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Florida State finally got their first win of the 2024 season, and although it wasn’t pretty, it still counts the same. The Seminoles felt desperate for something positive to give this program a spark. The fan base sure needed it, too. Could this be a turning point in the season? Only time will tell, but it’s something they can build from.
We’ve already seen some effort issues from various members of this team, and I was worried that if they fell to 0-4, they may finally pack it in for the season. Saturday’s game against Cal was by far the best “effort” game we’ve seen from this team all season.
As sad as it is to say, playing hard makes a difference. There are some talented athletes on this team that when they give 100%, have the potential to be good. This win creates momentum and buy-in, which comes at a good time because the schedule is about to get much harder.
It was also nice to see a few veteran guys have a good game. Lawrance Toafili and Ja’Khi Douglas are two of FSU’s veteran playmakers, who have struggled in certain moments throughout the season. Toafili had the best game of any FSU running back this season and Douglas had his best game of 2024. We also saw the emergence of some talented young players like Edwin Joseph and Quindarrius Jones, who made big plays in big moments (#freethemyoungins).
The FSU defense is night and day different from what we saw in the first two weeks of the season. They took a major step vs. Memphis and then followed it up with an even better performance vs. Cal. I must hand it to them, this defense looks good, not perfect, but good enough to keep FSU in some games.
They have only allowed 2 touchdowns in the past 8 quarters after giving up 7 in the first 8 of the season. They have generated 34 quarterback pressures and 10 sacks in the past 2 games. After giving up 453 rushing yards in the first 2 games, FSU has more than cut that number in half to just 172 in the past 2 games.
The defensive line looks worlds better and more like the unit we expected them to be, especially Joshua Farmer. Farmer leads all FBS defensive tackles in pressures over the past 2 weeks and has become a nightmare to opposing offensive linemen. Pat Payton had a career-high 3.5 TFL and 3 sacks against Cal. Marvin Jones Jr., who has done virtually nothing through the first 3 games, also had a good outing. The linebackers are even filling gaps and attacking downhill.
The secondary had some good moments, too. There are still some things to be cleaned up. FSU allowed 5 pass plays over 20 yards en route to giving up 303 yards through the air. Most of the mistakes the defense made are fixable. There are things like missed tackles and communication issues that have improved but are still an issue, just to a smaller degree.
Some mistakes are part of playing younger players, who learn with experience. However, from a big-picture standpoint, this defense has come a LONG way in a short time and will hopefully continue to get better and build from back-to-back solid performances. In advanced metrics (F+ Rankings, which are opponent and pace of play adjusted) FSU has a top 25 defense. Sounds crazy, but that’s what the rankings say. They will be put to the test in the near future with five top-25 scoring offenses coming up in the next six games.
This season has been tough, so I wanted to start with the positive because it’s rare we have it to talk about. Unfortunately, though, it’s not all positive as this offense continues to be dreadful. FSU went another week without scoring over 20 points and has yet to cross the 300-yard mark of total offense all season. The part that worries me most is that they have faced the following F+-ranked defenses 94th (Memphis), 87th (GT), 54th (BC), and 33rd (Cal). While Cal’s defense was at least in the top 35, none of the others were in the top 50.
In the next 4 games, they will face the 38th (SMU), 17th (Clemson), 27th (Duke), and 16th (Miami) ranked defenses. While the improved FSU defense will keep them in a lot of games, scoring an average of 15 PPG isn’t going to get them many wins. I would be the least bit surprised if they got shutout vs. defenses like Clemson and Miami.
Some aspects did improve, but the points still didn’t follow. Upon re-watch, FSU was a bad holding call, a missed deep shot, and a bad 4th down decision from potentially being a 31-point game on Saturday. The problem is, that you must figure out how to overcome the setbacks and turn the opportunities into points.
Let’s start with what got better. Alex Atkins returned to the sidelines, and while the point total didn’t change much, I thought the offensive line had its best outing. They got a decent push up front, and it led to FSU breaking the 100-yard mark on the ground for the first time this season. If you remember from our “Trouble in the Trenches” article, since 2017, FSU is 6-19 in games when they do not rush for triple digits, so it’s a huge key to them being successful. The pass blocking still isn’t great as they allowed pressure on 42.4% of dropbacks, but there were several clean pockets to work with.
The receivers looked better in this game, too. As a unit, they recorded a 66.7% reception percentage and only had 1 drop, which is their best in both metrics since the Georgia Tech game. As I mentioned, we saw Toafili have the best game of any FSU running back this season. Hopefully, we will see him get a bulk of the carries going forward and this performance will be something they build from. Don’t get me wrong, this offense is still putrid, but there are some small signs of improvement.
Now to the negative… This comes as no secret to the many FSU fans who watch the games each Saturday. FSU has a quarterback problem, period. As we mentioned, the offense seemed to make small improvements on Saturday, but the quarterback play still seems to be an anchor weighing the offense down. They just aren’t getting what they need from the position. While I do think some of the playcalling was solid on Saturday, they are repeatedly forcing things DJ just isn’t good at, namely RPO.
He doesn’t read these plays very well and had a few egregious misreads. It’s truly puzzling why they keep doing this when he’s proven it’s not effective with him at quarterback. Not to mention, he’s a fifth-year guy who has a little over two months left in this program. Why are we wasting time trying to teach him basic offensive concepts? He’s still slow at processing reads and doesn’t seem to trust what he sees. He’s rather inaccurate and has been hit or miss, even on the deep ball, which was supposed to be his calling card.
Teams don’t respect the quarterback on a read option because he rarely, if ever, pulls the ball. If he does run, he looks like he is doing it in quicksand. I’m not attacking the guy personally because I’m sure he’s a nice guy. I’ll give him credit; the touchdown pass to Ja’Khi was a thing of beauty. The problem is you get one of those per game coupled with multiple misses. There has been a good portion of blame that can be passed around for the struggles in the first 3 games, but in this game, a lot of falls squarely on DJ. To be fair, there are times that this offense as a whole looks confused and poorly coordinated, but the quarterback issues don’t help hide that.
DJ currently ranks 99th in QBR, 95th in EPA, 89th in PFF Pass grade, and 227th in NFL passer rating. This is the worst offense Mike Norvell has had in his entire career and he just doubled down on DJ remaining the starter, which is quite maddening. I believe that most people understand Brock Glenn would probably not step in and be the savior of this offense, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to give him a look.
Reports are that DJ is better in practice, but I don’t understand how that matters when it looks like it does on Saturdays, which is what counts. With Brock, you get mobility and moxie from a guy who will (potentially) be here longer than the next 8 games. I’d say the consensus is that most fans would rather lose with Brock while we grow the future vs. lose with a guy who won’t be here to help turn this around, but we aren’t the ones getting paid to coach.
FSU has faced some solid, but not spectacular teams in the first 4 games. The meat of the schedule has arrived and while the defense will give them opportunities to win, the offense will continue to lose them games unless it gets drastically better in a short amount of time. They have scored 13, 12, and 14 points in the past 3 games, so I wouldn’t bet the farm on that happening…
Florida State finally got a much-needed win, and no matter how it looked, it felt better than a loss. Even in a reduced capacity, Doak was rocking and had a hand in forcing multiple pre-snap penalties against the Golden Bears. Hopefully, the team can build on this performance and roll that momentum into their next game against SMU. Sometimes all it takes is a spark… Beating Cal wasn’t the only win for FSU on the night either. They also got a commitment from 4-star running back Byron Louis giving them some much-needed momentum on the recruiting trail, too. Thanks for reading and Go Noles!
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