Florida State lost to Alabama 50-36 in Week 3.
Duce Robinson caught a 20-yard touchdown, Ousmane Kromah ran one in from 12 and a rushing score capped a 9-play, 75-yard drive, and about 20 minutes into last Saturday night in Tuscaloosa Florida State led Alabama 21-6. Lightning stopped play late in the second quarter, the teams skipped halftime, and Alabama outscored the Seminoles 44-15 from there in a 50-36 win. Norvell did not spread the blame afterward. "Explosive plays killed us," he said. "They throw the bubble and don't get the edge set, and obviously it's a long touchdown play." He added, "We got to be able to get off the field," and, per Tomahawk Nation, called the defense "not good enough right now."
The numbers back him. Alabama piled up 567 yards on 66 plays, 8.6 per snap, against one Florida State sack and no takeaways. That is the second straight game in which Tony White's defense has allowed 550-plus yards, after SMU also went past that mark. The shape of the two games differed in one important way. Against SMU the defense at least generated four takeaways while recording no sacks, so the breakdowns came between splash plays. At Alabama there were no splash plays at all to hide behind.
And it was not a personnel problem. Linebacker Chris Jones went down with an injury in the first quarter and returned on the next drive; Ja'Bril Rawls left after his own first-quarter sack and came back too, finishing with eight tackles. The offense was not the problem either. Florida State put up 471 yards, Daniels accounted for 384 of them, and his 6-yard touchdown run and the two-point conversion cut Alabama's lead to 43-36 with 7:27 to play. Alabama then answered with nine plays for 90 yards, eight of them runs, with gains of 18, 10, 13 and 20, and Brown walked in from 20 yards with 2:15 left. Florida State went in as a near three-score underdog, with Alabama favored by 18.5 to 20.5 points, which is exactly the kind of consolation a 1-2 team stops caring about.
Florida State is a 99 percent favorite here, so a 2-2 record on Saturday night tells nobody anything. What is worth watching is narrower and more specific. Watch whether the edges get set on perimeter throws, whether the front generates pressure it has not produced in two games, and whether any FSU defender takes the ball away. Edges set, a couple of sacks and a takeaway before halftime would mean more than a 45-point margin. The rest of the week's ACC picture is in the interactive guide.
The offense has a real question to answer too, because it is down two skill players. Samuel Singleton Jr. turned a screen into a 65-yard gain at Alabama, got hit hard on the next snap and left on crutches in a right-knee brace; Norvell has since said he "will miss an extended period of time" with hope for a return late in the season. Receiver Devin Carter is working back from multiple transverse process fractures in his back, which has already pushed Jasen Lopez, Jayvan Boggs, Tae'Shaun Gelsey and Teriq Mallory into bigger roles behind Robinson and Micahi Danzy. Norvell remains the game-day play-caller even with Tim Harris Jr. as coordinator, and he has 60 low-stakes minutes to find out which of those young receivers he trusts in two weeks at Louisville.
There is a warmer layer to this one. Norvell played receiver at Central Arkansas from 2001 to 2005 and still holds the school records with 213 catches and 2,611 yards, and Bears coach Nathan Brown was his college teammate and one-summer roommate. "This one means a little more," Brown said, calling Norvell one of his best friends in coaching. They have never coached against each other as head coaches before.
None of the rest of Saturday's slate does anything for Florida State, which suits the week. FSU is 1-2 with a road losing streak at 10 games, and a home game against an FCS opponent cannot touch either of those facts. "At the end of the day, this team is growing," Norvell said in Tuscaloosa. Virginia comes to Tallahassee on Oct. 3 as close to a coin flip as this schedule gets. Whether that game is winnable depends almost entirely on what the defense does with the next seven days, and Saturday is the first chance to see any of it. (Methodology.)