Irish Invade Tallahassee
This Saturday, College GameDay will descend on Doak Campbell Stadium for one of the biggest games of the season to date. We’re entering the halfway point, but this is already shaping up to be a big game in the national sense, and for the inaugural College Football Playoff.
The undefeated Notre Dame Fighting Irish come into Tallahassee to take on the similarly unbeaten Florida State Seminoles. This game may be a de facto elimination game for the CFP. The winner has a shot to side step the biggest landmine of the season and set their sights on the final four.
Neither team is a shoe-in to finish unbeaten, but FSU has the luxury of the slightly easier path than the Irish.
Sports outlets are already in Tallahassee to cover the off-field issues happening with Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston. The biggest news coming in this week is Winston’s involvement with the same autograph authenticator as Georgia running back Todd Gurley, who been suspended indefinitely by the Bulldogs following the report he received payments for autographs.
Whether or not Winston suits up Saturday (I bet he does) this game will have the feel of a mid-season bowl. Winston sat out a home game versus Clemson earlier in the season for behavioral punishment, and the Seminoles made it out unscathed. Florida State will need their star quarterback if they are to test the Irish defense that has been stellar this season, apart from their last (look-ahead?) game against North Carolina. The Tar Heels hung 43 on the Irish in South Bend, and thanks to their bend then break defense the Heels were beaten by a touchdown.
Who’s Left to Stop the ‘Noles?
Getting by the Irish would leave FSU’s biggest hurdle a Thursday night game in Louisville. The Cardinals lost a tough one at Clemson, dropping a defensive struggle that put Louisville in third place in the Atlantic. Louisville’s defense is ranked third in the nation in points allowed, giving up just 14.1 per game through this week. They looked similar in many facets to Clemson, a team that came the closest to knocking off the Noles. Getting the game at home will fuel the fire in Louisville, and Papa John’s Stadium will be rocking with the national spotlight all theirs.
The winner of the Coastal Division will get Florida State (if they do win the Atlantic) in the ACC Championship Game come early December. Virginia leads the division right now, and its only losses were to then-ranked teams, one of which was at BYU with Taysom Hill. FSU plays Virginia and Miami in their interdivision games this season, so we’ll get a glimpse of how the perceived weaker division handles the consensus favorite.
Florida State Clinging to CFP Slot
I am a bowl season junkie. For all the gripes about the number of bowls, and the inclusion of suspect 6-6 teams, I watch as many as possible. On the Tuesday morning after the championship game, I’m looking for bowl predictions for the next season. I want a good eight months of prognosticating before anyone even takes the field. With the addition of the playoff this year, my seeking out projections went into high gear.
Starting with those initial trickles of guesses earlier this year, one team has maintained their place in all the picks I’ve seen: Florida State. They may have taken a back seat to Mississippi State and Ole Miss in the past few weeks, but the Seminoles have remained the unanimous pick to run the table and play in New Orleans or Pasadena.
The main four I saw all summer long were Florida State, Alabama, Oregon and Oklahoma. For the past five years it seems pundits have been clamoring for an Alabama-Oregon tilt. They’ve been penciled in to face each other for the national title several years in a row in preseason predictions, and now with four teams getting a shot, why not put the Tide and the Ducks against each other in The Granddaddy of Them All?
While three of the above-mentioned four have fallen off of most boards I see (some see Oregon winning out and getting a one-loss bid), Florida State has remained on most CFP predictions. Beating Notre Dame would keep that streak intact, and an Irish win would vault them into the picture as well.
If FSU does lose a game, it will have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the ACC. With the Seminoles in the Playoff, the conference would get two teams into the New Year’s Six Bowls, as the Orange Bowl is taking the best team left. With the ACC near the bottom in the Power Five Conference pecking order, a loss may put an ACC team out of the loop. It might send a team like Clemson out of the New Year’s Six, and the rest of the bowl eligible ACC teams down a tier in bowls.
Number Crunchers Like FSU Too
ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Florida State the second best chance out of the remaining unbeatens to finish without a loss. Marshall is atop the whole pile with an over 40% probability to win out. The Thundering Herd do not have the strength of schedule other top FPI teams do with a remaining strength of schedule ranking of 102. The Seminoles SOS rank is 30, and their win out percentage is right around 23.
No matter what numbers, guessing, and crystal balls say, if Jameis Winston winds up suspended like Todd Gurley, the whole outlook will change for the Seminoles. Even for Saturday’s Notre Dame clash, Las Vegas took the game off the board for betting, as the spread will change with respect to Winston’s eligibility. If the defending Heisman Trophy winner’s status remains unchanged, Florida State will likely stay in the national title picture, a constant in an already unpredictable year.
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