FSU Football: Was Francois injury most important CFB moment in 2017?

FSU football watched their whole season change when starting QB Deondre Francois went down in the opener – and one site says it helped shape the year.

It was the moment that made all fans of FSU football watch silently during the season opener against eventual national champion Alabama – starting quarterback Deondre Francois, who was getting love in the preseason Heisman talk – was holding his knee after a sack and was carted of the field, hands in prayer.

The prayers would go unanswered for the Seminoles’ offensive leader, as he would be done with a knee injury that will also more than likely keep him out of spring football this season as he looks to make it back for the 2018 opener against Virginia Tech.

I’m not going to go into detail to remind everyone what took place after that injury for the Noles this season because it has been said plenty of times – but was the injury the most important moment in all of college football this past season? One website says maybe.

Saturday Down South, one of the biggest SEC homer sites in the country that would make Paul Finebaum proud, made a list of the top 50 moments from this past season. While the top two dealt with the national title game and Alabama’s quarterback change, No. 3 was dedicated to FSU football because of the domino effect that followed:

"Look at the sequence of events that followed after the Florida State quarterback went down.– Florida State falls apart, barely makes bowl game– Alabama’s non-conference résumé takes serious hit, nearly prevents Playoff absence– Texas A&M fires Kevin Sumlin in hopes of luring Jimbo Fisher to College Station– Fisher leaves for Texas A&M and Willie Taggart leaves Oregon for Florida State"

I’ve been saying this for months now – if Deondre Francois stays healthy after that game, none of the insanity that took place the rest of the year happens. I’m not saying the Seminoles go 10-1 the rest of the regular season (since they wouldn’t have to reschedule the ULM game) but there is no way FSU football is worse than 8-3 or 9-2 on the year.

Next: Early rankings not high on FSU in 2018 season

Of course, maybe the best thing was for the season to turn out the way it did – we saw James Blackman get much needed experience to compete with Francois for the starting spot next year AND we saw the true color of Benedict Fisher, who thankfully left to be replaced by a better person and man in Willie Taggart.