FCS Overdose

Say what you will about Penn State's strength of schedule, but...

I was reading Stewart Mandel's article on SI.com about the August LSU-App St. matchup, the first ever between two reigning national champions, when Mandel brought up a rather sad and startling revelation.

Two respected ACC programs, Florida State and Clemson, have scheduled two FCS (AKA 1-AA) non-conference matchups.

According to their CSTV.com schedules, the Seminoles begin their season in Tallahassee against Western Carolina and Chattanooga and the Tigers will welcome two South Carolina universities, The Citadel and South Carolina State. (I see they've adopted Ohio State's strategy of winning the "state championship.")

Now, you can always go on to tell me that FSU and Clemson have their annual SEC battles with Florida and South Carolina, respectively... and that Colorado is flying to Jacksonville or that the Tigers are tussling with Nick Saban's Alabama squad in the Georgia Dome.

But honestly, two FCS opponents? What, was Florida International not available?

A lot of people griped about Hawaii's weak non-conference schedule last year, which incidentally also featured two FCS teams, Northern Colorado and Charleston-Southern. But at least Hawaii has an excuse since it's ridiculously difficult to feasibly get a decent FBS team to fly out to Honolulu for a weekend. That's understandable. But are teams really having a tough time finding the states of Florida or South Carolina? Or are things getting so bad in the ACC that athletic directors need to significantly pad their schedules?

Yes, Penn State opens their 2008 campaign with Coastal Carolina, but we follow with 10-4 Oregon State and Syracuse, a BCS opponent we scheduled several years ago. Yeah, Temple rounds out the non-conference slate, but at least they're a MAC (aka 1-A) team. Al Golden is making some pretty nice strides in Philly, too. At least we're not double dipping into the FCS pool.