It's probably a bit hard for Jacob Rizy to wrap his head around how far he's come in the last 12 months.

This time last year, Rizy was nearing the end of an 8-2 campaign as an offensive lineman at Harvard.

This week, he's coming off his first career start on the Florida State offensive line in the Seminoles' 36-14 loss at No. 6 Miami last Saturday. Not only was it his first start, it was his first extended playing time on the FSU offensive line.

"It was a great opportunity. Unfortunately, we didn't come out with the win," Rizy said. "The message that week was we really had to win that game and we fell short. It was nice to play, but I just really wanted to win."

Since committing to FSU as a transfer in January and enrolling over the summer, Saturday's game was the culmination of months of work from Rizy to get acclimated to what things are like at the Power 4 level.

"The attention to detail in practice is really high. Just trying to stay on par with a lot of the guys here coming from a lower-level Division I program was definitely difficult, especially in camp," Rizy said. "Getting accustomed to everything that goes on down here was a challenge. I was just working at it and trying to take in as much of the coaching as I could and play as well as I could ...

"I was not where I wanted to be and I'm still not. I still want to be a lot better. I played and I got the start, but there's a lot more that I can do, a lot more that I can show and that's where I want to get to to help our team win."

Rizy got the start vs. Miami at the left guard spot in place of Andre' Otto, who had started the previous two games vs. Clemson and Duke. Now he enters North Carolina week listed as FSU's starting left guard on the depth chart with Otto moving over to be the backup center behind sixth-year senior Maurice Smith.

With the Seminoles 1-7 and much of the season now focused on the future, Rizy isn't a typical example of someone to turn to. He's a redshirt junior, having played 22 games (20 starts) over three seasons at Harvard.

But with FSU set to lose a number of contributing offensive linemen off this year's team and considering Rizy has one more year of eligibility, he's a candidate to either replace Smith or contend for one of the starting spots in 2025 when he'll be a redshirt senior.

That makes finding out if he's up to the task another thing on FSU's to-do list for the back stretch of the season. In his first extended action as a Seminole after playing just two snaps vs. SMU, Rizy passed the initial test. His 64.8 overall grade and 70.4 pass-blocking grade were both second-best among FSU's offensive linemen in the Miami game.

"That was Rizy's first time really getting some action. We put him into a real situation. I thought Miami's front was really good, got a lot of pressure. But I think he showed he can function and belongs and can do it at this level," FSU offensive coordinator / offensive line coach Alex Atkins said. "I was proud to see him go out there and compete, showcase what he can do. I think he's intelligent, he knows how to do it, he's gotten better. He's been in the young guys' scrimmages fighting for his way to get that opportunity so it was good to see him get an opportunity."

FSU head coach Mike Norvell added: "I thought Rizy, early the first couple of drives, getting acclimated to it, there were a few plays that he had to work through. But I thought overall, big picture, he did some good things. That was a good defensive front that we faced. He held his own throughout it."

Safe to say Rizy had never before played in a hostile atmosphere like he did Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium during his time at Harvard. He admitted that even the loud crowd noise FSU pumped into practice last week to simulate what FSU would have to deal with couldn't entirely prepare him.

However, he agrees that he found his footing fairly quickly. Now he appears poised to make his second consecutive start, his first at Doak Campbell Stadium, this weekend.

"After that first drive, I think I got settled down for sure. It was a great experience," Rizy said.

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