FSU Seminoles

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Jimbo Fisher got his wish, and the ACC will move forward with an eight-game conference football schedule, the league announced Wednesday.

Fisher had railed against the proposed nine-game slate, which would severely limit non-conference scheduling for teams like Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech, who already play an annual rivalry game against an out-of-conference foe.

With Notre Dame coming on board as a partial member of the ACC -- set to play five games a year against ACC opponents -- another wrinkle was added to the mix, making it financially problematic for member schools who want to maintain seven home games each season for revenue purposes.

But while the change of course back to the current eight-game slate offers Florida State more flexibility, it also means the Seminoles will need to find at least one more opponent to fill out their 2013 schedule.

Currently FSU has non-conference games against Wofford, Nevada and Florida scheduled for next season, but losing the ninth ACC game opens up a vacancy. Meanwhile, Nevada is hoping to withdraw from its scheduled trip to Tallahassee next season and is working with Florida State to find a viable alternative opponent.

The Seminoles endured similar last-minute scheduling issues this season when West Virginia pulled out of a planned Week 2 meeting in February, forcing FSU to scramble for a replacement. The school eventually settled on Savannah State, an FCS program that won just one game last year. The game had low attendance and FSU won in a route, despite weather putting an end to the contest midway through the third quarter.

With the tepid response to the Savannah State game among fans and questions swirling about how Florida State's lackluster schedule will affect its chances at a national championship, it seems likely AD Randy Spetman will want to avoid scheduling a second FCS foe for 2013, but he said the process of filling out next year's slate is only in its infancy.

"The change in the ACC's schedule plans obviously happened very quickly over the last few days," Spetman said. "We are immediately assessing what that will mean for Florida State, but speculating about potential opponents is premature right now. It is particularly difficult to plan too far in the future without knowing where and when Notre Dame is going to fit into schedules."

The plan for Notre Dame at this point would be for each ACC team to play one home game and one road game against the Irish every six years. When and where the first of those meetings would take place for Florida State remains a mystery.

Things will be a bit simpler in basketball, where the new schedule -- which includes Notre Dame as a full member -- will be an 18-game slate that includes one game annually against every other ACC team. Each team also will play an annual home-and-home series against two partner teams, which for FSU will be Clemson and Miami.

The easiest way for Florida State athletics director Randy Spetman to capture the importance of the ACC's new agreement with Notre Dame was to offer an alternative.

"If you woke up this morning and read that Notre Dame had gone to the Big 12 or the Big Ten, what would you think of the ACC today?" Spetman said.

From the national branding to the name recognition to the rich history and Hollywood lore, Notre Dame brings a level of cache that the ACC didn't want to lose.

But amid all the buzz that followed the announcement that the Irish would join the ACC in all sports except football -- where they'll play five games per year -- what was largely ignored was that Notre Dame simply hasn't been a very good football program in the past two decades.

For Florida State fans, the two programs will be forever intertwined thanks to the "Game of the Century" in 1993. Notre Dame prevailed, but was felled a week later by Boston College, and in the end, it was Florida State that hoisted the national championship trophy.

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