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FSU Football: ‘Noles schedule difficult without neutral game openers

By Kelvin Hunt

TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 7: Florida State Seminoles fans cheer during the first half of an NCAA football game against the Miami Hurricanes at Doak S. Campbell Stadium on October 7, 2017 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Butch Dill/Getty Images)
TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 7: Florida State Seminoles fans cheer during the first half of an NCAA football game against the Miami Hurricanes at Doak S. Campbell Stadium on October 7, 2017 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Butch Dill/Getty Images) /
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FSU football always plays one of the toughest schedules in the country.

FSU football has always had the mantra they’d play anybody, anytime and anywhere going all the way back to the early Bobby Bowden years.

That continued with the Jimbo Fisher era and apparently Willie Taggart wants to keep the tradition going.

Taggart was asked in a recent interview with Noles247 about scheduling moving forward and he had this to say.

"“I think when it comes to that and just the way that the system is with the College Football Playoff, you have to play people. You can’t sit back and have a lot of tune-up games. You have to go out and compete and win those games if you want to put yourself in the position to be in the playoff. If I have a philosophy of that, whatever it’s going to take to get us in the playoff. Knowing that we have to win those ballgames. We’re at Florida State. We’re not going to bow down to anyone. We’ll play anyone as long as it’s going to get us to ultimately anywhere we want to go.”"

Thoughts on Scheduling

I’ve gone on record about scheduling when Jimbo Fisher was head coach. There’s absolutely no reason to continue to schedule these neutral site game openers against elite programs.

The benefit of the win does not outweigh all the potential negatives because FSU can make the College Football Playoff by simply winning the ACC Conference nowadays.

Here are the strength of schedule rankings for teams that made the four team playoff in 2017:

  • Alabama- No. 18
  • Clemson- No. 37
  • Georgia- No. 50
  • Oklahoma-No. 34

Yep, it did FSU football a whole lot of good to play against Alabama and Ole Miss the past two years in neutral game openers.

The Noles finished both seasons with three or more losses and no hope of winning the ACC or national titles.

The fact of the matter is FSU’s schedule is hard enough with Clemson, Miami, Florida and teams like NC State. For the record, FSU finished with the No. 8 hardest schedule in the country last year.

It’s great exposure for the program to play in those big time neutral game openers. A game like the 2018 opener against Virginia Tech is plenty enough to add a little spice to an already top five toughest schedule in the nation.

Next: Top 4 Realignment Options For ACC Conference

Those teams listed above didn’t kill themselves playing a ton of tough teams, why should FSU football?

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