Florida State, West Virginia settle on canceled football series

By Kevin Kelley -

FSU-WVUFlorida State athletic director Randy Spetman announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement with West Virginia on the cancellation of their 2012-13 football series.

West Virginia has agreed to pay Florida State $500,000 for the cancellation of the 2012 game which was to be played in Tallahassee on Sept. 8. FSU had to scramble to replace the game and ended up scheduling Savannah State.

The 2013 game, which was slated for Sept. 14 in Morgantown, was also canceled as part of the agreement.

The Mountaineers canceled the games due to their move into the Big 12 Conference. The Big 12 plays a nine-game conference schedule, which leaves only three non-conference games.

West Virginia had four games scheduled in both 2012 and 2013 and opted to cancel FSU. That left the Mountaineers with 2012 non-conference games at home against Marshall and Maryland and vs. James Madison at FedEx Field.

In addition to the game against Savannah State, the Seminoles host Murray State and Florida and travel to face USF.

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Comments (13)

Florida State scheduling Savannah State is incredibly lame. Who wants to watch that game? I don’t buy FSU’s excuse that they had to scramble to replace West Virginia. A lot of good FBS teams would’ve been willing to play Florida State. It mystifies me that big time college football programs spend millions on coaches, facilities, scholarships, etc., and then don’t want to compete at the highest level each and every week.

Most conferences had their non-conference schedules completed – only the Big East did not. The ACC likely told the ‘Noles the available weeks on their schedule and they probably did not coincide with the Big East teams who needed games. I’d agree with you if FSU scheduled another cupcake, but playing another FCS team adds nothing, and requires FSU to get to 7 wins to bowl eligibility. Further, it likely eliminates any BCS Championship chances this season.

In Tallahassee, it’s known knowledge that FSU called every single FBS school, all other 119, to try and schedule an FBS game, no just those with an open date, but it was too late of notice. Most teams had their entire schedule settled, outside of the Big East. The rumor is we were closest at landing Boise, but due to the unknown nature of how the Big East schedules were going to be settled, Boise didn’t want to schedule the game. But everyone knows in Tallahassee how hard the school tried to find an opponent, but only an FCS would say yes. Games like these are planned years in advance.

Season in and season out Florida State has been one of the ballsiest OOC-scheduling teams of the past 20+ years. This is the school that used to play Florida AND Miami OOC every year and very often played another powerhouse like Notre Dame, USC, or Michigan on top of that. Scheduling an opponent with next to no notice is not as easy as it sounds.

agree with Pete on this one. Got to give FSU a pass this year for having 2 fcs games on the docket. the real losers in this are the seminole fans as they miss having a high caliber out of conference team visiting. ESPN says jump and the big12 says high and they rush out and grab west virginia at the last minute. FSU should have been given more compensation.

This is like the 2nd time in the last five years that FSU has played two D-1AA achools as pathetic. Sad as no rule says you have to play one D-1AA team much less two. I am guessing FSU will score around 150 points in the first two weeks of the season.

OK I know for sure Louisville offered to play FL St on Sept-8 as they have Missouri State on that date and would have bought them out in a second, but Fl. St wouldn’t give Louisville the return game. The last time Fl. St played Louisville in Louisville the Cards upset them! The Seminoles where ranked #5 at that time.

FSU has never been a team to back-down from tough out of conference opponents. As an earlier poster said, before Miami joined the ACC, FSU played Miami and Florida as out of conference opponents every year. They just completed a series with Oklahoma. They had one scheduled for Texas A&M a few seasons back, but it got canceled. I’d put their schedule up against ANYONE’S in the country (except for the SEC conference schedule) as being the toughest. As for Louisville… I say, why bother? What does FSU gain by playing a middle of the rung Big East football team? Louisville is only 23-27 since 2008. That’d be Louisville’s biggest game two seasons in the row. FSU has nothing to gain by playing the Cardinals. I’m disappointed that WVU had to cancel. But, I hope to see some “FSU to the Big 12” news soon.

Bet you didn’t see Louisville beating the #3 team in the nation and earning a BCS SugarBowl championship…

The winner of the Big East gets an automatic bowl bid so it’s not really saying much and c’mon….who get’s their a*s kicked by Syracuse outside of Basketball? But it’ll be fun to watch the cardinals get a rude awakening when they figure out the ACC isn’t the big east

Also at the time Louisville offered that, I believe the WV ’13 was still scheduled, along with the 3 other non conference games. So FSU couldn’t do a home & home with Louisville at that time.

Any one who defends Fsu’s schedule has no right to do so if they had any balls whatsoever Murray State wouldn’t have been on their schedule in the first place. If Fsu is one of three undeafted teams at the end of the season they will be the odd man out Savanaha State was forced but Murray State wasn’t and it’s unaccaptable no matter how it happened to willingly put an FCS school on your schedule they only belong when unforeseen circumstances like WVU cancelling past history means nothing.

People need to stop crying. It’s not Fay’s fault that everyone backs out of playing them. Just shows the fear of the spear.