From Bobby Bowden’s legendary heist to setting a single-season sack record, discover how this elite pass rusher terrorized the ACC before becoming a Super Bowl champion in Baltimore.
One of the best to ever don the garnet and gold, linebacker Peter Boulware set his mark on the turf of Doak Campbell Stadium.
Boulware terrorized opposing offenses up and down the ACC, leaving offensive coordinators with a lot of sleepless nights and broken clipboards in his wake.
Boulware was recruited and signed by Bobby Bowden out of Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, South Carolina, right under the nose of the hometown South Carolina Gamecocks.
During his senior season, Boulware racked up 132 tackles and 14 sacks and was named to the list of Top 50 Athletes by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Dallas Morning News placed him among its Top 100 nationally.
Upon his arrival in Tallahassee, Boulware redshirted his freshman season in 1993, the same season Charlie Ward, Warrick Dunn, and Derrick Brooks led the Seminoles to a national title.
Boulware’s breakout year came in 1996. After 68 tackles, a school record 19 sacks, 20 tackles for loss, seven forced fumbles, and three fumble recoveries, Boulware stacked up the awards and accolades:
- First-team All-American
- Consensus All-American
- First-team All-ACC
- ACC Defensive Player of the Year
In 1997, Boulware was drafted fourth overall by the Baltimore Ravens and went on to win NFL Rookie of the Year honors that season. He played nine seasons in the NFL, all with the Ravens, and won a Super Bowl ring in a 34-6 win over the New York Giants at the end of the 2000 season.
Boulware made 401 bone-rattling tackles, recorded 70 sacks, forced 14 fumbles, and recovered five fumbles during his NFL career. He was also a four-time Pro Bowler.
Boulware was later inducted into the Ravens Ring of Honor in 2006. Two years prior, he became a member of the Florida State Athletics Hall of Fame. Boulware was also named among the 50 best players in ACC history.
It was Florida State’s heyday, as the Seminoles went 43-6 during Bowles’s time in Tallahassee, including 11-1 in the ’96 season.
That is light-years from what Boulware’s alma mater has produced the last two seasons: 17 losses and three conference wins. It has been five years since a Florida State defender won the ACC Defensive Player of the Year honors, when Jermaine Johnson II hoisted the hardware in 2021.
A player on this season’s roster who could follow in Boulware’s footsteps is transfer linebacker Chris Jones, who had 135 stops last season at Southern Miss. As a key member of the Seminoles' defense, Jones looks to erase the stigma attached to the program over the last 24 games. If he can channel his inner Peter Boulware and dominate, Florida State might do just that.
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