Could FSU Football have all primetime home games in 2018?

FSU football knows the start times of at least a third of their regular season games – and it could set up to be a lot of action under the lights in 2018.

In the world of college football, the big games between powerhouse teams will almost get the high profile spots in television while games between struggling teams or non-name schools will be played earlier in the day – which explains why FSU football kicked off seven of their 12 regular season games last here at high noon and had just one primetime game all year.

With just over three months until the 2018 season kicks off, the Seminoles already know things are going to be much better when it comes to kickoff times – and it’s setting up where the Noles could be seeing the lights turned on a lot more often in the upcoming year.

The ACC released the kickoff times for the first three weeks of the season and, along with another time already known, things are setting up real well for a majority of the games for FSU football being played at night this season.

Times Already Known

The Seminoles already knew two of their times months ago when ESPN announced that the opener with Virginia Tech on September 3rd inside Doak Campbell Stadium would be played at 8 pm while the November 10th game at Notre Dame had been announced as a 7:30 pm kickoff time and nationally broadcast by NBC.

Florida State Seminoles Football

Wednesday, the Noles found out that their September 8th game against Samford at home will be televised by the ACC / Raycom network of affiliates at 7:20 p.m. while the following week’s road opener against Syracuse would kick off at noon on one of the ESPN networks or ABC.

All Primetime Slate?

With one quarter of the season’s games already being known as primetime, chances are out there – as slim as they might be – that the Seminoles could host all seven of their home games under the lights this season.

The first two are already that way and one would have to think that, as long as FSU football is back to being a program competing for at least the ACC Atlantic, the October 27th game vs. Clemson will be a primetime showcase game. Wake Forest, coming off a bowl season, could also attract the nighttime cameras for the game one week before.

As for the other three games – Northern Illinois, Boston College and Florida – the chances are there. The first regular season meeting with the Huskies might be attractive enough for an ESPN network while the Noles and Eagles have played primetime games that last three seasons (albeit all were Friday night dates as well).

As for the Gators, the teams have met just 10 times in night games over their last 30 regular season meetings – including just three out of the last 13 games. The teams have met under the lights the last two seasons and six of the 10 games have come in Tallahassee, so if both FSU football and Florida are ranked and playing for something, the chance is there.

In reality, the combination of new head coach Willie Taggart along with a schedule of name teams and a Seminoles squad that will likely be better than last season means FSU football is on pace to be in primetime a lot in 2018. Add in road games with Miami, N.C. State and Louisville that aren’t known yet and the Noles could have as many as 10 games under the lights.

Next: Writer says Noles have no chance at 2018 national title

So, you can more than likely put away your ‘Noon Games Suck’ buttons that were sold in Tallahassee last season – it looks like you won’t need them all that often.