Power outage forces FSU-SMU to play without sideline communications

A power surge plunged Doak Campbell Stadium into darkness minutes before the scheduled 7:39 p.m. ET kickoff Monday, forcing Florida State and SMU back to their locker rooms, school officials said.

Officials from both schools and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips met repeatedly to discuss options, school officials said. They decided at about 8:45 p.m. ET to resume the game without in-game communications, including helmet-to-helmet radios, coordinator communications and sideline iPad use, the officials said. School officials also said there would be no official replay available if the game continued.

Game and stadium officials practiced hand signals with coaches at about 9:06 p.m. ET as workers attempted to restore power before the second half, stadium officials said. Fans remained in the stands while the Florida State marching band and attendees tried to keep the crowd engaged, stadium officials said.

SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said his team had not practiced without coach-to-player communication in more than two years. Sources told OutKick that moving the game to Tuesday would have posed scheduling problems for SMU because the Mustangs are scheduled to host UC Davis on Saturday, while Florida State has the following weekend off.

Both teams returned to play under the no-communications protocol. School officials did not provide further details on how long the outage lasted or whether all systems were fully restored by the end of the game.

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