With their struggles over the past few seasons, the Seminoles of 2007 certainly don't resemble the teams that boasted players like Deion Sanders and Charlie Ward and cruised to a staggering nine consecutive ACC titles and two national crowns during the 1990s.
Florida State's eight league losses through 2006 and half of 2007 are more than they lost in the ACC during that entire decade. But don't tell that to Duke head coach Ted Roof.
"I don't see a dropoff," Roof said of the Seminoles. "I see one of the top 10 most athletic teams in the country."
The matchup between Duke (1-6, 0-4 in the ACC) and Florida State (4-3, 1-3) Saturday at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee comes with both teams at a crossroads. The Seminoles, fresh off a disappointing home loss to Miami, made a midweek switch at quarterback when they named season-opening starter Drew Weatherford as their starter for Saturday. Similar to what it saw against Virginia Tech, Duke is expecting to deal with a quarterback platoon of Weatherford and his athletic backup Xavier Lee.
The Blue Devils, meanwhile, used their open date last weekend to rest and refocus on the Seminoles-time off that Roof feels will tremendously help his ballclub this weekend.
"Anytime when you spend so much time in something and then you step away for a couple of days, from a player's standpoint it renews everything," Roof said. "I've seen a lot of energy and enthusiasm in practice this week."
But it will certainly take more than just energy and enthusiasm to defeat an opponent that has historically dominated the Blue Devils. Duke has dropped all 15 of its previous contests against Florida State in blowout fashion, with an average margin of defeat of 35.8 points. In fact, Duke's closest game in the series came on its most recent trip to Tallahassee, when it lost 29-7 in 2004.
Wide receiver Eron Riley, who will be making his first trip to FSU, knows that he and his teammates will have to contend with a loud homecoming crowd that expects the winning streak to continue.
"You have to get ready for the noise." Riley said. "You prepare as much as you can. You can simulate it--but to only an extent-on the practice field. Hopefully it carries over to the game."
Roof said that he has noticed that in many of Duke's close losses this season, the final outcome has only come down to poor execution or a missed assignment on just one or two individual plays, instead of dozens of those plays per game as in past years.
During practice this week, Roof made sure to emphasize to his team the importance of finishing its assignments if it have any aspirations of notching its second victory of the year, saying that his team cannot have 10 of 11 people knowing what to do on the field because that leads to breakdowns.
But with the exception of its last game against the Hokies, Duke has been competitive in nearly all of its contests, which means a lot to defensive tackle Vince Oghobaase.
"If you look at the games last year compared to this year, we're way more competitive as a ballclub," Oghobaase said. "We've established a competitive edge as a football team that I don't think we've had in the past."
With Florida State wearing special black jerseys for the game and its fans encouraged to "Paint it Black" by wearing matching colors, Oghobaase and company can only hope that a strong effort will make Seminole supporters feel as if they've dressed for a funeral instead of a football game as they walk out of Doak Campbell Saturday night.
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