Florida State Football: Is Deondre Francois the ACC’s best QB?
Is Florida State football’s Deondre Francois the ACC’s best QB? Duke’s Daniel Jones and Louisville’s Lamar Jackson think otherwise.
Deondre Francois is the most battled test quarterback coming back to the ACC. In his first year as a starter at Florida State, he played six top-15 battles. He went 4-2 in those six games. He is the best big-time quarterback in the ACC, maybe even the country. Besides his horrible game against Lamar Jackson and the Louisville Cardinals, Francois has an adjusted QB rating north of 80 percent and all a passer rating over 100.
Francois is also the most dependable quarterback returning to the ACC. In fact, he only threw seven interceptions. That is tied for least in the ACC by quarterbacks that threw over 350 attempts. But unlike Syracuse’s Eric Dungey, the quarterback Francois is tied with, Francois only threw four interceptions in conference play.
Also, he topped the conference with zero multiple-interception games. Francois is one of the better quarterbacks in conference but he doesn’t let it go to his head. He has the traits all coaches want in a quarterback: never get too high or too low, be coachable, have a short memory and not making the same mistake twice.
Along with Francois’ physical tools and his stats, he is mentally leaps and bounds above his peers in the ACC.
His first game as starter was the season-opener last year against Ole Miss. Francois could have been knocked out of the game on multiple hits from the Ole Miss defense. But we all know how the game ended. Francois and the Seminoles came back from a 15-point halftime deficit and won the game by 11.
Later in the season, he played bitter rival Miami on the road. The Noles once again erase a halftime deficit and won the game. They did again against NC State.
The thing all three of those games have in common is they were all road or neutral site games.
Francois has shown he is the best quarterback quarterback when the lights are the brightest. Since the beatdown against Louisville, Francois and the Seminoles won eight of their last 10 games. The two losses were by a combined five points.
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Francois is the present and the future of the quarterback position in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Circle Sept. 2 on your calendar for when Francois and the Seminoles play Alabama in the season opener. Florida State hasn’t lost a season opener since 2009.