Florida State seeks solutions for pass coverage breakdowns

The very first pass of the game went for 35 yards. And there was nobody within 15 yards of the Boston College receiver when he caught it.

The biggest play of the game, in Florida State head coach Mike Norvell’s eyes, came in the third quarter when Boston College completed a 52-yard pass to a receiver wide open in the middle of the field. On thirrd-and-17.

The Florida State defense also allowed a 28-yard completion on a third-and-20 late in the fourth quarter.

The Seminoles still got the win. They hung on for a 31-29 victory, thanks in large part to a sack after that 28-yard pass, which forced a punt.

But still, the breakdowns Norvell saw on Saturday clearly irked him, and he made that known on Monday during his weekly press conference.

“That’s shown up too much in the first three games,” he said. “It’s something that’s definitely being addressed. It’s something that we’ve got to understand — what people are going to try to do against us for how we play and what we do. But they (opponents) have done a good job with some of the misdirection, and our eyes have not been right a few times and allowed guys to get space.”

Norvell specifically brought up that third-and-17 pass that changed the game and almost led to a devastating loss.

“Ten guys checked immediately to the coverage and the defensive play and structure we wanted to run. And 10 guys got it, one guy didn’t,” Norvell said. “And it just happened to be where the ball was thrown. … We’ve all got to be on the same page in those adjustments. It’s something we look at as coaches, we look at as players, and we all take ownership in it.”

Last year, Florida State had one of the best pass defenses in the country statistically.

The Seminoles allowed just 165.4 yards through the air per game, which was the fourth-best mark in the nation, and they did a fantastic job of limiting big plays. Opposing offenses had just 31 completions of 20-plus yards all season. That was 13th best in the country.

So far in 2023, Florida State is currently 110th in the country in passing defense, allowing 268.3 yards per game. And even if you take out the garbage-time 75-yard touchdown they allowed late in the fourth quarter against LSU, the Seminoles would still be just 98th in the nation in that category.

So far in 2023, Florida State’s defense has already allowed 12 pass plays of 20-plus yards or more, including six on Saturday against a Boston College quarterback who was making just his second career start.

The Seminoles rank 102nd in the country in that stat and are on pace to allow 48 such completions this year.

Making matters more concerning is that on many of those plays — the first snap of the game against LSU, the second against Boston College, the aforementioned third-and-17 breakdown — the receivers have been wide, wide, wide open.

“We finally gained control of the game,” Fuller said of that particular bust. “It was third-and-forever. When you have game plans and you have situations, sometimes it doesn’t come up until those moments. And unfortunately, that’s just the lesson learned of being dialed in throughout the game when it comes up.

“And defense is like that sometimes. If 10 guys execute and one guy does the wrong thing, and the ball finds that place, it becomes a big issue. It’s another lesson learned that it takes 11 to operate as one. Especially on defense. If the ball doesn’t find the mistake, then people don’t see it. But if it finds it, it becomes very glaring and obvious. That’s a harder way to learn the lesson, but it’s a lesson that needed to be learned.”

Because, as Fuller and everyone else knows, if the defense gives up those kind of wide-open throws to Clemson, and plays that poorly on third down, the Seminoles aren’t going to be undefeated leaving Death Valley on Saturday afternoon.

The pass defense — and particularly communication between defensive backs — wasn’t much of a problem at all in 2022. So far, albeit through just three games (all wins), that’s been a major one for the Florida State defense in 2023.

“Some of it has been we’ve played some mobile quarterbacks,” Fuller said. “And probably having (bad) eyes and trying to help out in places you shouldn’t help out, and then you lose leverage and now you’re in a chase race. And so, there hasn’t been one individual, per se, or one group. You’re constantly trying to build it to where you have options to play multiple things and take away things that people are doing.

“And, I think, our guys want to play really well. So, we’ve had some really poor eyes. Especially in some of these scramble situations that we’ve got to tie up and fix.”

Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State football fans on the Tribal Council.

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