CHAPEL HILL - It’s no secret that Florida State football is having a season to forget. The Seminoles are 1-7 on the year, and find themselves in the midst of a four-game losing streak.

FSU sits dead last in scoring offense in the ACC (14.9 points per game), and ranks ahead of only Houston in all of college football in the statistical category. It comes in at 131st in total offense with 272.5 yards per game and has recorded just 118 first downs on the season, good for 129th in the country.

It’s true that Mike Norvell and the Seminoles will miss out on a bowl game for the third time in five seasons. Despite the negativity surrounding the program and another losing season on the horizon, it’s also true that Florida State is still Florida State.

It’s the same program that has produced 32 first-round picks, three Heisman Trophy winners, and won three National Championships.

The Seminoles still don the notorious spear on their helmets, and call Doak S. Campbell Stadium home.

There could be countless reasons for North Carolina to overlook the reeling program, but its past resume speaks for itself.

“It’s Florida State at the end of the day,” said UNC defensive back Alijah Huzzie. “You can’t look at their record, you can’t look at the losses they’ve taken cause they got probably some of the best athletes in college football over there. You just gotta take it as a regular game, prepare as if you’re going into an undefeated team that’s on a roll right here, so you just gotta take it like you would every Saturday honestly.”

Looking ahead to another opponent or, in the Tar Heels’ case this weekend, another bye week, isn’t a foreign concept for UNC.

Last season, Carolina ate the poisoned cheese against Virginia after a 6-0 start. A year prior, a four-win Georgia Tech team upset the 9-1 Tar Heels one week before their rivalry matchup with NC State.

Those losses can be attributed to perhaps a lack of focus, but also a lackluster performance from an otherwise potent offense.

Now, with quarterback Jacolby Criswell at the helm, UNC is focused on learning from past mistakes, which starts up front.

“For us an offense, it’s all about just making sure we control the line of scrimmage. Even in the run game, even in the pass game, just making sure we’re being very hard on ourselves,” said Criswell. “It’s the little things, always doing the little things. When you do the little things, big things happen.”

Florida State is loaded with talent, boasting four and five-star recruits on both sides of the ball. It returned 10 starters from an ACC Championship squad a season ago, a team that had a strong claim to make the College Football Playoff.

In fact, the Seminoles’ defense allows fewer points per game than the Tar Heels’ unit, surrendering just 26.4 compared to North Carolina’s 28.4. This comes having played against Clemson, Miami, and SMU, three of the four remaining undefeated teams in conference play.

Defensively, FSU has allowed less yards per game than the Tar Heels, and given up four fewer touchdowns.

That isn’t lost on UNC, who has witnessed first hand this season how the perspective and momentum over the course of a season can change.

“Even though their record doesn’t show it, they have guys. There’s no doubt about it,” said Criswell. “We don’t know what’s happening over there, but we know they’re gonna come and bring it 100 percent.”

If the Tar Heels needed any more reason not to look past the Seminoles, they can turn to the history books, which have not been kind when revisiting matchups with FSU.

The Seminoles lead the all-time series 17-3-1, and have emerged victorious in six of the last eight meetings.

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown is 0-8 all-time against his alma mater, coming within single digits just once.

A win in Tallahassee, which has been a house of horrors for the Tar Heels’, would be just their second all-time, and first since 2016, when Nick Weiler’s 54-yard goal knocked off then No. 12 FSU.

The rosters and coaching staffs look different this time around, but North Carolina will hope to leave Florida’s capital with the same result.