Florida State football: 5 most underrated players in Seminoles history

LeRoy Butler pulled off one of the best trick plays in FSU football history.

LeRoy Butler is best known these days for inventing the “Lambeau Leap” celebration while he starred in the defensive backfield for the Green Bay Packers in the 1990s. Butler made the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team as a four-time First-Team All-Pro, a four-time Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl champion. Though Canton still evades him, he’s bound to get in one day.

Before all that, Butler was a dynamic playmaker in the Florida State defensive backfield in the late 1980s. He was a three-year starter for Bobby Bowden in Tallahassee. Though he was very much in the shadow of his former college teammate Deion Sanders while in school, Butler is a legend in Florida State football history because of one of the greatest trick plays you’ll ever see.

In 1988 vs. rival Clemson, Florida State was pinned back deep in its own territory with the game tied at 21 points apiece. Instead of punting the ball like every other team would do in that situation, the “puntarooskie” happened. The ball was snapped to Dayne Williams, who handed the ball to Butler who took it 78 yards the other way to set up the game-winning field goal.

Butler would go on to be a second-round pick by the Packers in the 1990 NFL Draft. He spent his entire 12-year NFL career in Green Bay where he went to back-to-back Super Bowls in 1996 and 1997, winning Super Bowl 31 over the New England Patriots. No matter what level Butler played at, you could always count on him to make the big play when his team needed him the most.