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Friedlander: It’s only Week 1, but you can already put a fork in Florida State’s season
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Week 1 of the college football season is in the books. And Florida State’s season is already over.
Done.
Finished.
Kaput.
Oh sure, the Seminoles will still presumably show up and play the final 10 games on their schedule.
But no matter what happens from here on out, even if they miraculously find answers to a laundry list of issues they can’t sue to resolve and win the rest of their games, any hopes of making the newly expanded 12-team Playoff are already out the window.
They doubled down on their Week 0 loss to Georgia Tech in Ireland by taking a convincing 28-13 beating – at home – to Boston College on Monday. Now 0-2 in the conference, the preseason ACC favorites have played their way out of the national polls and are now reduced to playing out the string.
At least Mike Norvell and his team won’t have to worry about any Playoff snubs this year.
At the rate they’re going, they’ll be lucky just to be spending the holidays preparing for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. That would only be a fitting destination since there’s no more appropriate way for Norvell to finish a season that’s started the way this one has than getting a vat of mayonnaise dumped over his head.
Make no mistake. These back-to-back losses to double-digit underdogs are no fluke.
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Jet lag from the trip to and from Ireland may have been a contributing factor, although it didn’t seem to bother Georgia Tech much.
Nope.
If you’re looking for the real cause of FSU’s sudden and shocking demise, you have to go all the way back to January. Only a few weeks after that skeleton crew dressed up as the Seminoles embarrassed themselves at the Orange Bowl against Georgia.
The beginning of the end came when Cam Ward, the top prize of this year’s transfer portal class, told Norvell thanks, but no thanks and decided to take his talents a little further down I-75 to South Beach.
Forced to go to Plan B, Norvell settled on DJ Uiagalelei, who appeared to have salvaged his foundering career by putting together a solid season at Oregon State a year after getting run off from Clemson.
It hasn’t turned out to be a wise decision.
Let’s just say that however much NIL money it cost Norvell to bring DJU to Tallahassee would have been better spent spread among a handful of capable offensive and defensive linemen.
More on that later.
As was the case against Georgia Tech, DJU’s stat line against BC wasn’t terrible. He was 21-of-42 for 272 yards, a touchdown and an interception. But those numbers tell only a sliver of his story. The rest is best summed up by 3 plays in the final minute of the first half.
Trailing 14-3, FSU put itself in a position to grab some momentum going into halftime by driving to the BC 6. Score a touchdown and they’re right back in the game. Especially since they were set to receive the 2nd half kickoff.
Instead, DJU threw 3 straight incompletions – twice sailing the ball over the heads of wide-open receivers in the end zone – and the Seminoles had to settle for a field goal.
DJ Uiagalelei missed a wide open receiver 🤦♂️
pic.twitter.com/c8WUda3jeH— SleeperCFB (@SleeperCFB) September 3, 2024
It turned out to be their last best chance at salvaging their season.
But that’s not all the quarterback’s fault. He’s just one of many reasons why FSU has become the 4th team in the past 10 years – and 2nd from its school – to lose its first 2 games after starting a season ranked in the top 10.
Twice in as many games, the Seminoles have been manhandled at the point of attack on both sides of the ball.
After giving up 190 rushing yards to Georgia Tech, they were torched for 263 on the ground by the Eagles. That’s just 30 yards fewer than FSU managed for the entire game – all but 21 of which came through the air.
Norvell and his staff can tweak their schemes all they like to try and run the ball more effectively while keeping teams from running it against them. But a lack of physicality in the trenches is a problem that can’t be fixed. Even with the return of offensive coordinator Alex Atkins from his 3-game NCAA suspension.
If the Seminoles are getting pushed around up front against Georgia Tech and BC, just wait until they come face-to-face with Notre Dame, Miami and some of the other big boys that still remain on the schedule.
Norvell must have sensed that his team was in trouble Monday night.
Either that or he panicked by going all in on 4th-and-5 from his own 47 on the opening series of the 2nd half. Going for it in that situation was a bad decision at face value. It only got worse when DJU was picked off by Max Tucker, who returned it inside the FSU 10. Two plays later, Thomas Castellanos hit Kye Robichaux for a dagger of a touchdown.
This isn’t the first time Castellanos and the Eagles have given the Seminoles fits. The dual-threat quarterback rolled up almost 400 combined yards in last year’s meeting. A game in which FSU escaped with a 2-point win.
No such luck this time.
Treshaun Ward shined in his return to Tallahassee 🌟@BCFootball | #ACCFootball pic.twitter.com/S5xjbKi22q
— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) September 3, 2024
Adding insult to injury is that besides Castellanos, BC’s most potent offensive weapon was even more familiar to the Seminoles. Running back Treshaun Ward, who ran for 77 yards and caught 3 passes for 61 yards and a touchdown, spent his first 4 seasons at FSU.
The defeat was so thorough that new BC coach Bill O’Brien was able to show mercy to FSU by having his quarterback genuflect 3 times within an arm’s distance from the end zone instead of running up the score in the final 2 minutes.
It was a symbolic gesture that signaled more than just the end of the game. It also put an end to the Seminoles’ season.
With almost the entire season left to play.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
