Florida State announces home-and-home with Boise

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- After several years of playing a weak nonconference football schedule, Florida State officials are now moving to make it one of the country's toughest.

The school announced Monday that it has agreed to a home-and-home series with perennial power Boise State for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

"Adding the Broncos to our football schedule continues our commitment to bringing top quality opponents to Doak Campbell Stadium," Florida State athletic director Randy Spetman said Monday. "We feel this will be an out of conference game that will be exciting for fans of both schools and appealing to TV networks

Spetman said Boise State will visit Tallahassee on Sept. 7, 2019. The Seminoles will travel to Boise, Idaho, for a Sept. 12, 2020, game. It'll mark the first meetings for the two schools.

Boise State has been one of the most successful BCS football programs over the last 11 seasons. The Broncos have finished in the top-20 of the Associated Press poll nine times during that span and won nine conference titles since 2002. Over that nine-year period the Broncos have produced a record of 129-15 (.896), appeared in 11 consecutive bowl games and won seven of those postseason contests.

Boise State head coach Chris Petersen is 84-8 since taking over the Boise State program in 2006.

"With our neutral site (Dallas) game versus Oklahoma State in 2014, the addition of Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC and now this series, we feel we are putting our football program in the best possible position to compete in the new BCS beginning in 2014," Spetman added.

Florida State will also start playing Notre Dame on a rotation basis as part of the Irish's commitment to play five Atlantic Coast Conference teams each year. Notre Dame has agreed to join the conference in all sports, but football. Depending on conference realignment moves, the Irish could be playing ACC schools as early as next year.

Florida State finished 12-2 and N0. 10 in The Associated Press' final poll of the season, but played a schedule that included two weak lower-division, Football Championship Subdivision, schools that severely damaged its strength of schedule. The Seminoles play only one FCS school, Bethune-Cookman, in 2013 with its other nonconference home games against Idaho and Nevada. Since Jimbo Fisher became head coach in the 2010 season, Florida State is 4-0 against lower-division schools, having outscored them by a combined 245-19.