WVU Mountaineer Sports: Basketball | Football | News |WVU Football Drops Game with Florida State

In a move that further points to West Virginia beginning play in the Big 12 Conference for the 2012 season, the Mountaineers have informed Florida State that they will drop the scheduled home and home series with the Seminoles.

"We were informed in writing late Friday afternoon of West Virginia University's intention to cancel its 2012 football game with Florida State University scheduled for September 8 in Tallahassee," a statement on FSU's official athletics site read. "We are disappointed for our coaches, players and fans that this game will not take place as originally scheduled.

"We now face the challenge of completing our 2012 schedule just seven months before the start of the season. We will work quickly and diligently to fill the hole on our schedule and will communicate with our season ticket holders and fans as the process moves forward."

The ACC team was scheduled to host WVU this fall and then make the trip to Morgantown in the 2013 season, but due to a larger conference slate in the Big 12, the Mountaineers were forced to remove one non-conference opponent and the Seminoles were the chosen victim.

In early January, the Orlando Sentinel reported that a June 2005 contract between WVU and FSU stated that should either team opt out within 12 months of the scheduled meeting, it would owe the other $500,000.

With this news, that sum is what West Virginia would pay directly to Florida State.

In a January interview, WVU athletic director Oliver Luck stated the university's intention of maintaining games against Marshall, James Madison and Maryland for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the strongest case in the coming season is that Luck hopes to keep as many home games as possible on the schedule.

According to a report from Sports Illustrated, the Big 12 released its football schedule to its television partners on Feb. 1 to fulfill a contractual obligation, but that schedule has not been made public.

WVU and the Big East continue to wage a legal battle to determine the future of their relationship, but whenever questioned on the matter, Luck says only that he remains confident in a July 1, 2012 launch date to a new partnership with the Big 12.

No official word from WVU has been released.