Clark: FSU football schedule just got tougher, but that's perfectly fine
The news came earlier than we expected. But when it was actually released on Wednesday afternoon, when the ACC announced its scheduling compromise for the 2020 football season, I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised.
Maybe you weren't. Maybe you see a Florida State schedule that includes arguably the three most talented teams in the conference -- Clemson, Notre Dame and Miami -- on it and wonder why the ACC made a point of sticking it to your favorite team yet again.
I'll be honest. I don't care about any of that right now. In fact, I think the opposite: That because of those games (as well as Florida, we hope!), head coach Mike Norvell and his staff will have multiple opportunities to earn one of those ever-so-elusive signature wins in their first season.
It's been so long since this program has had one of those, I can't even remember whose signature it actually was.
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Norvell will have at least four shots to get one in 2020. If there is a season, of course. I think we all understand that just because there IS a schedule, that doesn't mean all of those games will actually be played. We've still got a ways to go on that front.
But what happened on Wednesday was a positive step.
First and foremost: We now know exactly what the plan is. It feels like the Pac-12 and Big Ten made their conference-only announcements years ago at this point, and we were all starting to wonder what the ACC was waiting on.
Well, now we know.
Notre Dame is locked in. And we've got a 10-plus-1 model that should -- should! -- include the Florida State-Florida game at the end of the year, as well as Clemson-South Carolina, Georgia-Georgia Tech and Louisville-Kentucky.
"We are pleased with the plan we have adopted for fall sports in the ACC,” FSU athletics director David Coburn said in a statement Wednesday evening. “The plan to play an 11-game football schedule and, in our case, making an accommodation for our long-standing game against Florida is very positive. However, we regret that we will have to cancel the non-conference games (Boise State, West Virginia and Samford) we worked hard to schedule.
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