Clemson football woke up to disappointing news this morning.
It’s no secret now that the game between Clemson football and Florida State was postponed just three hours before kickoff as a result of FSU not being comfortable with the protocols that the ACC has in place for COVID-19.
The entire college football world knows it is simply because the Seminoles didn’t want to be embarrassed on national TV after more than a dozen players have either been injured or chosen to walk away from the 2020 season.
While beating them for a sixth straight time would have been amazing, there is a silver lining to today’s decision by FSU.
Matter of fact, there are three reasons to be happy about Florida State refusing to play Clemson this weekend.
Recruiting
Florida State built its program on the willingness to play anyone at any time and play them anywhere. The current state of the program is far from it and even former players are taking note of that.
If you are on social media and a part of @FSUFootball please sit your ass down please. You are 35 point underdog. Has lost to Clemson the last 2 year by a combine of 90 points. Love my school but that’s not it.
— COACH ANTONIO CROMARTIE (@CRO31) November 21, 2020
You know who else is taking note of the Seminoles chickening out on the game against Clemson football? Recruits.
Why would anyone with other options choose to go play for a program that bails out of games last minute? When you add in the fact that this once-proud program can’t win games they do play and aren’t going to bowl games anymore, it knocks this program back even further than they are.
Injuries
This is one of the biggest pluses to not having to play today for Clemson football.
Yes, it sucks that they traveled all the way to Tallahassee and spent nearly $300,000 making sure that social distancing protocols were followed but not risking anyone injuries playing a garbage 2-6 team is a good thing.
No, no one goes into a game playing scared and no one expects to get hurt, but Clemson has been hit a lot by the injury bug badly for the first time in a long time, and not risking additional injuries to curb stomp FSU is great.
The Clemson football defense has had several starters out for quite some time and giving them additional time to rest and recover for the Championship Phase of the season is something that the entire Clemson football fan base should rejoice over.
Injuries are a part of the game but if when you are a program like Clemson football and you end up not having to play one fewer meaningless game, no one should be mad.
Championship Phase
Clemson football isn’t scared to play anyone. They have taken the old Bobby Bowden model as we have seen by them agreeing to play UGA next season.
With all the difficulties in 2020, playing one less game will be better in the long run for Clemson football. When you look across college football and teams that are in the playoff hunt, they had all had games canceled or were playing far fewer games than Clemson football was going to.
This gives the Tigers a chance to heal and stay fresh and will provide for less wear and tear like Alabama and Ohio State will have. If you look at the overall body of work, even after today Ohio State has still played four fewer games than Clemson and their remaining three games are against teams with a combined record of 4-9.
That means Ohio State is going to head into the College Football Playoffs well-rested and healthy. Clemson catching this break is a good thing in the long run and will surely help them get everyone healthy and ready for the Championship Phase of the Clemson football season.