College football games have sometimes been canceled on short notice over extreme weather or COVID-19, but reports of a season-opening game going down the day before it was scheduled to be played over player ineligibility are something new. Those spread around Twitter Friday ahead of the North Carolina Tar Heels’ planned hosting of the Florida A&M Rattlers Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, ACC Network), though, starting with reports from the Rattler Nation blog that covers Florida A&M and quickly expanding from there:
BREAKING: #RattlerNation, unfortunately, due to #NCAA certification issues, @FAMU_FB may NOT be competing in Chapel Hill this weekend, including major starters. The players are currently boycotting until @LRobinsonFAMU & AD Smith explain. #FAMU, stay tuned..
— Rattler Nation Blog – AMPLIFIED (@RattlerNationAM) August 26, 2022
BREAKING NEWS FAMU GAME CANCELED https://t.co/5HSmBeE97L
— OffScript_Tv (Hottest Live HBCU Show On Youtube) (@OffScript_Vidz) August 26, 2022
Sources: FAMU still hasn’t boarded a flight to North Carolina for their game at UNC tomorrow. There’s an expectation that FAMU would be playing shorthanded, as a significant amount of players – more than 10 – are facing eligibility issues. Expect a decision later today.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 26, 2022
Just spoke with Florida A&M head football coach Willie Simmons. There are twenty players that are ineligible, be it to academics or transfer eligibility.
He said only seven offensive lineman that can travel – that’s not enough to safely play a football game. https://t.co/ix3AnfgvLH
— Alison Posey (@AlisonPosey14) August 26, 2022
However, ESPN’s Thamel later noted that Florida A&M officials say the game will go on:
FAMU will play UNC this weekend, a school spokesman tells ESPN.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 26, 2022
And HBCU Gameday (a site covering historically black colleges and universities since 2012, which struck a partnership with the McClatchy newspaper group earlier this month) got some comments from both North Carolina and Florida A&M officials earlier Friday afternoon, which suggested the game would still be played:
UNC officials tell HBCU Gameday’s Skip Foreman that they were still planning for the game to go on.
In Chapel Hill, officials were making plans for Saturday as if the game was going to be played. Although a spokesman for the department wasn’t immediately available for comment, people connected with the athletics office said they had received no such word.
HBCU Gameday’s Vaughn Wilson reached out to FAMU officials to see the status for the visitors.
“The FAMU football team is delayed in their departure from Tallahassee. A source in the university expects the team to make the trip to Chapel Hill later today.”
And Thamel added details on how many players may be missing:
FAMU school spokesman tells ESPN that the school will be without 20 players against North Carolina because of eligibility issues. FAMU will have eight eligible offensive linemen for the game at UNC on Saturday.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 26, 2022
This will be worth keeping tabs on on several levels. First, having that game go on matters quite a bit for both UNC and Florida A&M: the Tar Heels are paying the Rattlers $450,000 to travel for this game (plus paying to bring in their band, and to put this on as a HBCU Celebration Game), and hoping to get their season off to a winning start after a 6-7 campaign last year. For the Rattlers, who play in the Division I FCS Southwestern Athletic Conference and posted a 9-3 record there last year, this is also a chance for their school and their players (including returning redshirt junior QB Rasean McKay, seen at left above ahead of a Nov. 20 game last year) to gain significant scouting and TV exposure by playing a Power Five FBS school. So not having it go on would be a blow for both sides. But having it go on with an extremely reduced Rattlers’ lineup and potential safety concerns carries its own issues. This will be well worth tracking.
[HBCU Gameday; photo from Alicia Devine/The Tallahassee Democrat, via USA Today Sports]
