meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
On The Bench: An FSU football podcast network

FSU 2013 Championship Series with Odell Haggins: ‘Every Practice was a War’

On The Bench: An FSU football podcast network

247Sports, Florida State, Florida State Seminoles, Florida State football, FSU football, college football

Basketball, Football, Sports

4.81.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The intensity that occurred on Florida State’s practice field daily during the 2013 season wasn’t frequently matched on Saturdays. As defensive line coach Odell Haggins recalls, every practice was ‘a war’ as the Seminoles’ stellar trench play forced competition on both sides of the ball. Practice hard or get embarrassed. Haggins, FSU’s defensive line coach since 1996, has been a coach on some dominant teams including a pair of national champions. On the 10-year anniversary of FSU’s undefeated 2013 season, Noles247’s On The Bench podcast has been interviewing former players to relive their memories from that season of dominance. We talked to Haggins late in the offseason, and figured airing the interview would be fitting as this current FSU team – ranked No. 3 – heads to Boston College for a September contest with high expectations. As FSU treks north this weekend, it feels appropriate to mention that 2013 game up there when a Top 10 Seminoles squad was ambushed in the first half to fall behind 17-3 during a September contest in Chestnut Hill. FSU went on a 35-3 run – including a miraculous Hail Mary throw by Jameis Winston to Kenny Shaw before half time – and never trailed again the remainder of the regular season “It woke us up,” Haggins said. “We weren’t playing gap-sound football at the time. We talked to them, we settled them down. Once we settled that team down, we understood what we was trying to do, put them in the best situation. “Boston College, the first quarter now, they ran up and down the field. Like trying to hold water in our hand.” “Those guys took it upon themselves in the second half to come out and say, ‘nah, this is not happening.’ And we put it together. …That was a big turning point, we made some changes on our defense for the betterment of the players to put the right pieces in the puzzle. When that happened, you see what happened after that.” The interview also includes Haggins thoughts on the culture of that team, adjustments made in the national championship game, and the fun he had being part of that defensive coaching staff. Plus Haggins discussed some of the players along the defensive front. Timmy Jernigan was “violent” off the snap and “I’m using that word lightly. When he used to come off the football, you could hear it.” Eddie Goldman became a technician by Year 2 and turned into a dominant defender. Mario Edwards Jr. was keeping up with QBs running a 4.4 and was a “mean football player” as well as intelligent. There was star power, no doubt, but you can hear Haggins fill up with pride in talking about rotational players as well such as Jacobbi McDaniel and Demonte McAllister. “On that championship team, guys that played their roles, that was one of the most important things. Doing your job, doing it for each other, not for thyself.” You can subscribe to On The Bench, X’s and Noles, and Beyond The Bench on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. As always, five-star reviews and comments on Apple Podcasts are appreciated! Also, you can watch the show on YouTube now. We'll do live streams as well, and you can get notifications on when we're live by subscribing to our YouTube channel. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to On the Bench. I'm your host for this episode, Brunnan Sonone, a different

0:22.0

sort of episode today. Oh, you're going to clear the runway to do a fairly long form

0:27.2

interview with Coach Odell Hagens, FSU's veteran defense line coach. This interview was conducted

0:32.4

back before camp started and figured this is kind of an appropriate time to do this 2013 retrospective

0:40.3

with Coach Hagens ahead of an interesting game for FSU up at Boston College because weird things

0:46.4

happen at Boston College. I've been saying that on the podcast all preseason, even into the season

0:51.0

here as FSU is planning to go up there. It's Wednesday morning, game's still on. I know there's

0:56.3

hurricane going up that way. We'll see. But I want to do this felt like a fun time to brush off

1:03.7

this interview. Coach Hagens, like Odell doesn't do a ton of these type of interviews. This is a real

1:08.4

treat and I think he's really insightful about the entire season, the complexity of that team, the

1:16.2

depth, how it was assembled, especially the trenches. And you start kind of hearing some parallels.

1:20.7

Now again, this is recording the preseason to what's happening, you know, with FSU on the

1:26.0

field here in the 2023 season, 10 years later, right? Like the defense line depth starting to show

1:30.7

up and you guys are starting to talk about depth, talking about being selfless. You're faving love

1:35.0

to talk about that the other day. So then this team is a top 10 team going up to Boston College.

1:40.9

Again, weird things happen at Chestnut Hill for FSU 2013. FSU fell down 17 to three and then

1:48.2

ends up going on a 35 to three run and never trails in the regular season again in that September contest.

1:53.8

So there are other weird games up there too, the 2017 game where the cracks start to really show

2:00.9

for that program. FSU laws 35 to three, the 2017 game, Jordan Travis debut after really Taggart was

2:07.6

fired. Like it was just there weird things happen in Boston College. So Odell again is going to talk

2:12.6

about that. Like he's going to talk about that being a turning point for the that team in 2013

2:18.2

early in the year. He said it woke us up. But really like the interview is going to be about Odell

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from 247Sports, Florida State, Florida State Seminoles, Florida State football, FSU football, college football, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of 247Sports, Florida State, Florida State Seminoles, Florida State football, FSU football, college football and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.