Florida State will be hoping to avoid its worst start in nearly five decades while Louisville seeks to continue the momentum it has built over the last 10 quarters when the two clash Saturday afternoon in Tallahassee.
The last time the Seminoles (0-3, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) lost their first four games of the season was in 1974 when it dropped their first eight outings of the season.
The Noles’ 35-14 loss at Wake Forest last week saddled them with their first 0-3 start since 1976, Bobby Bowden’s first year at the helm.
Coach Mike Norvell said his team is learning some “hard lessons” in his second season but is confident better things are ahead.
“I’ve got confidence in where this team is going,” he said this week. “I’m not talking about years from now. I’m talking about right now, this opportunity, this week.”
The Cardinals (2-1, 0-0) got off to a rough start in their opener, falling behind 26-0 in the first half of their 43-24 loss to Ole Miss. But they rolled past Eastern Kentucky 30-3 just five days later and defeated UCF 42-35 last Friday on freshman linebacker Jaylin Alderman’s 66-yard interception return for a touchdown with just 13 seconds remaining.
“The one thing as a coach you want to be able to see your team continue to improve each week and we’ve done that,” Cardinals coach Scott Satterfield said. “We did not play well at all, obviously, the first half against Ole Miss, but played a lot better in the second half, did some better things against EKU, and then I thought we did even better against Central Florida.”
Satterfield said the training room was filled with banged-up players after the win over UCF, but he expects all to be ready. That includes quarterback Malik Cunningham, who was limping at the finish.
“It was good to have an extra day in there,” he said. “For us to have eight days before our next game, that’s a good break after playing three games in 12 days.”
