Right when everyone was getting hyped for the NFL Draft, the football world got hit with some awful news out of Florida State University. Word spread that their campus was in shock after a tragic and senseless act of violence at the heart of their campus. On Thursday, April 17th, chaos erupted in Tallahassee with a shooting. You had parents and students hiding out in bowling alleys and crammed into elevators. The university put out an active shooter alert midday, and just a few hours later, their alert system announced they had “neutralized the threat.” Sadly, this tragedy took the lives of two people, and a bunch more ended up hurt. With the football community reeling from the Florida State tragedy, Tim Tebow quickly shared his prayers on social media.

This April 17th thing might have brought back some bad memories for college football fans. Just at the start of 2025, everyone was in party mode, especially with that Georgia vs. Notre Dame game on the horizon—the excitement was massive. But then, the Sugar Bowl had to be put on ice. Why? A truck had plowed into a New Year’s crowd, killing at least ten people in New Orleans’ famous French Quarter early on New Year’s Day. And just when college football fans were starting to get over that, a little over three months later, they got hit with another terrible event.

On Thursday, a 20-year-old son of a sheriff’s deputy opened fire at the Florida State University campus. Reports say he used his mom’s old service weapon, killing two people and injuring at least six others. This has really shaken up the college football world. Even though Tebow didn’t go to Florida State, the former Florida Gators star and NFL player spoke up about it. On his IG story, he wrote, “Heavy hearted tonight thinking of and praying for our brothers and sisters at Florida State affected by such evil. God, we just pray you be near to the broken hearted tonight 🙏🏻.”  

Authorities haven’t said why the shooting happened yet. It started around lunchtime right outside the student union. The shooter has been identified by police as Phoenix Ikner, and reports say he’s a Florida State student. Sadly, this isn’t the first time something this awful has happened on that campus. So now, everything at Florida State is on hold for safety.

A haunting déjà vu moment for Florida State University 

Well, the serene campus of Tallahassee is said to be one of the best providers of education in the nation. But their history with students’ safety has been a controversial one. We have to travel 11 years back, to November 20, 2014. Just like April 17th, 2025’s tragedy, a gunman armed with a .380 semiautomatic weapon wreaked havoc across the Florida State campus. The 31-year-old attacker was identified as Myron May, who carried out a shooting operation. Back then, he had shot an employee and two students at Strozier Library on the university campus.

Later on, with investigation, it was found that he was a lawyer, a former prosecutor, and an alumnus of Florida State University. To bring him under control, the police officers shot him down outside the library. All these flashbacks might add to the terror after the recent attack. So, Florida State decided to cancel all on-campus sports events through the weekend.

The school sent out an alert around noon ET about an active shooter near the student union. They then urged those still on campus to shelter in place. All classes got canceled for Friday, April 18th. The Florida State authorities also put a stop to athletic events through Sunday, April 20th. That includes football, baseball, softball, and a women’s golf thing. Some of the really bad mass shootings at colleges in recent years include that Virginia Tech one back in 2007, where 32 people died and 23 got hurt. Let’s hope we never see this kind of nightmare happen again.