The game featured the Southern Miss Golden Eagles against the Florida State Seminoles.

This was the twenty-third meeting between the schools, with Florida State holding a 13–8–1 advantage.

They had most recently played in 1996, when the Seminoles defeated the Golden Eagles by a score of 54–14.

[4] Delaware State, an FCS team that lost to FSU earlier in the season, did not meet the 90% threshold set by the NCAA.

This, FSU claims, is due to an alleged established NCAA rule interpretation, allowing academic and other non-athletic scholarships to count towards the required threshold, however they did not reference the interpreted rule.