Seeing Red: Seminoles remember brutal 2016 trip to Louisville
Lamar Jackson is gone. The Louisville Cardinals look nothing like the offensive juggernaut that hung 63 points on Florida State during its last trip to Cardinal Stadium.
But even first-year FSU defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett expects the Seminoles to take Saturday's return trip to Louisville a little more personal than a typical ACC game.
"I would think so. Yeah. Absolutely," Barnett said Wednesday morning, when a reporter mentioned that FSU had given up nearly 100 points -- 94 to be exact -- in the teams' last two meetings. "To say that -- a combined 100 points -- wow. Yeah, they'll go up there fired up. We'll be ready to go."
A great deal has transpired since that 2016 game.
Jackson went from being known as a talented-but-raw, young quarterback to Heisman Trophy winner and first-round NFL Draft pick.
Florida State's football program, meanwhile, has plummeted from national prominence to mediocrity and now to a period of transition with a new coaching staff. A case could be made that the Seminoles' humiliating 43-point defeat was the beginning of the end of Jimbo Fisher's tenure.
In the 45 games leading up to FSU's last trip to Louisville, the Seminoles sported a 41-4 record. In the 28 games since, they are 17-11.
It wasn't just the fact that Florida State was upset by the Cardinals; it was its inability to even compete. Despite going into that game with a No. 2 national ranking, the score was 63-10 before the Seminoles added 10 points in the final minutes.
"Last time we went up there, we lost big," junior quarterback Deondre Francois said. "So that still weighs on us. We know that we've got to go up there and play. Like you said, they've beat us two years in a row, and we know that they're going to be ready to play us at their home -- like they are every year."
Francois is one of a handful of FSU players who were key contributors during that last 2016 trip.
The then-redshirt freshman had perhaps his worst day as a college quarterback, completing just 7 of 18 passes for 101 yards; he was sacked five times. Senior tailback Jacques Patrick, senior receiver Nyqwan Murray and senior center Alec Eberle also contributed on offense, along with defensive linemen Demarcus Christmas and Walvenski Aime, safety A.J. Westbrook and a couple others on defense.
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