It might not have been No. 1 vs. No. 3, but 10 years later, Xavier Lee vividly remembers the excitement surrounding Florida State’s last showdown with Alabama.
Partly because the game featured two storied programs, partly because of Bobby Bowden’s connections to the Crimson Tide and partly because of Nick Saban’s high-profile return to college football, Lee said FSU’s players could feel a “buzz” on campus and throughout the community.
“We had Bobby Bowden, they had Nick Saban,” Lee said in a telephone interview from his home in Omaha, Neb. “[Legendary Alabama coach] Bear Bryant was Bobby Bowden's mentor, and Coach Bowden had a chance to play for him in his early years. So, the story line was already written.”
By the end of that day, Lee had authored a pretty nice tale of his own.
Coming off the bench to relieve struggling starter Drew Weatherford, Lee passed for 224 yards and two touchdowns and added 59 yards on the ground to lead the Seminoles to a 21-14 victory. The game, which was played before 85,412 fans -- the largest crowd to see a game in Jacksonville football history -- gave FSU its first victory in four tries against the Crimson Tide, and it would go down as the greatest performance in Lee’s career.
“When you play for a major college, you always hope to have a signature game here or there,” Lee said. “And I was lucky enough to have it against a team like Alabama.”
Although that game represented his first real opportunity for playing time that season, Lee said he wasn’t nervous when he took the field in the second quarter. He said then-offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher had prepared a “great game plan,” and Lee was able to watch the Crimson Tide defense play several series before he was called on to take the field.
“Jimbo had gone over every down-and-distance [situation] -- we knew what Alabama would be in,” Lee said. “We had everything kind of tailored to what they were going to do and how we were going to make them pay. As a team, we were very prepared going into that game, and I think it showed by the final score.”
An example of that preparation, Lee said, was Fisher’s decision to attack young Alabama defensive back Marquis Johnson. The Seminoles went after Johnson several times that day, including on what would be the game-clinching play.
With FSU clinging to a 14-7 lead midway through the fourth quarter, Lee connected with receiver De’Cody Fagg on a shallow out-route. Fagg stiff-armed Johnson to get some separation and then raced away from the Alabama secondary for a 70-yard touchdown and a 21-7 advantage.
If the 2007 Alabama game was Lee’s signature win, the pass to Fagg was his signature play.
“The guy that was guarding him, we knew that it was actually his first game starting,” Lee said. “So going in, we knew that was a person we could go after. Earlier in the game, we actually threw the exact same play, but De’Cody ended up dropping it. If he had caught it, it might have been the exact same scenario.”
While much of the attention leading up to that game focused on Bowden and his connections to Alabama, the bond between Fisher and Saban was a noteworthy subplot. Fisher had been an assistant on Saban’s staff at LSU, and the pair won a national championship together in 2003.
Looking back 10 years later, Lee said he could sense that the victory was a little extra special to Fisher.
“It was a little personal,” Lee said. “With him having that history under him at LSU, it was a way for him to kind of break away from Saban’s shadow. To kind of say, ‘I know you very well. You're a great coach. But this is what I can do as an offensive coordinator.’
“Hopefully this coming year -- well, a week from now -- he'll be able to show that again as head coach against head coach: ‘You taught me very well, but I actually want to beat you pretty good.’"
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Based upon Fisher’s preparation for that first showdown with Saban, Lee doesn’t believe the Seminoles' eighth-year head coach will deviate much from his usual strategies.
Even though Fisher and Saban are very familiar with each other, and despite the fact that the game will feature two national championship contenders, Lee thinks they’ll both stick with their philosophies and then try to attack each other’s tendencies.
“Alabama doesn't really do anything remarkably tricky,” Lee said. “It's just that the players they have are great players and they line up and play football soundly. They play really good football -- damn near perfect. I think both programs try to do the same thing.
“They both have great athletes, great players. But what they do from Sunday to Friday before kickoff on Saturday, they are really, really prepared. I think that's what sets these two programs apart.”
Despite his big win against Alabama, Lee, who came to FSU as the nation’s No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in the class of 2004, did not enjoy a happy ending to his Florida State career. He was benched once again later that season and then was suspended for two games due to academic reasons.
Lee ended up leaving FSU after his junior season and briefly played tight end with the Baltimore Ravens after being passed over in the 2008 NFL Draft. But he says his love for the Seminoles has never waned.
"My truck right now has Florida State license plates, and I am here in the middle of nowhere Nebraska,” Lee said with a laugh. “I have a 4-year-old son, and I have him dressed up in Florida State gear daily.”
Without missing a beat, Lee mentioned that his son, Xavier Jordan Lee, is a left-hander who loves both football and baseball. “Jimbo’s gonna need to keep an eye out for him in a few years,” Lee said.
There was a time when neither Lee nor Fisher would have considered that a possibility. The quarterback and coach clashed frequently during their one season together, and they hadn’t actually talked much over the next decade until Lee came back to visit a practice this spring.
As is often the case, time seemed to heal all wounds.
“It was good to talk to him,” Lee said. “I hadn't really had a good conversation with him since I left. And when I left, it wasn't really on the best of terms. But it was great to see how he has turned the program around and how he's built it up.”
After a brief stint in the NFL, Lee spent parts of several years playing different positions in arena football. These days, he is focused on his new career. He’s an IT field manager for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and when he's not busy with that, he's spending time with his wife and son.
Although Lee does have some regrets about his playing career -- he wishes he would have taken things more seriously while in college and he laments letting down some of his supporters back home in Daytona Beach -- he doesn’t obsess about missed opportunities.
“I feel great about it,” Lee said of his experience at Florida State. “There's always things you would love to change, decisions here or there. But I can't change the past. There were a lot of things I didn't do personally to better myself and take advantage of my position at Florida State. It took me awhile to realize that. It was no one's fault but my own. But that's just a part of growing up.
“I've grown as a businessman, as a reputable person in the community. I've become more savvy as a man, and I understand that those mistakes helped build me into the man I am now. I couldn't be happier doing what I'm doing and being able to excel in it now.”
This Thursday, Lee and his wife will fly into Atlanta for a garnet-and-gold weekend. They’ll attend some FSU parties on Friday, tailgate with former teammates before the game and then watch the Seminoles and Crimson Tide square off in Mercedes-Benz Stadium that night.
Ten years after penning his signature moment in Florida State history, Xavier Lee can’t wait to see which Seminoles will step up next.
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