By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — To hear Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher say it, the loss of defensive end Brandon Jenkins for the season isn’t really that big of a deal.

Fisher and the Seminoles lost its All-American candidate in last Saturday’s victory over Murray State to a foot injury, then found out Monday the injury would force him to be out for the season. But as good as Jenkins is, Fisher expects there will be little if no drop off from his replacement – Cornellius Carradine.

Known as Tank by his teammates, Carradine is 6-foot-5 and weighs 268 pounds. Last year, while playing behind fellow defensive Bjoern Werner—who started opposite Jenkins—Carradine racked up 5.5 sacks and 38 tackles in his first year with FSU.

“Brandon is a really good player. A really good player,” Fisher said. “You don’t ever replace those guys. One thing we were fortunate enough to have was Carradine in there. We think Bjoern is a big time player, and we think Tank is the same caliber guy those guys are.

“Is he Brandon? Maybe not to that extent, but he’s pretty close. He’s a really good player. I think it messes you up a little bit at depth-wise with some other things, but we have some talented guys behind him.”

Some of those other guys are Giorgio Newberry (6-6, 280), who played a lot as a redshirt freshman last season. Fisher did not rule out using freshmen Mario Edwards and Chris Casher either, who were originally planned to redshirt this year.

“We have two great freshmen in Mario Edwards and Chris Casher that we’ll bring along to build that depth,” Fisher said. “But from the starting rotation, I think Tank will do a good job.”

Long way to play. Duke will travel all the way across the country to play No. 25 Sanford this Saturday for a 10 p.m. start on the West Coast. Head coach David Cutcliffe says the key with playing out west is getting the players adjusted to the time zone.

“Your body really doesn’t have that amount of time to change,” he said. “We’re going to make sure we hydrate. We’re going to get on the plane Friday, fly out midday, get there in the afternoon their time. We’re going to stretch as soon as we get there. We’ll have worked out that morning, but we’ll get the kinks out. Take a while, get to the motel, eat, do our normal routine, meet, get their snacks, put them to bed.”

Cutcliffe said the only thing he will do different this Saturday is allow his players to sleep in.

“By ‘sleeping in’ means sleeping in on Eastern Time,” he said. “Eighteen to twenty-three year olds have no trouble sleeping in on a Saturday morning. Once we get up out there, we will be just in a normal 7, 7:30 kickoff mode, and nothing will be different than if we were here.”

Air Spaziani? Boston College head coach Frank Spaziani is known to be a defensive coach, but after his quarterback Chase Rettig threw for 441 yards in last week’s loss to Miami, he might be an offensive coach now.

Rettig’s 441 yards were the most by a Boston College quarterback since Doug Flutie threw for 447 yards in 1984.

“Chase is everything that I’ve been saying he is,” Spaziani said. “He’s a student of the game and he wants to do well. So a lot of that stuff is meshed together.”

The Eagles finished the game with 542 total yards.

“The cohesiveness over there being on offense was excellent from day one when everybody arrived on campus here,” Spaziani said. “Doug (Martin) is certainly an excellent (offensive coordinator), and he has an enthusiasm and a plan, and he understands how to do what he wants to do.”