Imagine, for a moment, that just one slight detail changed the course of events inside Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday night.

Maybe that linebacker Kalen DeLoach had hit Jacksonville State's quarterback a little bit lower after he threw what should have been a game-clinching interception in the fourth quarter.

Or that Adam Fuller had played his safeties 20 or 30 yards deeper on the game's final play. And maybe even used a third safety instead of two.

Or that cornerback Jarvis Brownlee had shown some awareness of the situation and tackled Jacksonville State receiver Damond Philyaw-Johnson after his catch. Or, heck, even before the catch.

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Or that Keyshawn Helton had hauled in his early walk-in touchdown.

Or head coach Mike Norvell and offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham had made any number of different decisions:

* Say giving Jashaun Corbin and Treshaun Ward more carries in the fourth quarter instead of Lawrance Toafili;

* And not goofing around with the two-quarterback carousel in the first half;

* And maybe using Jordan Travis' running skills in a couple of crucial situations, such as when they were inside Jacksonville State's 10-yard line with a chance to push the lead to three scores in the final 10 minutes.

Any ONE of those things might have resulted in a win for Florida State on Saturday night. A couple of them might have led to the game being a blowout. Instead, the Seminoles suffered arguably the worst loss in school history -- a loss made even worse because of the hope they inspired just six days earlier.

When FSU pushed No. 9 Notre Dame to the brink last weekend, it was one of the most encouraging games we've seen from this football program in several years. At the time, it made us reconsider all of the possibilities for this season.

Suddenly, games against rivals Miami and Florida didn't look like monumental challenges. Conference opponents like North Carolina and Wake Forest looked much more beatable.

Now, one week later, it feels like UMass might be the only sure win.

How could we have been so wrong then? Is there any chance we're that wrong now?

Florida State fans understandably are doing a lot of soul-searching right now.

They were frustrated by the end of Jimbo Fisher's tenure. Then they hoped Willie Taggart would be the answer ... he wasn't. (One quick note on that: Even if Mike Norvell doesn't succeed, that doesn't change the fact that Taggart was a disaster and needed to go.) And even if fans weren't sold on Norvell initially, what they saw last week was so encouraging that many of them finally bought in.

And then this happened.

It wasn't merely the fact that the Seminoles lost to an FCS opponent for the first time ever -- as if that wasn't enough. It was that so many in-game decisions by the coaching staff backfired in so many magnificent ways.