Jameis Winston’s star power wattage was demonstrated most accurately on Saturdays last fall, but it was evident even on a spring Friday night in Midtown.
Winston, Florida State’s reigning Heisman Trophy winner, had come to Georgia Tech with the Seminoles baseball team for a three-game series against the Yellow Jackets. Before the first game at Russ Chandler Stadium, Winston signed dozens of autographs along the fence on the first-base side. Tech’s players weren’t immune from sneaking a peak at the scene. Winston entered the game late as a defensive replacement, making one putout in left field and popping out to left in his only at-bat.
“It’s pretty cool,” Tech shortstop Connor Justus said of playing against Winston. “He’s big.”
After the game, a 5-3 win over then-No. 1 FSU, Tech coach Danny Hall was asked if his team might have been in awe of Winston. The coach mulled it over.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But, hey, he’s the Heisman Trophy winner. That’s instant respect right there.”
For the coming season, there’s little debate that Winston is college football’s recognized player, not only for having won the Heisman as a redshirt freshman and for having led the Seminoles to the BCS championship, but also for a string of off-field incidents that have kept him in the headlines through the offseason. Add to that a loquacious personality, and he covers all the bases.
“He’s about as high profile as you get in college football, obviously,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said.
The opportunities loom large for Winston in his sophomore season, starting with the possibility of a second consecutive national title. The schedule sets up favorably, as Clemson, Notre Dame and Florida all will play the Seminoles at Doak Campbell Stadium. FSU’s biggest challenges away from home will be the season opener against Oklahoma State at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and conference road games at Louisville and Miami, none of whom are ranked in the preseason coaches poll.
While seven players from the BCS championship team were selected in the first five rounds of the NFL draft, the Seminoles return 15 starters with similar potential. Starting with 2011, Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher’s classes have ranked first, second, ninth and third, according to ESPN.
Winston, too, will attempt to become the second player to win two Heisman Trophies, following Ohio State’s Archie Griffin in 1974-75. Having a team eminently capable of staying in the national conversation until December is a good starting point for his candidacy. Winston has chosen a healthy perspective on the season.
“We’re starting over,” he told a horde of media at the ACC Kickoff in Greensboro, N.C. “Clean slate. We’re not really worried about defending the national championship. We’re worried about getting another one.”
What Winston might surrender for a slate truly wiped clean. The 20-year-old from Hueytown, Ala., has entangled himself in a series of messes. As a freshman in 2012, he and teammates paid for $4,200 in damages caused by BB gun fights they said they had been having at their apartment complex.
It was reported this July that, earlier on the same day that Winston allegedly was involved in the BB gun fight, Winston and his roommate were stopped by campus police for carrying a pellet gun that they said they were using to shoot squirrels. In April of this year, he was caught stealing crab legs from a Publix in Tallahassee, Fla.
Most notably, he was investigated for a rape allegation from an incident in December 2012, although no charges were filed.
The incidents have no direct correlation on Winston’s play, but, given his history and his magnitude, further missteps will intensify the magnifying glass under which he lives.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in Florida State and the leadership in Florida State and in Jameis,” Swofford said. “His situation is very unfortunate from any angle that you look at it, but hopefully that can be put behind him and everyone else involved.”
In Greensboro, Winston spoke about the responsibility he held as a leader and as a figure in the spotlight. Teammates, coaches and his family depend on him, he said. His experience at the center of college football’s nonstop media coverage had taught him that different people will see him in different ways.
“But as an individual that’s always trying to get better every single day, I know that I have to be able to live up to that hype everywhere I go,” he said. “I have a certain standard that I hold myself up to.”
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