Could FSU Football’s Game vs. Delaware State be Worst in Program History?
By Jason Parker
FSU football has completed their 2017 schedule with a game against FCS opponent Delaware State – a team that went winless this season.
Last week, FSU football announced that they had found a 12th team for their schedule next season. After presumably looking across the nation for an opponent they would pay hundred of thousands of dollars to come to Tallahassee and get beat, the Seminoles settled upon…drumroll please…
The Delaware State Hornets!
That’s right, ladies and gentleman – a team that went 0-11 last season as members of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (the same one Tallahassee neighbors FAMU play in) will be the team Florida State will be beating up on come November 18th in the home finale next season.
It’s no secret that the ‘Noles have started to adopt the SEC schedule theory of playing at least one cupcake each season – usually from the FCS group. The Hornets – who lost by an average of 25 points a game last season and had just three defeats of 10 points or less – will be the ninth FCS team FSU has played since Jimbo Fisher’s first year in 2010 (and the third MEAC team).
The argument from FSU officials and Fisher himself is going to be the fact that the 2017 schedule is already chalk full of battles. The Seminoles start the year with Alabama in Atlanta while including home games against Louisville and Miami to go along with road games at Clemson and the season finale at Florida.
No one is saying athletic director Stan Wilcox and the school should have gone out and tried to sign up a home and home series with Ohio State based off the already schedule games – but scheduling one of just two teams in the entire Division-1 level (both FBS and FCS, which is 253 teams combined) to go winless in 2016 is embarrassing.
Last month, we wrote about the number of FBS teams who still have openings on their schedule for 2017 and which ones would be best for the ‘Noles. Schools like Tulane, Akron and even in-state foe Florida International would have been just as much of a guaranteed win for the Seminoles while saving some face for the program.
Instead, FSU football will be closing out the 2017 season with a game that will be greeted with a yawn from fans purchasing season tickets. With the school continuing to sell non-conference games to neutral sites and scheduling FCS opponents, it’s going to become harder and harder to convince people to shell out big money for just Miami and Louisville one year, followed by Florida and Clemson the next.