Florida State's Playoff Hopes Take Huge Hit with Heartbreaking Georgia Tech Loss

Florida State was far from the nation's most impressive undefeated team heading into Week 8. The No. 9 Seminoles were the third-lowest ranked team with a perfect record in the Power Five—ahead of No. 12 Iowa and No. 14 Oklahoma State.

But Jimbo Fisher's young team still had full control of a potential playoff push heading into Saturday night, and it had found some offensive rhythm in its last two ACC wins.

That all changed Saturday in Atlanta, though, after one fateful kick from Roberto Aguayo.

Georgia Tech blocked a potential game-winning 56-yard try from Aguayo and ran it back 78 yards for a touchdown as time expired.

According to Bill Bender of Sporting News, the heartbreaking 22-16 loss to the Yellow Jackets was the first ACC defeat in more than three years for Florida State.

Now the Seminoles must recover from one of the wildest finishes in recent memory and fight to survive in the ACC and College Football Playoff races.

Florida State held a 10-point lead at one point in the second quarter in spite of some red-zone miscues, but a second half filled with errors doomed the Seminoles to back-to-back goose eggs on the scoreboard.

As Corey Clark of the Tallahassee Democrat notes, the offense would receive most of the blame for the loss to the Yellow Jackets.

After halftime, Georgia Tech held Florida State to just 15 yards on eight carries. With top running back Dalvin Cook visibly banged up, the game went into the hands of quarterback Everett Golson.

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The passing success Golson had in previous games against Miami and Louisville didn't carry over against a desperate Georgia Tech defense.

With a primarily pass-first attack operating on a little less than 11 minutes of possession time, the Seminoles went 1-of-5 on third downs in the second half and had their first offensive turnover of the season, a circus interception that went from game-sealing touchdown to huge stop for the hosts.

While the defense forced Georgia Tech to punt on the ensuing drive, the FSU offense couldn't move the ball offensively and add to its three-point lead. On third down, Golson didn't seem ready for the snap, and he was whistled for intentional grounding and a loss of 14 yards.

The flag was just one of six in the second half on Florida State—and several of them were huge.

Early in the fourth quarter, Florida State had two false starts deep inside the Georgia Tech red zone. Golson threw his interception right after the second one.

The Seminoles also had an illegal-formation penalty on their next drive, and their final one featured another false start a couple of plays before Aguayo's missed field goal from long range.

The first fourth-quarter miss of Aguayo's incredible college career led to a tricky situation for the Florida State special teams unit. Even though he hesitated before returning the blocked kick, Georgia Tech's Lance Austin was still able to pick up the ball, get a few key blocks and find his way into the end zone.

According to Clark, Fisher said his young team practiced what to do in that situation, but—like on Saturday night—it wasn't successful at it.

The final play was one more missed opportunity for a Florida State team that had several chances to put Georgia Tech away Saturday night and remain unbeaten.

Now the path to another ACC title and a return to the College Football Playoff is even more treacherous for the Seminoles.

Even with its lower spot in the rankings compared to other undefeated outfits—even one-loss Alabama was ahead of it in this week's AP poll—Florida State still had the inside track to a spot in the final four if it won out.

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That would be a tall task even with a win over Georgia Tech, sure, but no other program is more familiar with "survive and advance" than Florida State. In its long ACC winning streak, the Seminoles pulled out more than their fair share of close calls.

Considering the amount of inexperience and inconsistency Florida State has this season, this team may have shocked some experts by carrying the winning ways of the title squads into the past seven weeks. 

As Bud Elliott of Tomahawk Nation put it on Twitter, the errors that hurt Florida State on Saturday night against Georgia Tech are symptoms of the youth throughout the depth chart.

But these young Seminoles aren't out of the big races just yet. They'll need to string together a few huge wins and maybe even get some help, but don't count them completely out.

A road win over a Clemson team that just floored Miami 58-0 away from home would be beyond impressive for Florida State's resume. Add a victory over rival Florida, which is still a highly ranked front-runner in the SEC East, and the 'Noles would be tough to ignore for the playoff committee in this chaotic season.

While Georgia Tech might look like a bad loss at first glance, the Yellow Jackets had lost five straight games to teams with only four combined losses. Several of them were close calls, too.

If Georgia Tech can turn its season around, the Seminoles will get a nice boost for their playoff hopes.

Does Florida State have the raw talent to win big? Definitely.

The question now is if the Seminoles are able to correct their repeated mistakes and pick themselves up off the canvas for the first time in a long time.

That will be the difference between staying in the race for championships and some more stinging losses.

Game statistics courtesy of StatBroadcast. Unless otherwise noted, other statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com.

Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.