Florida State schedule: Who will hand the Seminoles their first loss in 2021?

Mike Norvell has to make big strides leading the Florida State football program this season.

After a rough first year in Tallahassee, Mike Norvell has to get his Florida State football team playing back up to its potential.

Florida State went a disastrous 3-6 in Norvell’s first year leading the program. Yes, Florida State has not been a well-run program for the better part of a decade and yes, 2020 was a COVID year, but this is also Florida State football we are talking about. This is the biggest blue-blood program in the ACC. This is a program that should be going 10-2 or 11-1 annually, so what happened to it?

While Florida State should be better this fall, when will the Seminoles suffer their first loss?

Florida State football schedule: When will the Seminoles lose their first game in 2021?

Unfortunately, the Seminoles draw the Notre Dame Fighting Irish right out of the gate. While Notre Dame will not be as good as the Irish were a year ago, Brian Kelly still has a top-eight program in the country. While this season-opening game will be on Sunday of Labor Day weekend at Doak Campbell Stadium, this is when the Seminoles should expect to drop their first game.

The good news for Florida State is this will be a home game for them. We also need to factor in the gap between Notre Dame and Florida State will not be as vast as it was a season ago, as Notre Dame will regress a tad and Florida State should hopefully be better under Norvell in year two. For the sake of argument, if Florida State does stun Notre Dame, how long can they stay undefeated?

With a home win over Notre Dame, Florida State should be able to win its next four games over Jacksonville State, at Wake Forest, Louisville and Syracuse. While they will probably fall on Oct. 9 to the North Carolina Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, they are definitely going to be losing three weeks later when they make the trek to Death Valley to face the ACC Atlantic rival Clemson Tigers.

Florida State will have to right for every victory to finish a game or two above .500 this fall.

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