Getty Image / Matthew Visinsky/Icon Sportswire
The Florida State Seminoles and Southern Methodist Mustangs didn’t have any history on the gridiron prior to their first ACC matchup against one another on Saturday. It’s possible there was some enmity on behalf of SMU as FSU voted against SMU, Stanford, and Cal joining the ACC but it is hard to imagine that was the sole catalyst leading to the ‘Sad War Chant‘ performed below.
The ‘Sad War Chant’ appears to have occurred late in the game with just 14:23 left to play. Florida State was trailing 28-16. SMU running back Roderick Daniels Jr. punched one in but was ruled short and the play was under review.
During the the break, The Mustang Band fired up this ‘Sad War Chant’ rendition of FSU‘s iconic song which the Marching Chiefs weren’t on hand to play themselves. Volume up if you want to hear it:
Is SMU’s band really trolling playing the sad warchant?? #FSUFootball pic.twitter.com/fLzcmYlKBf
— FirstNameJ0hn (@FirstNameJ0hn) September 29, 2024
Good on ’em for at least trolling in an entertaining way. According to people at the game, FSU fans in attendance tried to make up for the lack of Marching Chiefs by doing the ‘War Chant’ themselves. This evidently didn’t sit well with the SMU band who busted out the ‘Sad War Chant’ and I’m kind of surprised no other bands have done this before.
FSU’s Marching Chiefs weren’t able to make the trip to Highland Park for the inaugural FSU-SMU matchup. That’s because Hurricane Helene was bearing down on the panhandle at the time and the football team left before the band and by the time it came time for the Marching Chiefs to travel it was deemed to be too unsafe so they made the wise call to allow the Marching Chiefs to remain behind.
I’d actually missed that video above until I saw Ehsan Kassim share it on USA Today. As a Florida State grad, I’ve all but tuned out the team at this point. It’s not even enjoyable watching highlights…
For me, the only silver lining in the game is that… I also went to SMU. I started at Southern Methodist (shout out Perkins Hall) my freshmen year but made the decision to transfer back to my home state of Florida. Never at any point up until SMU joined the ACC could I have ever imagined these two schools matching up. SMU’s football team is most famous for being a recipient of the NCAA ‘Death Penalty’ and the fact that they’ve come back to be competitive is wild. Great game day tailgating though.