FSU Football: How a Spring Game Injury Changed Everything For The Noles

FSU football will hope to get through Saturday’s spring game without injury – but it was one hit almost 20 years ago that change the program’s fortunes.

As FSU football head coach Jimbo Fisher prepares for his eight Garnet and Gold spring game this Saturday inside Doak Campbell Stadium, you can be willing to bet that he is sending up a prayer asking for all the players that suit up for the Seminoles to walk back in the locker room after the glorified scrimmage with no injuries that will keep them out for a long time.

It’s something coaches worry about when they hold these events to end spring practice – games that don’t count for anything but can end up shaping an entire season. It was one of those spring games almost two decades ago that shaped the FSU football program for years to come…and may have actually been a blessing in disguise.

The Chosen One

To fully understand what took place on that April 1998 day, you have to go back just over three years before. It started when Dan Kendra III, the USA Today Offensive Player of The Year, decided to leave his native Pennsylvania (and a previous commitment to Penn State) and become the latest quarterback on the FSU football roster.

It was all there for the youngster who was everything that head coach Bobby Bowden – who had coached his father at West Virginia – wanted in a player: a physical freak who lived in the weight room and someone who understood he was going to have to wait his turn. Kendra redshirted in 1995 and backed up Thad Busby for two seasons. But, as the calendar turned to 1998, it was clearly Kendra Time in the capital city.

One…Single…Play

That was, until one hit in that year’s spring game changed everything.

From the perspective of most who were there (including this writer), there was nothing wrong with the hit that linebacker Bradley Jennings laid on Kendra in the third quarter of the annual game. Maybe a little low, but nothing dirty or illegal about it. At the time, no one knew – including Kendra – just how serious the injury would be. It wasn’t until days later when the words “complete tear of the ACL” came into focus that the cold reality came into play.

Immediately, fans and most in the media begun to freak out. After all, this FSU football player was supposed to be the one to take the Seminoles to the national title game in each of his final two years and win both. With Peter Warrick leading the receiver group and Travis Minor – another USA Today Player of the Year – in the backfield to go along with a top flight defense, it was going to be a breeze.

Florida State Seminoles Football

Now What?

All fo a sudden, the keys to the 1998 season where turned over to Chris Weinke. Yes, he had been a USA Today All-American in high school…almost a decade before when he chose to give minor league baseball a try. Now, at 26, Weinke was going to be going from third string the year before to leading a national title contender after one hit.

Following the Seminoles’ embarrassing loss in the second game of the season, Weinke started to turn things around and seemed to have everything back on course. Blowout wins over Miami and ranked USC and Georgia Tech teams had the ‘Noles back in the top five – but Weinke’s season would come to an end in a blowout win over a ranked Virginia team following a neck injury suffered.

Blessing in Disguess

Neither Weinke or Kendra would be on the field when Florida State lost to Tennessee for the 1998 national championship, but both would be back out there for the 1999 campaign – with Weinke holding on to the starting quarterback spot and Kendra moving to a position that utilized his size, intelligence and love to hit people…fullback.

It was the best thing that could have happened to the Seminoles, as they ran the table to become the first team every to go wire-to-wire as the top ranked team in the land…and FSU football got the national title that was expected when the stud signal caller from Bethlehem Catholic High School decided to come to Tallahassee.

Without Kendra going down with that gruesome injury in a meaningless game, the world may never have seen the Seminoles go to three straight national title games – something that has only happened twice in over half a century. That’s not saying that he couldn’t have done it, but we have to go with what took place.

Jimbo Fisher doesn’t want anything to happened to Deonde Francois on Saturday – hell, none of us do. However, not all injuries turn out to be as bad as you think for the program – just ask one of the greatest national championship teams in college football history.