Could FSU Football radio voice miss Clemson game due to NFL in London?

FSU football fans could hear a different voice in the booth for maybe the biggest game of the season thanks to the pro game playing overseas the same week.

This upcoming season when the Noles take on Boise State, the longtime play by play voice of the FSU football team will celebrate four decades of saying “Touchdown, Florida State” as Gene Deckerhoff will be calling the action for the garnet and gold – something he has done for every single game that the Seminoles have had the radio rights to since the 1979 season.

Just over one week later, Deckerhoff will be celebrating three decades as the radio voice of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers – an arrangement that has made things interesting at times when he has to make it from one location to another to cover each team, sometimes in a matter of hours.

It’s an arrangement that will test the bounds of planes, sleep and two continents when, for the third time, the Buccaneers play a game across the Atlantic Ocean as part of the NFL’s International Series when they “host” the Carolina Panthers on October 13th.

Now, one look at the FSU football schedule for the upcoming season shows that the Seminoles take on…oh damn, the Noles are on the road to face the defending national champion Clemson Tigers the day before in the state of South Carolina.

It’s actually the second time that Deckerhoff is in this spot – in 2009 when the Bucs played overseas, the Seminoles played on Thursday and he had plenty of time to travel to London. In 2011, Deckerhoff left at halftime of the FSU football-Maryland game in order to make a flight to Atlanta that would get him to London before kickoff of the professional game.

"“This is definitely a first,” he said to the Austin (TX) American-Statesman. “I’ve had some adventures getting from one game to another, but this should be the most interesting and, by far, the longest trip.”"

Now, during that season he was helped by the game between the Terrapins and Seminoles starting at 3:30 p.m. so he could get to London for the game that started at 1 p.m. eastern time with hours to spare.

If FSU football can somehow be undefeated heading into the Clemson game and the Tigers are as well, that game could get the primetime treatment – and Deckerhoff would have to make a choice since this year’s game for the Bucs and Panthers will be starting at 9:30 a.m.

With all due respect to those who have loyalties to both the Seminoles and the Bucs, I would hope that he would remember who the originally team in his heart is and be in the Palmetto State for what hopefully would be the beginning of a new era in FSU football.