Big 12 football: Florida State needs a better schedule

Here’s one reason for Florida State’s discontent in ACC football: the schedule. The Atlantic Coast Conference does not give Florida State enough good games.

The Seminoles are the good guys when it comes to scheduling. They wear the white hats. They are truth, justice and the American way of the past. Florida State plays good teams. Home-and-home with OU the last two years, to go along with FSU’s annual series against Florida. This year, the Seminoles had West Virginia set, until the Mountaineers bolted for the Big 12 and left Florida State scrambling.

Here’s Florida State’s home schedule for the 2012 season: Murray State, Savannah State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Duke and Florida.

Two games you can’t miss (Clemson, Florida); two games of solid entertainment value (Wake Forest, Boston College); and three putrid games (Murray State, Savannah State, Duke). When Wake Forest is in your upper tier of attractions, you’ve got issues.

And Florida State has issues. Florida State has to schedule games that people want to see. The Seminoles are not an automatic sellout, not anymore. Not like Florida or Alabama or Georgia or Texas or Oklahoma. Since the Bobby Bowden salad days in the ’90s, Doak Campbell Stadium fills up only on occasion. Tallahassee sits in the Florida Panhandle, which means the major metros of Florida are a fair drive away. You live in Tampa Bay, with plenty of entertainment options, and it’s a hard sell to drive 275 miles one way to go watch Savannah State.

Florida State’s slack ticket sales have caused budgetary problems. You can read more about that here.

The truth is, the ACC doesn’t get Florida State fans excited. Clemson and Miami and Virginia Tech? Sure. But the rest of the league? It’s not like Pitt and Syracuse are going to solve that problem.

Now, the Big 12 has its share of Wake Forests. Iowa State and Texas Tech aren’t likely to sell a bunch of tickets in Tallahassee. But the Seminoles have been padding their schedule for years with non-conference heavyweights: Florida every year, plus OU, Alabama, Brigham Young, Notre Dame, Louisville, all in the 2000s.

Play Miami or Florida every year at Tallahassee, plus regular trips from the likes of OU, Texas, OSU and West Virginia, and Florida State’s ticket-sellers have a little easier job. That’s part of the Seminoles’ infatuation with the Big 12.