Lost in all the drama, FSU QB Blackman rebounds for stellar performance

This season has been a roller coaster for the entire Florida State football team, but especially sophomore quarterback James Blackman.

Blackman started the first four games of the Seminoles' season. Had some success. Some failure. And then he and Alex Hornibrook have essentially been rotating the starting job ever since.

Blackman started against Clemson and Wake Forest. Hornibrook started against Syracuse and Miami.

With Willie Taggart being fired last Sunday, there was hardly any talk at all during the week about the most talked-about position on the team. Interim head coach Odell Haggins didn't speak with the media after Monday's press conference, and no one outside the program seemed to know whether Hornibrook would retain the job or if it would go back to Blackman.

To be honest, nobody even seemed to care all that much -- with the echoes from the Taggart firing still resonating throughout the fan base all week.

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Even after Saturday's game -- a 38-31 Florida State victory -- it was seemingly overlooked that offensive coordinator Kendal Briles had decided to go back to Blackman. Most of the talk in the postgame interview sessions centered around Haggins and third-string QB Jordan Travis.

But in reality, the star of the game for Florida State was the redshirt sophomore quarterback.

Blackman completed 18 of 26 passes for 346 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions (he also had four passes dropped). His scrambling in the second half kept a number of plays -- and drives -- alive. And after the Eagles tied it up late in the fourth quarter, Blackman found D.J. Matthews on a short crossing route that eventually turned into the game-winning, 60-yard touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.

"It means a lot," Blackman said after the win. "We've been through a lot up to this point. We just knew we had to come together. ... We had to show each other that we had each other's back."