Charlie Ward named FSU's Greatest! QB tops Sanders in bracket finals

The fans have spoken.

After two months of voting, featuring six rounds of competition between 64 all-time great Seminoles, we have a winner of the first-ever Warchant Bracket Challenge.

And the fans' choice for the Greatest Player in Florida State football history is ... Charlie Ward!

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Ward, the 1993 Heisman Trophy winner, defeated Deion Sanders in the finals by securing 61.6 percent of the vote. All votes were cast by Warchant subscribers on the Tribal Council message board, with the final tally being 551 votes for Ward and 343 votes for Sanders.

This was the closest battle for Ward throughout the entire tournament. In the early rounds of competition in the Offensive Playmakers bracket, he completely dominated the voting in blowouts against receiver Lawrence Dawsey and running back Amp Lee. He then racked up nearly 83 percent of the vote in a surprisingly easy rout of former backfield mate Warrick Dunn.

In the finals of that bracket, Ward flexed his muscle again by storming to more than 72 percent of the vote in a showdown with fellow Heisman winner and national champion Jameis Winston. He then completely ovewhelmed Peter Boulware in the Final Four, securing 94.9 percent of the vote against the winner of the Offensive/Defensive Line bracket.

When it came to his competition with Sanders, who also cruised to easy victories in all of his battles (Clifton Abraham, Jalen Ramsey, Terrell Buckley, Marvin Jones and Ron Simmons), many voters suggested that Ward stands out for leading FSU to its first national championship, winning the school's first Heisman and representing the university in a first-class manner.

Both players were multi-sport stars at FSU, considered among the best players ever at their position and went on to lengthy careers in professional sports.

Here are some of the comments made by voters in the final round (click on the vote for easier reading):

There also were many impassioned votes for Sanders. Here are a few of those (click on the vote for easier reading):

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The Warchant staff would like to thank all of our subscribers who took part in the voting for the contest and shared their thoughts on each individual battle, and we'd also like to congratulate Charlie Ward on being named the greatest of all time.

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Talk about this with other Florida State fans in the Tribal Council