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FSU-UGA looking at Week Zero in 2028: Alford sheds more light on neutral-site game

On3 imageby: Ira Schoffel05/08/26iraschoffel

In his first public interview since news broke Thursday that Florida State’s home-and-home football series with the Georgia Bulldogs has been scrapped, FSU athletics director Michael Alford shared insight into the decision and potential plans for a neutral-site game in 2028.

During a podcast with ACC analysts Kelly Gramlich and Eric Mac Lain, Alford said administrators at both schools felt the series was untenable once the SEC and ACC both decided to go to nine-game conference schedules.

Florida State and Georgia had been scheduled to play on each other’s campuses during the 2027 and ’28 seasons.

“I hate taking the game away from Doak Campbell,” Alford said. “I think our fans would have loved to have gone, ‘between the hedges.’ But having our schedule, adding a ninth game, having Georgia on there as well, just created difficulty for our program.”

Because Florida State always plays rival Florida as one of its non-conference games, and with Georgia doing the same with Georgia Tech, those schools will automatically have 10 Power Four opponents each season going forward.

Alford said the concern with playing an 11th is not knowing how favorably it will be viewed by the College Football Playoff Committee. He pointed out that Texas scheduled aggressively last year by playing a season opener against Ohio State, and he believes the Longhorns were hurt by that 14-7 loss.

“They didn’t get credit in the [committee] room for playing that game,” Alford said.

The Florida State athletics director made it clear several times during the interview that the Seminoles are still planning to play Georgia. He said seven cities have reached out about luring the teams to play a neutral-site Week Zero game in 2028.

“We’re still going to play,” Alford said.

And in light of Duke recently announcing that three upcoming men’s basketball games will be streamed by Amazon in a revenue-generating move, Alford said FSU and Georgia are open to seeing if something similar can be arranged for their contest.

“We’re always going to explore all options,” Alford said. “We want to be good partners always. We have a television contract — ESPN’s with the SEC, and of course they’re the partner with the ACC. I’ve already had discussions with ESPN. But we also want to explore all options.”

Talk about this story with other die-hard FSU football fans on the Tribal Council.

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