FSU Football: Noles have mixed success recently after bye week

FSU football will get back to work this coming Saturday, with the stats showing a mixture of good and bad after the bye week for the Noles.

In just a matter of days, the FSU football team will be back on the field inside Doak Campbell Stadium for the first time in close to a month when the Seminoles host Wake Forest in the first of six games to end the regular season after the Noles played exactly half of their scheduled games before the annual bye week.

In the world of college football, teams use the bye week to take some time away from the game – whether it’s to get their mind rights after a rough start or to keep everyone level headed after a hot start. For the Noles, the second half of the season serves as a reset button for a first half that could have been a lot worse, but should have at least been one win better.

In recent history over the last 10 seasons of football entering 2018, FSU football has a mixed bag of success when it comes to their first game back after the bye week – but in general has had overall success each year.

• 2008 – Beat N.C. State, finished 5-3
• 2009 – Beat North Carolina, finished 5-2
• 2010 – Lost to N.C. State, finished 4-3
• 2011 – Lost to Wake Forest, finished 7-2
• 2012 – Beat Virginia Tech, finished 4-1
• 2013 – Beat Nevada and Clemson, finished 13-0
• 2014 – Beat Clemson and Louisville, finished 10-1
• 2015 – Beat Wake Forest, finished 7-3
• 2016 – Loss to Clemson, finished 5-1
• 2017 – Lost to N.C. State (bye week moved due to Hurricane Irma), finished 7-5

For those non-math majors in the room, including myself who used a calculator, that means that FSU football is just 6-4 in their last 10 seasons after a bye week (including splitting the two times against Wake, we play this week) – but overall have a winning percentage of over 76 percent during the same span.

Under the law of averages and judging by past history, that would mean that the Seminoles will beat the Demon Deacons this week – since they haven’t lost more than two seasons in a row after the bye week – and should win either four or five games afterward total over the last half of the season.

While that number may not be accurate since past seasons included much better FSU football teams that stacked the wins up, a look at the Seminoles after their originally scheduled bye week last season (October 7th) shows the Noles went 6-3 the rest of the season, including winning the first game against Duke – a percentage that would mean four wins the rest of this way.

Head coach Willie Taggart knows he has much ahead for him and his seminoles team that includes a schedule featuring two teams that entered this past weekend ranked in the top five – but recent history means the Seminoles shouldn’t be over looked the rest of the way.