Florida State Football: Deondre Francois’ injury ends ‘Noles Playoff hopes

Florida State football‘s run at the College Football Playoff has hit a huge snag with the loss of Deondre Francois to injury. Is the Seminoles’ season over?

Things didn’t look good for the Florida State Seminoles as quarterback Deondre Francois lay writhing in pain. Francois had managed to stay relatively upright all game long until the final quarter.

Although the score was 24-7, the Seminoles still kept fighting to get back in it. The offense was driving late when Florida State’s season was unexpectedly left to hang in the air. Alabama Crimson Tide safety Ronnie Harrison came off the edge untouched and rolled Francois up for the team’s second sack of the game. Harrison got up, Francois did not.

He laid in pain on the ground, grabbing his knee as teammates could only look on helplessly. Eventually, Francois was carted off to the locker room with a brace on his knee. The diagnosis is finally in and Francois looks to be out for the rest of the season with a torn patella tendon.

Deondre Francois entered the 2017 season with a ton of promise as the ACC’s best quarterback. In the season opener, he was 19-for-33 for 210 passing yards and a touchdown while also throwing two interceptions.

It wasn’t until the second half that things went wrong for the Seminoles. Then, they went all the way south, at least for the offense, when Francois went down with an injury.

Defense is fine, offense not so much

The Florida State Seminoles defense is fine, for the most part. Their defense gave up one big play all game in the first quarter. The play came on 53-yard pass from quarterback Jalen Hurts to wide receiver Calvin Ridley in the first quarter.

In the Seminoles’ defense (pun intended), they left true freshman cornerback Stanford Samuels III by himself in coverage on one of the best receivers in the country.

Other than that snafu, the defense held quarterback Jalen Hurts to 96 passing yards and a passing touchdown. On the ground, the Crimson Tide ran for 173 rushing yards and just one touchdown as a team. The Florida State defense held them to just 13 first downs and 3-for-16 on third down conversions.

Here’s the bad news. The Seminoles offense had two turnovers and just 250 total yards in the game. They went 4-for-13 on third down conversions and had just 15 first downs. Granted, it was against the best defense in the nation, but the Seminoles did all of that work and will now be without their starting quarterback for the rest of the season.

Without Deondre Francois at quarterback, it puts the Florida State offense in a bit of a flux. Behind Francois is 6-foot-5, 185-pound true freshman James Blackman.

A season without Francois likely means no Playoff

It helps next week’s opponent is the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks. However, the Florida State Seminoles face the 18th-ranked Miami Hurricanes a week later on September 16. There’s not much time to prepare for another tough defense. It also puts a damper on the Seminoles’ Playoff hopes.

They won’t drop too far in the rankings after their loss to Alabama, but a loss to the Hurricanes in two weeks or the 16th-ranked Louisville Cardinals on October 21 could derail all of that. FSU also faces the fifth-ranked Clemson Tigers on the road on November 11. A lot will have changed for this offense by then.

They will certainly look like a different team with Blackman at quarterback, perhaps leaning heavily on running backs Jacques Patrick and Cam Akers. Patrick had six carries for 17 rushing yards against the Crimson Tide. Akers ran the ball 10 times for 30 rushing yards in the game.

The gameplan is sure to change next week as it always does but going forward, the load could increase for Patrick and Akers. Teams are sure to take advantage of the Seminoles inexperience under center if they were to remain a pass-heavy team. The ceiling for an offense without Francois isn’t expected to be very high.

It will be back to the drawing board for head coach Jimbo Fisher and the offensive coaching staff as they hope to remain in the College Football Playoff picture without quarterback Deondre Francois.

Next: FSU vs. Bama was most meaningless game of 2017 season

There will be a lot of challenges and their defense will certainly play top-ranked football. Blackman at quarterback, however, puts the offensive leadership in serious doubt. There’s no telling if this offense will still be the same.