Technically, Florida State shouldn't be playing in a bowl game this year
- by Barry Paul
- in Medicine
- — Dec 23, 2017
5 Florida, this team looks more than ready to make a run to the NCAA Tournament and is deserving of its top 25 ranking.
Wide receiver Nyqwan Murray says injured quarterback Deondre Francois needs to do a better job of playing less music the players can dance to and play more songs to help them get "crunk" as the Seminoles prepare for their matchup with Southern Miss in the Independence Bowl on December 27 in Shreveport, La.
Florida State notably had to scramble to get to bowl eligibility this year.
Florida State should have been deemed ineligible based on the scholarship status of their FCS opponent this season.
According to Reddit user bakonydraco, Florida State's win over FCS school Delaware State, a 77-6 blowout on November 18th, may not count towards the Seminoles' bowl eligibility per NCAA rules. As the number of bowls also grew, the NCAA allowed FBS teams to count a victory against an FCS team toward six-win bowl eligibility if that FCS team had used 90 percent of its allotted scholarship money.
Given that we're less than a week away from the Independence Bowl between Florida State and Southern Miss, even Reddit acknowledges that nothing significant is likely to come of this report in terms of the Seminoles actually not playing in the game.
Delaware State handed over scholarship data to /r/CFB and after crunching the numbers, they found "the average of of grants-in-aid per year in football during a rolling two-year period is 54.815. We're continuing preparations for our game", Stefan Nolet, media relations director for the Independence Bowl, told the Sentinel. The Seminoles rescheduled the game, which had been postponed indefinitely due to Hurricane Irma, to give the players a chance to play their way into the postseason and continue the streak.
This means that they were not in compliance with Exception 18.7.2.1.1 in the NCAA Division I Manual.
FSU is expected to use around 3,000 of its bowl allotment 6,000 tickets, according to school officials.
After beating Delaware State, Florida and ULM consecutively, the Noles received a bid to the Independence Bowl at 6-6.
Florida State interim coach Odell Haggins discusses the hiring of new head coach Willie Taggart's hiring on Friday.
