I live in Florida and have for a long time college football is bigger than the NFL. The big three, Miami, Florida and FSU are judged by their record against each other and National Championships. Florida obviously dominated the 2000. Both Miami and FSU had huge problems. FSU had both the 2006 and 2007 seasons vacated because of playing in eligable players. Bowden's program was a mess when he retired. They were absolutly in a rebuilding mode.
When the Bills drafted Manuel, I began asking FSU fans that I knew what they thought. The casual fans generally said he was ok. I don't recall anyone saying they were glad he was gone. The most astute fan that I know was the first to point out Manuel's supporting cast vs Winston's. His opinion was that Winston had better protection, better receivers and better running backs. Go back and look at those rosters.
I watched more than a few of Manuel's games. My suggestion to you is go to YouTube and watch the best and worst of his final season. The Clemson win, the NC State loss and the Florida loss. In the Clemson game Manuel is great, they had the NC State game won went into a shell, that loss is on Fisher. In the Florida loss Manuel was getting killed, he had five turn overs, but only two of them are really on him. One fumble was a helmet to helmet hit that in the NFL would have been a penalty, also after that hit I don't think Manuel knew where he was.