FSU Football: Bye week has created issues for Noles this century

FSU football is now going to be having their bye week this coming weekend – and over the past decade and a half, that hasn’t been good for the next game.

When the schedule first came out for the 2017 season, FSU football had a prime spot for their bye week after the fifth game of the season. Then, a little thing called Hurricane Irma came in and changed everything, forcing the Seminoles to cancel their game last weekend against Louisiana-Monroe and move this weekend’s game with Miami.

Now, the Noles will not only be having one week off between games, but will spend 21 days between games as they now will play 10 straight weeks to end the season with the game against the Hurricanes moving to the mutual bye week that the teams shared, October 7th.

It will be the most games consecutively played in the regular season for FSU football since they played all 11 games in a row during the 2004 season – which took place because Hurricane Frances forced the game between Florida State and Miami to be moved from Labor Day night to the following Friday.

After their new bye week, the Seminoles will take the field inside Doak Campbell Stadium for their new home opener against N.C. State. While FSU football is better on paper, the bye week has done something weird this century. From 2000 until 2016, the Seminoles had 20 bye weeks – not including one that was created in 2001 where the game with Ga. Tech was moved due to the September 11th attacks.

In those 20 games after the bye week, Florida State has a record of just 12-8 with three of those losses under Jimbo Fisher – his first two seasons in 2010 and 2011 and last season, when the Seminoles dropped a home game against Clemson following the extra week of work. Two of those losses came against next week’s foe (2006 and 2010 with both games being in Raleigh).

While the positives are there in having two weeks between games – especially when you have to break in a new quarterback as James Blackman prepares to take over the reigns at quarterback following the injury to Deondre Francois – there are fears that all the inactivity could but the Seminoles in a weird position come next Saturday.

Next: Top FSU Football Wins Over Miami and Florida

FSU football will now play the last 10 weeks of the season – a span that includes games against N.C. State, Miami, Louisville, Clemson and Florida – without a break. If the Seminoles can come out of that span either undefeated or with just one loss, it might be the best head coaching job in all the time Jimbo Fisher has been in Tallahassee.