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TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Ticker) -- With a week of rest, top-ranked Florida State dives into the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule with a game against one of the few teams expected to give them trouble this season, No. 10 Georgia Tech. The Seminoles (1-0) posted a 41-7 victory over Louisiana Tech on August 28 in the season opener and have since suffered a casualty, as fullback William McCray broke his ankle in practice Monday and will miss the rest of the season. That leaves the job to former quarterback Dan Kendra, who is coming off reconstructive knee surgery. With Chris Weinke at the helm and Marcus Outzen and Jared Jones behind him, the 6-2, 255-pound Kendra decided last season to switch positions in an effort to garner some playing time. He had two carries in the opener. As usual, Florida State has a schedule that features a series of difficult games, this being the first. The Seminoles play archrivals Miami on October 9 and Florida on November 20. But the Miami game is at home and the Florida game is at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville. The week off could be a help as well. "I don't think it will hurt us much this early," Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said. "The first ballgame, you see so many things that you couldn't do that you thought you could do, or some things you can do pretty good. I don't mind having that extra week of practice going into the second game." Like Louisiana Tech with Tim Rattay, Georgia Tech is centered around its quarterback, Joe Hamilton. Hamilton is a senior who is in the mold of Charlie Ward, the 1993 Heisman Trophy winner from FSU. In last season's game, Hamilton left with a hip pointer and was 8-of-14 for 56 yards and one interception in a 34-7 loss. The duel between Florida State star receiver Pater Warrick and Georgia Tech's Dez White turned out to be no contest, as White was held to a nine-yard catch and Warrick ran up three touchdowns and 103 yards of offense. It was the seventh straight victory over Georgia Tech for Florida State, which went 0-7-1 in the first eight games of the series. The Yellow Jackets were done in by four turnovers. Warrick made a quick jump into the Heisman mix in the season opener, matching a career high with nine catches for 121 yards, running twice for 41 yards and a spectacular touchdown and adding 15 yards on three punt returns. "Peter Warrick is probably the most talented all-purpose wide receiver-running back that I've seen," Georgia Tech coach George O'Leary said. "I say running back because I don't know that there is a running back as dangerous as him with the ball in his hand. He just does amazing things on the field, and he's probably an NFL player that's still playing in college. He's very talented and does a lot of things extremely well. He reminds me of Ronnie Harmon with what he does with making people miss and displaying great athleticism in going for the ball in the passing game." Warrick nearly was overshadowed by true freshman Anquan Boldin, who made two catches, both for touchdowns, only three weeks after switching positions from quarterback. His roommate and classmate, Nick Maddox, also saw some quality action at tailback. "I used to be very reluctant about playing freshmen when I didn't have to, because I knew it was going to be a waste of a year because they're not going to play enough to make a difference," Bowden said. "Occasionally, one would. But now when we have one come in and we have a very hard feeling he's not going to stay five years, we'll go ahead and play him. We'll try to get him a little experience his first year instead of wasting it completely. We've played four (this season), and a lot of it is a case of thinking, 'Well, he's not going to be here five years anyway.'" Georgia Tech (1-0) is coming off a 49-14 trouncing of Navy, against whom O'Leary coached from the press box, serving punishment for an NCAA violation. But Tallahassee is a lot different from Annapolis, Maryland. "We'll have our work cut out for us down there," O'Leary said. "Obviously you go into every game wanting to win, and that's what our goal is going down there. I think it's a very difficult place to play. We have to create some problems (for them) offensively, we've got to create some problems defensively and we've got to be error-free in the kicking game." The Yellow Jackets had not scored as many points on the road since a 71-6 victory over Chattanooga on October 11, 1913. They had 341 yards rushing, their highest total in six years, on 61 carries. Phillip Rogers rushed for three touchdowns and Hamilton had a hand in three more.
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