FSU football news: Sporting News projects Cheez-It Bowl for Noles in 2020
By Kelvin Hunt
FSU football should be heading to another bowl game in 2020. Could they be staying close to home for a change?
FSU football going to a bowl game was as close to automatic as you could get until the 2018 season.
The Noles saw their 36-year record bowl game streak end but started a new streak in 2019 as they lost in the Sun Bowl against Arizona State.
That loss resulted in a 6-7 overall record, a game the Noles could have won had they not turned the ball over SIX times.
The Sporting News is projecting all 44 bowls for the upcoming season and have the Noles playing the Cheez-It Bowl.
Related Story. Writer Says Noles Could Win 10 Games In 2020. light
In this projection, FSU football would face the TCU Horned Frogs, who finished 5-7 and didn’t make a bowl game this past year.
Should the Noles face the Horned Frogs, it would be two teams that have been nearly mirror images of one another the past two seasons.
The Noles went 5-7 and 6-7 the past two seasons, and TCU has gone 7-6 and 5-7 over the same span.
FSU last appeared in this game back in the 2011 season when they came from behind to defeat Notre Dame 18-14 in what was then called the Champs Sports Bowl.
Here’s how the teams have been chosen to play in this game recently:
"Since 2014, the game features the second pick from the ACC after the New Year’s Six bowls make their picks—usually the losing team from the ACC Football Championship Game, or one of the division runners-up—against the third pick from the Big 12."
Thoughts On The Projection
If that criterion holds, that means the Noles will have probably won at least eight or nine games during the season. Most FSU football fans would be happy with eight wins, and ecstatic with anything more than that as they haven’t won more than seven games since 2017.
That would be an excellent start for Mike Norvell and staff in their first year considering the circumstances of missing so much practice time due to the coronavirus.