SportSaturday - FSU's Weinke Piles Up Passing Yards

The 28-year-old Florida State quarterback has left the box score overflowing the past two weekends.

Weinke completed 66-of-105 passes for eight touchdowns and 1,032 yards in FSU's loss at Miami - its first defeat in 18 games - and its blowout of Duke.

He did it all on a bum left foot, which he injured Sept. 28 at Maryland. He was diagnosed with a mid-foot sprain and was limited in practice while preparing for the Hurricanes.

"I have not seen too many back-to-back performances like he's had," Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden said.

"I never heard him complain one time about his foot. Watch, you see there is really the professional side of things in that, in the pros, you've got to go out there even if you play hurt.

"He made some unbelievable throws."

In two weekends, Weinke threw for more yards than Wake Forest (930) and Duke (907) have all season. He also completed more touchdown passes than Virginia (7), Maryland (4), Wake (2) and Duke (1) have this year.

Up next for the Seminole: the Cavalier secondary.

Blue Blue Devils

The despair of fall continues in Durham.

Duke (0-6, 0-3 in the ACC) hasn't had a winning season since 1994's 8-4 team. Last weekend's 63-14 drubbing at Florida State guaranteed that the Blue Devils' streak will not end in 2000.

Duke ranks last in the ACC in eight out of 10 team categories (total offense, total defense, rushing offense, pass offense, pass offense efficiency, pass defense efficiency, scoring offense and scoring defense). It stands seventh in rushing defense and eighth in pass defense.

The Devils are losing each game by an average score of 40.5-9.7.

With troubles like those, Duke probably can't help looking forward to its Nov. 4 meeting in Winston-Salem with the Demon Deacons (0-6, 0-4), the ACC's only other winless squad.

But somehow coach Carl Franks remains optimistic.

"Our goals are pretty much the same as we started out," Franks said. "We are trying to be a better team at the end of the year than we were at the beginning."

Sometimes even the smallest tasks can seem Herculean.