Notre Dame looks to take another step towards the College Football Playoff on Saturday and welcomes a powerhouse program that has won three national championships since 1993 to town.

That team is Florida State and despite going 13-0 last regular season, this Florida State team isn’t competing for anything.

The Seminoles come in just 1-7 and only scored more than 16 points in a game once all season – that coming in Week 0 in Ireland.

So does Notre Dame keep it rolling against Florida State?

Just how much will the Irish win by as they move to 8-1?

Here is what the Notre Dame on SI staff sees happening under the lights Saturday in South Bend.

Notre Dame vs. Florida State Predictions: Jeff Feyerer

31 years after the most important Notre Dame game of my lifetime when No. 2 Notre Dame defeated the top ranked Seminoles this game is decidedly not that. Mike Norvell’s team has gone from just missing out on the playoff last season to going 1-8 with seemingly no hope. They’re catching an Irish team a) coming off a bye b) playing their best football of the season and c) motivated by the latest playoff rankings and their clear path to a spot in the postseason.

Score prediction: Notre Dame 38, Florida State 10

Bold Prediction: I’m being conservative by my score estimate despite having the Irish covering.

Notre Dame vs. Florida State Predictions: Nathan Erbach

I like Notre Dame to run up the score on Saturday night and win convincingly against a talented, yet bad Florida State football team. 20 points might be too much, but I think the Seminoles score a garbage touchdown once the Irish have the backups in. Overall, Florida State should have a difficult time scoring on Notre Dame’s defense and the Irish offense picks up where it has left off the last several weeks and the passing and running game continue to work well in unison. 

Game Prediction: Notre Dame 48, Florida State 20

Bold prediction: Leonard Moore picks off two passes Saturday night inside Notre Dame Stadium. 

Notre Dame vs. Florida State Predictions: Mason Plummer

Florida State has given up on the season and Notre Dame handles business, the way Freeman has in night games in Notre Dame Stadium.

Score Prediction: Notre Dame 45, Florida State 10

Bold Prediction: Mitchell Evans goes for 50+ and a touchdown and he continues to establish himself as one of the best TE in recent Notre Dame history.

Notre Dame vs. Florida State Predictions: John Kennedy

With Notre Dame firmly positioned in playoff position entering November, 1-8 Florida State heads to South Bend for a game that isn’t going to look or feel anything like what most folks had figured it would prior to the season. Notre Dame’s top-five defense will eat alive the Seminoles’ 133/134-ranked scoring offense. The Irish offense will establish a strong ground game but will be eager to throw it around a bit as well, shaking off the rust from two weeks off and preparing for a playoff push. 

Game Prediction: Notre Dame 41, Florida State 6

Bold Prediction: The Notre Dame offense shows some new wrinkles as Mike Denbrock’s trust in Riley Leonard and the offensive line has grown.

Notre Dame vs. Florida State Predictions: Nick Shepkowski

In talking to some of those that know much more of the details of the Florida State program than myself this week it somehow sounds worse than the 1-7 record would indicate in Tallahassee. This is as bad of offense as there is in college football coming to South Bend on Saturday. Expect Notre Dame to have to work get things going offensively but for Florida State to not be able to sustain a drive all night.

Game Prediction: Notre Dame 52, Florida State 0

Bold Prediction: Florida State has never lost a regular season game by 50 or more points.

Until Saturday.

Notre Dame updates depth chart for Florida State clash

College Football Playoff Projections Overhauled After Wild Week 10

Former Heisman Trophy Winner Gives Notre Dame Massive Praise

Notre Dame’s Next Opponent is Fresh Off Brutal Home Loss

It is no secret that Notre Dame is, and should be, a heavy favorite heading into Saturday night’s matchup against Florida State. The Seminoles are down tremendously bad this season, currently sporting a 1-8 record.

Just about everything that could go wrong for Florida State has so far, as it has seemingly been unable to recover from missing the College Football Playoff last season. Mike Norvell’s squad missed the four-team playoff last year by one spot, finishing fifth, then got trounced by Georgia in its bowl game, 63-3, and has not been the same since.

Florida State did lose a good amount of talent to the NFL this past offseason, but a program of its caliber should be able to reload and consistently compete at the highest level of college football.

Many expected the Seminoles to be great again this season as they ranked No.10 coming into the season, before inexplicably dropping its first game of the season to Georgia Tech. Maybe inexplicably isn’t the right word here, however, as the ‘Noles have proceeded to lose another seven games, and five straight.

So, in short, while this team is lacking in belief and likely wanting the season to be over, there is a ton of talent left on it and it could be woken up in a night game that could eliminate Notre Dame from playoff contention if FSU were to somehow rise-up and take down the Irish on Saturday night.

However, Vegas does not see that happening in the slightest.

Notre Dame opened as a 24.5-point favorite on Sunday and a -4500 money line selection. Since, the odds have jumped to Notre Dame -25.5 and the Irish are now a -7000 money line favorite.

It goes without saying, Notre Dame is expected to beat down the Seminoles on Saturday night under the lights. I’m sure Irish fans will have preferred a more competitive game for Notre Dame’s one and only night game this season, but the vibe in Notre Dame Stadium should be electric.

Notre Dame updates depth chart for Florida State clash

College Football Playoff Projections Overhauled After Wild Week 10

Former Heisman Trophy Winner Gives Notre Dame Massive Praise

Notre Dame’s Next Opponent is Fresh Off Brutal Home Loss

Because I grew up in Florida’s white-sand Panhandle, I consider myself a connoisseur of our most beautiful beaches. Trust me when I tell you the ones in Fernandina Beach are quite lovely — 13 miles of pristine quartz sand at the tip of Amelia Island, fronting the Atlantic Ocean close to the Georgia border.

A couple of years ago, “Southern Living” named Fernandina one of the South’s Prettiest Towns, in part because of its 52-block historic district that includes Florida’s oldest bar, the Palace Saloon. Adding to the enjoyment of my visit there, Fernandina is the birthplace of Florida’s modern shrimping industry, and I love shrimp as much as Forrest Gump’s Army buddy Bubba.

So, imagine my surprise when I heard that the multinational corporation Rayonier wants to build a factory there. Not just any factory, either. It’s a bioethanol plant that would produce about 7.5 million gallons of the alternative fuel each year.

Not everyone in Fernandina Beach is thrilled about this.

“We’re not against ethanol,” Julie Ferreira of the Sierra Club’s Nassau County chapter told me this week. “We’re just against where they want to put it.”

Among other things, opponents are worried about the tendency of such plants to blow up. In just the past two years there have been ethanol plant explosions in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and South Dakota.

Six explosions in two years — that’s not exactly a reassuring safety record.

The city’s comprehensive plan for future growth specifically says no chemical or petroleum plants are allowed to be built in Fernandina Beach. The city’s own attorneys said that means Rayonier can’t legally build this plant in the city.

But Rayonier disagrees, contending that its plant would not use chemical processes and thus isn’t covered by the comp plan. Its efforts have been aided by its connections with some powerful folks. That includes the mayor, who coincidentally works for Rayonier.

So far, the company has the upper hand in this fight — thanks in large part to our fine Florida Legislature, which recently changed the rules on challenging pollution permits.

Picture David versus Goliath, except David has to tie one hand behind his back, because of course the Legislature felt sorry for poor Goliath.

Just like beer

Rayonier built its first plant in Fernandina in 1937, so it kiiiiind of fits with the historic district.

That plant is a pulp mill, turning wood into paper products. It employs more than 300 people.

A year ago, the company proposed using a sugar byproduct of the pulp process to create ethanol, which is used not only as a fuel additive (more than 98% of gasoline in the U.S. contains some) but also as food coloring and a solvent. Rayonier proposed this because “there is growing demand for renewable alternatives to petroleum-based products,” company spokesman Mark Homans told me. “We’ve operated in Fernandina Beach for nearly 85 years. To stay competitive, we have to keep innovating.”

“Fundamentally, the process … is the same fermentation process used to make beer,” the company’s attorneys contended in a legal motion. Somehow, though, breweries don’t blow up nearly as often.

Ethanol “is a cleaner, greener alternative to fossil-fuel based gasoline and will help sustain 300 good-paying local manufacturing jobs, be good for local property values, and support the economy in Fernandina Beach,” the company boasted on its website. It even promised that the ethanol plant would lower the amount of harmful air pollution now spewing from the pulp mill.

I’d contacted Rayonier officials to ask for their safety plans for this $50 million grenade — er, excuse me, plant. Homans told me the plant “will include a dedicated fire suppression system and continuous monitoring technology and will also have its own concrete containment area. … It will fully comply with all local, state, and federal regulations.” That last part sounds, as one notorious Florida grifter put it, like “a concept of a plan.”

In March, the Florida Department of Pitiful Shrugs — er, excuse me, “Environmental Protection” — issued a notice that it intended to approve the plant’s air pollution permit. That spurred 150 residents to crowd into what the local paper described as a “country-western themed auditorium” to figure out how to fight back. Yee-haw!

Not joining the fight: Fernandina Beach Mayor Bradley Bean. He’s the son of U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, who is such a great friend of nature that the League of Conservation Voters gave him a lifetime score of 0%. Clearly, the apple didn’t fall far from the poisonwood tree.

LinkedIn shows the mayor is employed as a storeroom supervisor at the Rayonier pulp plant. He’s also a huge fan of his employer’s ethanol plans.

“This is a huge, huge environmental win locally and globally,” Bean told the Nassau County Chamber of Commerce in August. “The environmental win locally is the significant reduction in emissions. … I think with that being said, it’s a no-brainer when it comes to what we currently have versus the final state.”

He added that the opponents were spreading ” a lot of misinformation out there about safety.” That comment particularly ticked off Tom Budd, president of No Ethanol Fernandina, who said any misinformation was coming from proponents of the plant.

“This product should not be produced on a barrier island, so close to residences, schools, churches, and our historic downtown,” Budd told the Fernandina Observer.

But soon Budd had to back down, thanks to Florida lawmakers.

A Looney Tunes plan

When I talked to Budd this week, he told me he was directly affected by Rayonier’s ethanol proposal.

“I live in the shadow of the plant,” the onetime New Jersey tavern owner told me. “When I learned they wanted to add this to the plant, I was curious, so I started to learn about it.”

He not only attended a happy-talk town hall that Rayonier put on, he invited Rayonier officials to visit his home and explain it to him. The main question he asked was a variation on the one Sir Lawrence Olivier asks Dustin Hoffman in “Marathon Man”: “Is it safe?”

The more he heard, the less he liked what was in the works. That’s how he wound up as the head of the No Ethanol Fernandina coalition.

“It became obvious to me that this was a Looney Tunes plan,” he told me.

No Ethanol Fernandina’s first step: challenge the ethanol plant’s DEP pollution permit. Their attorney filed for a trial in front of a judge from the state Division of Administrative Hearings.

“This project did not meet … applicable statutes and regulations required for preconstruction review.,” the attorney, Ralf Brookes, wrote in the petition for the hearing.

Budd had a professional chemist lined up to testify to the problems with the permit, and at no charge to the organization, either. The case was as good as they could make it — not to stop the plant, but to ensure it would be required to be as safe as possible, Budd explained.

The frequently finicky division agreed that Budd’s petition raised legitimate questions that deserved a fuller investigation. The hearing was set for Nov. 18-20, and in Fernandina Beach to boot.

The two sides took depositions from the witnesses and filed what attorneys call “interrogatories,” which is a $200 word meaning “questions.”

Rayonier refused to provide answers, claiming everything about its manufacturing process was proprietary and confidential. Budd and Brookes had to ask the judge to straighten that out.

But then Rayonier played its ace in the hole, one provided by the Legislature.

The company’s stable of high-priced attorneys from Lewis, Longman and Walker notified Budd and Brookes that they would file a motion for sanctions to punish them for what they called a “frivolous” lawsuit.

That would mean Budd and Brookes would be on the hook for Rayonier’s legal fees, estimated at $300,000.

Brookes, a sole practitioner, said he couldn’t risk that. He withdrew from the case.

Budd’s own family members who are in the legal profession in other states told him the motion had no merit. But Budd said he couldn’t find anyone else in Florida who would take over the case.

“I don’t know how I could go forward without an attorney,” Budd told me. “So, I had to withdraw.”

Now there will be no hearing on the permit and nothing to stop DEP from issuing a flawed version to let the project continue.

Balanced like the Leaning Tower

The law that allowed Rayonier’s corporate attorneys to make such an outrageous claim was the brainchild of state Sen. Danny Burgess, R-idiculous, who happens to be a corporate attorney himself in Pasco County.

You may recall that Burgess sponsored one of the worst environmental bills last year, one that would have gotten rid of local regulations for cleaner water and protection of wetlands. Thank heaven that one failed to pass.

This bill, however, did pass and Gov. Ron “I Saved Everyone from Stinky Weed Even Though It’s More Popular Than I Am” DeSantis signed it into law without a qualm.

It called for environmental groups and residents to be forced to pay the legal fees for companies and state agencies if they challenge state environmental permits and lose. Before this bill, losing a challenge only involved such a risk if the case was clearly frivolous.

“Whoever is sponsoring that bill — why don’t they just come out and admit they don’t want there to be environmental regulation in Florida?” one environmental attorney commented to Politico when it was first filed.

Burgess called that hyperbole. He claimed it was “a balanced bill,” which is true only if you think the Leaning Tower of Pisa is balanced.

Burgess’ bill marked one more way our legislators have tilted the law in favor of their donors — major corporations like Rayonier, rapacious developers, phosphate miners, Big Sugar — and against anyone who dares to stand in their way. Their goal: Discourage dissent, which can slow down construction plans and cost money.

But Budd told me the Fernandina fight isn’t furnished.

Elections have consequences

The first step happened Tuesday, when Mayor Bean lost his bid for reelection to the city commission.

The no-brainer mayor was beaten by Joyce Tuten, a retired science teacher who volunteers for sea turtle patrol, shorebird nest protection, and horseshoe crab tagging. She’s made it clear that she’s not a Rayonier fan, as Bean has been.

When she first heard about Rayonier’s ethanol plans, she told a Jacksonville TV station, her reaction was, “Whoa, wrong location.”

Bean wasn’t the only loser in the commission races, either.

“Every race was won by candidates who favor No Ethanol Fernandina,” Budd told me.

With no one challenging the DEP permit, the crucial decision now is the city building permit. But that permit doesn’t require a vote of the city commission, Budd said. Instead, the decision to issue it or not would fall to the city manager, who works for the city commission.

The just-hired city manager is a woman named Sarah Campbell. She’s married to Congressman Bean’s district director, which may have helped with her hiring.

Campbell replaced a guy named Dale Martin, who was fired last year on a 3-2 vote led by Bean. I’m told Martin was opposed to the ethanol plant because he’d worked in Savannah in 2008 when the Imperial Sugar plant there exploded.

While the decision now seems to be up to Campbell (who starts the job later this month), there’s a catch. Any official who wants to approve the ethanol plant permit will first have to find a way around the comprehensive plan’s ban on chemical plants. It’s either that or amend the plan, Budd said. The latter would require a vote by the commission.

In short, he said, despite withdrawing his permit challenge, “I’m still in the fight.”

I wish Budd and his allies the best of luck. But I’m sure someone in Tallahassee is monitoring the situation and plotting how to tip the scales of justice juuuuust a little further in favor of those unpopular, occasionally exploding polluters. I’m as sure that’s happening as I am that there’s lots of sand at the beach.