Florida State Football Catches Stray From Jameis Winston in Women’s Soccer National Title Post

The former Seminoles Heisman winner is impressed with his alma mater on the pitch, not the gridiron.

Jameis Winston’s congratulatory post to Florida State women’s soccer featured a shot at his former Seminoles football program. / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

Jameis Winston is a proud Seminole this week, after watching one of his alma mater’s athletics programs capture a national title. And he seems a little annoyed with the ongoing struggles of one of the two Florida State programs he played for: FSU football. (He also played baseball there.)

The Seminoles women’s soccer program is something of a dynasty, capturing its fifth national championship Monday, beating Stanford 1–0, all of which have been won since 2014. It is the program’s second title under coach Brian Pensky in three seasons.

Winston took to X to congratulate the program, but couldn’t do so without a bit of a dig at Noles football in the process—in a quote-tweet of the FSU Football’s X account, no less.

Thank you @FSUSoccer for you consistently being our best football team over the years! https://t.co/T1QWd8nHV2

— Jameis Winston (@Jaboowins) December 9, 2025

Winston was the quarterback for the last Florida State football team to take home a national title, leading the incredible 2013 Seminoles to the final BCS national championship—a 34–31 win over Auburn. That game capped a perfect 14–0 season for FSU, and one in which Winston won the Heisman Trophy. Florida State followed it up with a trip to the first-ever College Football Playoff the following year, and Winston was the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NFL draft.

There have been peaks and valleys in the decade since Winston’s departure, but things have generally been trending in a bad direction.

Florida State football has struggled since Jameis Winston left school in 2015

Jimbo Fisher’s tenure in Tallahassee turned sour; the program went 10–3 in consecutive seasons in 2015 and ‘16, and he left for Texas A&M with the program at 5–6 in ‘17. They’d win their final two games to salvage a season above .500. His replacement Willie Taggart’s tenure with the Seminoles never got off the ground, and after posting a 9–12 record, he was fired midway through year two. Mike Norvell got off to a slow start rebuilding from the Taggart years, going 8–13 in 2020 and ‘21, but recovered to win 10 games in ‘22 and went undefeated and won the ACC championship in ‘23. An injury to quarterback Jordan Travis kept the Seminoles out of the CFP, and the team was demolished in the Orange Bowl by Georgia. Things have been a disaster since, with Norvell posting a 7–17 record over the last two years.

With other programs on campus thriving, it is easy to see why Winston isn’t happy. He’s far from alone, though Florida State has opted to bring Norvell back for one more run (and avoid a very costly buyout for the time being) in 2026.

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