faced this season.
While Ward has been a constant for the Cougars, the Seminoles cannot say the same about their situation. The team was hoping Everett Golson would be the quarterback to lead them to the College Football Playoffs, but instead he never played well and went down with a head injury. As a result, Golson announced he was done at Florida State. Sean Maguire will get the starting nod. He has done well with the position, but he has had good help from Dalvin Cook.
While Derrick Henry got all of the attention this season, Cook put together a strong performance as well. The running back put up 18 touchdowns and 1,658 yards on the ground this year. He played through hamstring and ankle injuries, but is healthy coming out of the break. He is backed by a strong defense that needs to play its best game against Houston.
