A.G. Gancarski
Florida’s Governor is taking his gripes about the state’s recent college football performance on the road again.
During a speech to a group in Prosperity, South Carolina, Ron DeSantis extolled the current performance of the Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles, framing it was a welcome change from years of mediocrity from the Sunshine State’s gridiron programs.
“Clemson has won in football recently. Florida, our state, has struggled in college football recently,” DeSantis complained.
“We were the top state for years and years. We’ve not had anybody compete even to make the playoff until this year,” DeSantis added, eliding FSU’s loss in the CFB Playoffs after the 2014 season.
DeSantis has given variations of this speech before, lauding the Seminoles’ performance, excoriating years of mediocrity among the state’s programs before that, and forgetting that FSU made the playoff previously.
“We’ve actually never had a team in the college football playoff since the playoffs started. Fast forward, rewind, when I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, it was like a Florida team was competing for the national title almost every year,” DeSantis recounted during an interview Wednesday on WFEA’s Morning Update.
The Governor, who played Division 1 baseball at Yale, has griped about students leaving the state to play college football elsewhere.
“I realized this my first year as Governor. I asked my staff to give me letters of congratulations for all Florida’s high school blue-chip football recruits because we’ve got great high school football in Florida. And I’m signing these letters and it’s like, ‘Dear Michael, congratulations on going to the University of Georgia. Congratulations on going to Alabama.’ And I’m like, why congratulate them for leaving our state?” DeSantis said.
“That didn’t used to be what it was.”
DeSantis has been even less complimentary about Billy Napier’s University of Florida football team, meanwhile, making it clear on numerous occasions that he believes that “their football team (needs) to start doing a little bit better.”
8 comments
Dont Say FLA
December 1, 2023 at 4:57 pm
Rhonda you were congratulating them on their successes in getting accepted to winning programs in winning states. That’s why.
Bwj
December 1, 2023 at 6:31 pm
Why is our Governor being critical of Florida schools? Let’s talk about Yale football. Or better yet, Yale baseball.
Tom
December 2, 2023 at 7:47 am
How about who’s pitching and who’s catching in the Ziegler family bedroom league?
Michael K
December 1, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Guess what? Rhonda is destroying public education, and Florida will find it difficult to attract top talent in both students and faculty because of the damage he is inflicting. Florida has become a joke nationwide.
rick whitaker
December 2, 2023 at 9:10 am
well said michael k. public schools need support, not negligence.
Sonja Fitch
December 2, 2023 at 9:22 am
Omg hims, Desantis, will lie and lie and lie just to try to please the public! Omg! Love it. How low you going Desantis? Hiding under a bridge! Visiting the Floridians in hurricane damage areas STILL! Mm so Desantis you scared of Floridians?
TJC
December 2, 2023 at 12:08 pm
DeSantis brags to voters in other states that Floridians have finally become proud to be Floridians since he became Governor, then he turns around and mocks the public universities of the state — mocks the football programs, the “woke” professors, the “woke” accreditation process (which he calls rigged, which means he is saying our universities are worthless).
So it seems he’s saying we have no reason to be proud of our universities. Not yet, anyway, not until he turns them all into Hillsdale College.
That's amazing, Grace
December 2, 2023 at 12:10 pm
“And I’m signing these letters and it’s like, ‘Dear Michael, congratulations on going to the University of Georgia. Congratulations on going to Alabama.’ And I’m like, why congratulate them for leaving our state?” DeSantis said.
Says the guy who left the state to go to college. But that was okay for him. He’s special.
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