Florida State is set to play against Southern Mississippi in the Independence Bowl next week, but it turns out they shouldn’t be a part of the game.
FSU went 6-6 this season, and many thought that their win over Louisiana-Monroe earlier this month made them bowl-eligible. It actually didn’t.
A Reddit user named “bakonydraco” posted on Reddit’s college football page Thursday explaining why FSU isn’t bowl-eligible. It all comes down to their win over FCS opponent Delaware State, which shouldn’t count towards bowl-eligibility because they did not give out enough scholarships.
From the Reddit post:
For an FCS opponent to be countable towards bowl eligibility, the FCS program must have awarded at least 90% of the FCS scholarship limit. After our own investigation, we have determined and confirmed that Delaware State has not met the 90% threshold set by the NCAA. As a result, Florida State’s bowl countable record is 5-6, thus making them ineligible for a bowl game this season. At present, there are three other bowl eligible teams that were not offered a game and it would be unprecedented for a team to go bowling without either eligibility or a waiver while teams who are eligible stay home.
The mistake has been confirmed.
“This monumental error should have been caught at three levels: the school, conference and NCAA,” a bowl industry source told reporter Brett McMurphy. “It’s too late to do anything now, they’ll still play in the game. If it was funny, it would be a comedy of errors.”
Buffalo, Western Michigan and UTSA are among the schools that were eligible for a bowl but missed out due to FSU being selected. Thanks to the error, Florida State will be playing in its 36th consecutive bowl.
