The first two-thirds of the 2024 season are over and Florida State has just one win to show for it through eight games. Though no longer bowl-eligible, the Seminoles have an opportunity to end the season on a strong note and carry some momentum into the offseason after a disappointing year. The good news is that FSU will play three of its final four games at home, the bad news is that three of those four opponents (North Carolina, Notre Dame, Florida) are all fighting for a shot at the postseason.
The Seminoles do have a long streak in their favor entering the matchup against the North Carolina Tar Heels on Saturday afternoon. North Carolina head coach Mack Brown is 0-11 against Florida State (0-8 at UNC, 0-3 at Tulane) dating back to his first matchup against the program in 1985. This is probably the best chance Brown will have to defeat FSU, considering the way the season has gone thus far in Tallahassee.
North Carolina is coming off a win over Virginia where its defense recorded a whopping ten sacks. That could present an issue for a Florida State offensive line that has started seven different starting combinations in eight games. Plus, the Tar Heels are averaging 190.8 rushing yards per game, led by Omarion Hampton, who has already crossed the 1,000+ mark in just eight appearances.
READ MORE: UNC Head Coach Mack Brown Discusses FSU Ahead Of Return To Tallahassee
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Our staff provides their predictions and analysis as the Seminoles prepare to take on the Tar Heels.
Another weekend, another embarrassing loss for Florida State. Falling by 3+ touchdowns to Miami is unacceptable in any year, even if this is sizing up to be arguably the worst in program history. The majority of the goodwill the Seminoles have built up over the last two years has essentially been thrown into the trash and it’s clear major changes are needed if Mike Norvell is going to remain in Tallahassee long-term.
At this point, with eight games played, it’s hard to believe that FSU can do anything to fix its pathetic offense. The Seminoles have tried quarterback changes, they’ve played younger skill players, they’ve tinkered with the offensive line, and nothing has worked. When something does finally start to go right, Florida State shoots itself right in the foot with a bad pass, dropped ball, missed block, or penalty. It feels like an episode of ‘Punk’d’ with Ashton Kutcher each weekend spending four quarters watching this offense.
The defense has been playing slightly better but there’s still much to be desired. Three of the starting four of the defensive front were missing in action against Miami as Marvin Jones Jr., Patrick Payton, and Joshua Farmer combined for one tackle in 156 snaps last Saturday. That’s unbelievably bad and it’s worse when you figure out that redshirt freshman KJ Sampson recorded six tackles in just 17 snaps.
I don’t know why anything would get better against North Carolina when this team has nothing left to play for. I also thought the practice I viewed on Wednesday was arguably the worst of the season. There’s not really much of a reason to think positively going into a matchup against the Tar Heels, who are still trying to clinch bowl eligibility. It might get ugly on Saturday.
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2024 Season Prediction Record: 5-3
Tar Heels 38, Seminoles 13
This one I’m going to keep fairly short because of two stats that standout to me.
Number one: North Carolina is ranked 29th in the country in points per game at 32.3. Yes, you can say they’ve faced bad teams to score those points. Surprise! FSU is a bad football team. Doesn’t matter.
Number two: The Tar Heels are averaging 3.3 sacks per game, which is seventh in the country. They recorded 10 sacks LAST WEEKEND against Virginia. Yes, Virginia is not a good team. Surprise! Florida State is worse. And don’t get me started about the Seminoles’ offensive line.
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2024 Season Prediction Record: 5-3
Tar Heels 28, Seminoles 16
I don’t care how bad a team’s defense is, Florida State’s offense is worse. Omarion Hampton will likely run all over FSU’s defense, and the offense won’t be enough to overcome it. UNC’s passing game has been rough, but it won’t matter towards the final result.
2024 Season Prediction Record: 4-4
Tar Heels 23, Seminoles 10
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Florida State has shown little development over the course of eight weeks. Therefore, the ‘Noles have left me with little reason to think anything will be different going forward. The statistics aren’t far off from that belief, as well. UNC has given up an average of 28.4 points per game, which ranks 96th among FBS programs. However, that average is significantly affected by a 70-point performance from James Madison earlier in the season. For the most part, UNC is a middle-of-the-road team, with team averages that rank in the 30-40 range when compared to the rest of the country.
The problem here is that Florida State is statistically poor in all respects. The rushing attack ranks 131st, the passing attack has dipped into the low 100 range, and the defense yields an average of 379.4 yards and 26.4 points per game. FSU’s most glaring issue, however, is their inability to find the end zone. The ‘Noles average the nation’s second worst scoring offense at 14.9 points per game, and as is common knowledge at this point, they are the only FBS team to not score more than 21 points at any point this season. Despite improvements from the defensive side of the ball, Florida State’s offense remains dead in the water. As long as that’s the case, there’s very little reason to believe that the Seminoles can outscore any of their opponents, especially a UNC team that hasn’t scored less than 20 since their Week 1 game against Minnesota.
The outlook is grim, and it’s not hard to see why. ESPN’s matchup predictor positions UNC as the slight favorite to leave with a victory at 52.9%, which means this game is essentially a coin flip. Vegas oddsmakers share this sentiment with a spread of just (-2) in favor of the Tar Heels at the time of writing this article. For all intents and purposes, most believe the game is a toss-up, and one that the ‘Noles can potentially win. As I’ve stated before, I’ve seen little from the ‘Noles that showcase a team that is capable of scoring enough to keep the Tar Heels close, especially a Tar Heel team that is coming off consecutive performances of 30+ points.
I believe the Seminole defense will keep things within striking distance for a large majority of the game, but offensive deficiencies will keep the ‘Noles off of the board and allow the Tar Heels to slowly accumulate points and eventually push things out of reach. Unfortunately, the Florida State home crowd will have to watch yet another first come off of the board for an FSU opponent. UNC will leave Tallahassee with the first win over the ‘Noles for a Mack Brown-led football program in the history of the coach’s illustrious career. In the meantime, I’ll be praying for some sort of Halloween miracle on behalf of the ‘Noles.
2024 Season Prediction Record: 4-4
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Tar Heels 31, Seminoles 17
There can’t be much of a case made for Florida State this season. The record speaks for itself, and it appears that whatever transfers they’ve brought in to replenish their team have either been wrought with injury or, for the most part, been misevaluated. There needs to be a spark on offense for any chance at a win this weekend.
It is a home game, and Norvell is arguably the better coach, but if there isn’t anything happening in the offensive line and receiver rooms, the trickle-down effect will likely provide another anemic glimpse into a team that has been put through the wringer, unable to outperform their competition.
This is a tough game to predict because Florida State has a very talented defensive front and secondary that have started to make strides in the right direction, but there have been no answers at wide receiver aside from Ja’Khi Douglas and some of the newcomers on offense. Running backs Lawrance Toafili and Sam Singleton have been bright spots, but in the absence of the players that were brought in, they’ve seemed to be the only bullets in what was once a fully loaded FSU team last year.
Doom and gloom isn’t necessarily my thing, but the two biggest flags that stand out for me are Florida State’s inability to score more than 21 points all season (averaging around 14 per game) and the fact that UNC has a 1,000-yard rusher going against a defensive line that has struggled against the run.
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It is a little weird that the over/under is 50.5, and UNC is only favored by 2.5. I’m going to go with UNC winning by three scores.
2024 Season Prediction Record: 4-4
Tar Heels 35, Seminoles 14
The Florida State Seminoles’ disastrous season will be one game closer to the end, though it won’t come without a tough loss. North Carolina has proven capable of scoring points, which the Seminoles have struggled with. The Seminoles will take yet another tough loss while the young guys are showing flashes of the future.
2024 Season Prediction Record: 5-3
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Tar Heels 31, Seminoles 17
It’s hard to see any hope in this team, week after week they continue to give me no sense of optimism that things are heading in the right direction this season, and even though even just a few weeks ago I still had hope that the Seminoles would be able to get another win this weekend, I no longer have reason to believe that is going to happen. The Tar Heels are coming off their best win of the season after blowing out Virginia 41-14, and even though I think that the Florida State defense will keep the score a bit lower, this UNC team has scored more than 34 points in five of their eight games, meaning that even though they sit at 4-4, they still have some offensive production, which is what is missing in Tallahassee this year.
2024 Season Prediction Record: 4-4
Tar Heels 31, Seminoles 13
If Florida State cannot stop the run, I just don’t see a path to victory for them. North Carolina running back Omarion Hampton is fourth in nation in rushing yards. The FSU run defense is, uh, not so great in that regard.
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The UNC defense is not exceptional either. They are in the middle of the pack (nationwide) stopping the run and in the bottom tier against the pass.
However, UNC has the luxury of being proficient in what FSU struggles defending, which of course is the run game. The FSU offense isn’t really proficient in anything.
Therefore, it appears the Seminoles will have to either force turnovers, stop the run, hold on to the ball for a while and score with the minimal chances they receive, or win in a shootout.
I truly don’t see any one of those happening, because they haven’t proven they could accomplish those feats against anyone all year.
2024 Season Prediction Record: 4-4
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Tar Heels 27, Seminoles 17
CONSENSUS: North Carolina (8-0)
READ MORE: Tom Brady Names Former FSU Quarterback “Star Of The Week”
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• Game Preview: Florida State Seminoles vs. North Carolina Tar Heels
• Three Key Matchups For FSU Football’s Home Matchup Against North Carolina
• How To Watch Florida State vs. North Carolina: Kickoff Time, TV Channel, and Odds
• Jacob Rizy Recaps First Start At FSU: ‘I Just Really Wanted To Win’
2024 breaks 2023 heat record, hottest summer on record, scientists say
Climate experts say 2024 has recorded the hottest summer on record, with human activity being the contributing reason for the high temperatures.
Stifling heat at a Miami-area concrete prison without air conditioning contributed to four deaths and subjected prisoners to cruel and unusual punishment, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.
Three Dade Correctional Institution prisoners, represented by the Florida Justice Institute, said in the class-action suit that the state facility’s heat index surpasses 100 degrees in the summer. Prisoners are “routinely treated” in the infirmary for heat rashes, heat exhaustion and related illnesses, the lawsuit said, before they are returned to the “dangerously hot conditions” that sickened them.
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Florida Justice Institute attorney Andrew Udelsman told USA TODAY the nonprofit law firm has received a rising number of prison heat complaints over the last decade.
“In Miami-Dade County, it’s considered cruelty to animals to leave a dog in a parked car in the summer,” Udelsman said. “And here, basically, (the Florida Department of Corrections) is incarcerating at this prison 1,300 people in these concrete boxes all summer along, and basically ignoring their pleas for relief.”
The Dade Correctional Institution and Florida Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s requests for comment.
The lawsuit comes as meteorologists warn of abnormally hot temperatures across the globe. In the hottest summer on record this year, researchers said people in prison were made especially vulnerable to heat-related illnesses – or death – in confined spaces often with no air conditioning.
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A recent study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found more than 98% of prisons in the United States experienced at least ten days that were hotter than every previous summer, with the worst of the heat-exposed prisons concentrated in the Southwest.
Lawsuit alleges grueling prison conditions in summer heat
According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, most men in the 28-year-old prison suffer from at least one form of heat-related illness during the summer.
“Some have died of heat stroke or heart-related conditions that were exacerbated by prolonged exposure to extreme heat,” the complaint said.
The only air conditioning is in the officers’ control rooms, and plaintiffs said guards stationed in the dining area will rush prisoners to eat so they can return to the cooled spaces.
In a desperate attempt to escape the heat, the lawsuit said many prisoners wet their sheets and sleep on the concrete floor.
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People in solitary confinement spend about 23 hours a day in hot, badly ventilated cells that are smaller than an average parking space, where they sleep, eat and use the toilet, according to the complaint. They are allowed a limited number of showers a week.
One person who spent months in confinement bathed himself with toilet water at night because it was cooler than the sink water, the complaint said.
The lawsuit comes after a disappointing legislative session in Florida for prison reform advocates. State lawmakers declined to consider several bills aimed at improving prison conditions, including legislation that would have made air-conditioning mandatory in every housing unit in all of Florida’s correctional institutions.
Extreme heat contributed to deaths in prison, lawsuit says
The lawsuit alleges that heat played a role in four deaths and the toll could rise as more information comes to light, Udelsman told USA TODAY.
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One prisoner, identified as “J.B.” in the lawsuit, had complained for weeks of chest pains and difficulty breathing, the lawsuit said. The 81-year-old man was in a wheelchair, so he was assigned to a one-person cell, which had poor ventilation.
On Sept. 20, plaintiff Dwayne Wilson said he heard J.B. hollering for help from the cell. Wilson found him lying on the floor and gasping for breath, so he alerted a guard to the medical emergency, and J.B. was given breathing treatment before he was ordered back to his cell.
“The medical staff accused J.B. of coming to the air-conditioned infirmary simply to get out of the heat,” the complaint said. “Prisoners attempted to advocate on J.B.’s behalf, telling medical staff and officers that he was very ill.”
J.B. was found dead in his cell on Sept. 24. Court filings said the heat index reached 104 degrees that day – within the National Weather Service’s “danger” zone – and the exhaust fans in his cell were not working.
“It is likely that prolonged exposure to the hot, unventilated air at (Dade Correctional Institution) contributed to J.B.’s death,” the lawsuit said.
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Plaintiffs say they fell sick from heat
The three plaintiffs named in Thursday’s lawsuit all said that they fell sick from heat in the prison this summer and “have exhausted all available administrative remedies.”
Wilson, 66, in August fainted in his dormitory on a day the heat index reached 100 degrees, according to the complaint. He was carried to a medical unit and administered an IV, and a healthcare provider told him to “stay as cool as possible.”
Another plaintiff, 54-year-old Tyrone Harris, said in the lawsuit that he had to be taken to the medical unit for a one-hour breathing treatment two to three times a week this summer. Harris has asthma and takes medication for high-blood pressure and cholesterol, which make him more susceptible to heat illness, the lawsuit said. He often gets heat cramps, heat rashes and feels lightheaded.
Court filings noted Dade Correctional Institution’s population is especially vulnerable to heat exhaustion as more than half are over the age of 50 and nearly 25% are over 65. Many prisoners have medical conditions or disabilities that increase susceptibility to heat illness.
Majority of US prisons don’t have universal A/C
A USA TODAY analysis in 2022 found at least 44 states did not universally air-condition their prisons and only one – Tennessee – said it was fully air-conditioned.
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In Florida, about 24% of state prison housing units are air-conditioned, corrections department spokesperson Molly Best previously told USA TODAY. Fans and exhaust systems are used in lieu of A/C units.
People in prisons often face especially dire conditions when extreme heat hits as facilities are ill-equipped for blazing temperatures. And while some states aren’t typically known for oppressive heat, experts said they should be prepared for the realities of a changing climate.
“A lot of these prisons were not built to be comfortable or humane in the first place,” said Ufuoma Ovienmhada, lead author of the MIT study on prison heat. “Climate change is just aggravating the fact that prisons are not designed to enable incarcerated populations to moderate their own exposure to environmental risk factors such as extreme heat.”
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, Javier Zarracina, Jennifer Borresen, USA TODAY; Elena Barrera, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida
A Florida surfer says he’s thankful to be alive after being attacked by a shark not once, but twice now in his lifetime in the same area.
Both bites happened in the same waters, on Bathtub Beach in Martin County, a decade apart.
Charter boat captain and former competitive surfer Cole Taschman said he was paddling just past the reef when what he thinks was shark 7 or 8 feet long hit him from behind.
He described the shark as a “beast” to NBC affiliated WPTV, and thought it was a tiger or bull shark.
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“Both feet were in the shark’s mouth at once,” he said. “I looked back and I kind of got a glimpse of him, very wide nose, and I screamed… I was like, I’m dead.”
Taschman said his friends, also surfers, immediately came to his aid. His girlfriend even captured the dramatic moments from the shore.
“I got bit by a shark!” he yells in the video.
On the beach, his friends used their surf leashes to form a tourniquet and stop the bleeding as they raced to the nearest hospital.
From there, Taschman was transferred to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
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“The injury from the shark was very impressive, like the lacerations from the shark teeth are almost as clean from the knives, the surgical steel, we use to do our surgeries,” one of the surgeons on his team said.
This incident, Taschman said, was much more serious than the first time he was bitten. He told WPTV that he has had two surgeries to repair three tendons and received 93 stitches.
“The difference between a high school athlete and an Olympic athlete are the difference between the two bites–very different,” he said.
The first time was in 2013, when Taschman was just 16 years old.
“It just happens so quickly that it’s a big adrenaline rush and it’s a lot of shock, and you do just kind of have a moment where it’s like, ‘OK I’m dead,’” he said.
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And even though the chances of ever being attacked by a shark, let alone twice, are extremely low, Taschman said he doesn’t feel unlucky.
“Don’t surf alone, and have your knowledge of what you’re doing. Know how to use a leash as a tourniquet, know how to be prepared to do these activities,” he said. “It’s proper prior planning, you know?”
The big story: As voters across Florida cast early ballots in advance of Election Day, they have the opportunity to decide whether to change the state constitution to allow for partisan school board elections, as News Service of Florida reports.
Some say the change would allow for greater transparency in what candidates stand for. Others, including a statewide student group, contend that it would inject too much politics into an already divided area where the main objective should be serving children, as WLRN reports.
They suggest that voters should look at candidates’ qualifications and priorities, and not make decisions based solely on party affiliation. Vox explored Florida’s Amendment 1 and the role of politics in education on its latest Today, Explained podcast. Take a listen.
A similar debate is playing out in Pasco County’s schools superintendent race, which already is a partisan election. One of the candidates is running without party affiliation against a well-funded Republican, hoping for an upset. His backers are starting to believe it could happen. Read more here.
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In Flagler County, a candidate endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis lost his primary bid to serve on the school board. Now DeSantis has appointed him to complete the term of a board member who resigned too late for an election to select her replacement, Ask Flagler reports.
Hot topics
Affordable housing: The Monroe County school board continues to work through details for providing housing that its employees can afford, the Key West Citizen reports.
Cost cutting: The Hillsborough County school district is looking to save money on its health insurance expenses by self insuring, WUSF reports.
‘Intellectual freedom’ survey: The State University System’s annual survey indicated students and staff feel they have more freedom of speech than offered at other schools across the nation, Politico Florida reports. About 14% of students and 12% of staff participated. More from Florida Phoenix.
NIL: The Board of Governors wants more details on how a recent settlement that involves compensation for student-athletes will impact the future of college sports in Florida, News Service of Florida reports.
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Special education: Some St. Johns County parents say their children with special needs are not treated equitably in school despite the district’s efforts to decrease its use of restraints on students who are acting up, Jacksonville Today reports.
School choice: Palm Beach County schools have added ten new specialty programs in advance of the choice application window, the Palm Beach Post reports.
Teacher pay: The Collier County school district boosted its minimum teacher pay to $57,000 a year, second highest in Florida, WBBH reports.
From the police blotter … An Osceola County high school student was arrested on allegations of making threats of violence against a school, WKMG reports. • Law enforcement investigated calls that an Indian River County middle school student had brought a weapon to school. It turned out to be an unloaded plastic BB gun, TC Palm reports.
From the court docket … A former Port St. Lucie assistant police chief avoided jail time with a plea deal in a case described as a scheme to falsify records to allow high school football players to participate on Martin County teams they were not zoned for, WPTV reports.
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Before you go … Are you ready for the Great Pumpkin?
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