FSU’s Guarantee Game Loss to Memphis Comes With $1.3M Price

Florida State came into the year ranked 10th in the preseason AP college football poll. Now they can’t buy a win. The Seminoles lost to Memphis 20–12 at home on Saturday, dropping their season record to 0–3. 

To rub salt in a raw wound: FSU paid the Tigers $1.3 million to play the guarantee game. Instead of walking away with an expected loss, Memphis is not only taking home the W, but also a hefty payout. Increasingly, major conference teams are finding these cupcake games are not always the assumed cakewalk.

In Week 0, Montana State earned $360,000 to travel to New Mexico, but came home with a surprising 34–31 victory. The biggest sticker shock yet is Notre Dame’s Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois: the Fighting Irish had dangled $1.4 million to a team that went 7–6 in the Mid-Atlantic Conference last year, only to put an early dent in its College Football Playoff hopes when it fell short 16–14 in South Bend.

Today, it was Florida State’s turnt. The reigning ACC champions entered the matchup a 6.5-point favorite against the Tigers, which have been looking to play their way out of the AAC and into a Power 4 conference. 

That spread might have been larger had the Noles not put in two underwhelming performances to start the year. On Aug. 24, they opened the season with a loss to unranked Georgia Tech, then fell Sept. 2 to Boston College at home. FSU is the only winless team in the 17-team ACC.