Warchant 3-2-1: Florida State and Mike Norvell flipped the script on Clemson Tigers
Now that the dust has settled on Florida State’s 31-24 victory Saturday at Clemson, it’s time for a new edition of the Warchant 3-2-1, where we offer up three observations, two questions and one prediction about the Seminoles.
In this installment, we’ll look at validation for Florida State’s modern roster construction, the success the Seminoles enjoyed in special situations, why teams are throwing the ball so much against FSU, and more.
Three things we learned
1 — Score one for Norvell, Modern College Roster Construction
There were so many interesting story lines going into, and coming out of, this year’s Florida State-Clemson game that I’m not sure we have spent enough time talking about what might have been the most important one of all — at least from a macro level:
The philosophical battle between classic college football recruiting and modern college roster construction.
Clemson, of course, has built its roster the old-fashioned way. And because he has been able to recruit at such a high level — the Tigers have stockpiled top-five and top-10 recruiting classes seemingly every year — head coach Dabo Swinney has been adamant that he wants to maintain his focus there and not on the transfer portal.
Swinney’s approach was clearly evident on Saturday at Death Valley. Of the 22 players in Clemson’s starting lineup on offense and defense, 21 were either four- or five-star recruits. The lone exception was three-star defensive lineman Ruke Orhorhoro. Every other starter on defense was a blue-chip recruit who chose Clemson, including five-star defensive end Xavier Thomas and five-star linebackers Barrett Carter and Jeremiah Trotter Jr.
The story was the same on offense. QB Cade Klubnik was a five-star in high school, while every other Clemson starter was a four-star recruit. That includes every receiver, every running back, every offensive lineman and even the tight end. If you start looking through the backups on the stat sheet, it’s essentially the same story for the whole team. They’re practically all four- or five-stars, and nearly all of them were players that Florida State wouldn’t have been able to sign when they were coming out of high school.
On the other side of the field, FSU started nine transfers on offense and five transfers on defense; that’s 14 of 22. And of those 22 players on the Seminoles’ starting offense and defense, only seven or eight were four-star prospects in high school. (None were five-stars. And the total of four-stars only reaches eight if we include DB Kevin Knowles, who was a three-star prospect in the On3 Industry Ranking but did receive four stars from two different recruiting services.)
WR Johnny Wilson, RB Trey Benson, WR Keon Coleman, RB Lawrance Toafili, DE Patrick Payton, LB Kalen DeLoach and DB Jarrian Jones were the other sure-fire four-star recruits in Florida State’s starting lineup. Everyone else who started Saturday was a three-star or lower; including a pair of two-star offensive linemen in Bless Harris and Jeremiah Byers. OL D’Mitri Emmanuel and DT Braden Fiske each received a split of two-star and three-star rankings. And TE Kyle Morlock and DE Jared Verse were both zero-star recruits who started their college careers at lower levels.
It’s a pretty remarkable juxtaposition when you look at the two rosters side by side.
On one sideline, you have a coach in Swinney who probably only considered recruiting a handful of current Florida State players when they were coming out of high school. On the other, you have a coach in Mike Norvell who likely had a tough time getting many of Clemson’s players to even take his calls during the recruiting process.
Yet in the end, it was Norvell’s patchwork group of Seminoles — including guys who started their college carers at schools like Shorter and Lamar, Albany and UTEP — that pulled out the 31-24 victory in overtime.
That’s not to say that recruiting blue-chip talent is the wrong answer in today’s game. Heck, Florida State has the nation’s No. 6-rated recruiting class for the Class of 2024, and the Seminoles are hoping to finish in the top five. It’s just more evidence that classic recruiting isn’t the ONLY answer anymore.
And it’s not to say that Florida State pulled off some miracle victory, or that the Seminoles had a bunch of untalented players going up against a group of studs on the other side.
Very good football players have gone under the radar during the recruiting process as long as this sport has been played. How many times have you listened to pregame introductions before NFL games and noticed players coming from schools like Eastern Kentucky, Northern Iowa and Incarnate Word?
Some were not noticed because they came from small towns and didn’t participate in recruiting camps. Some were simply late bloomers, or they blossomed when they changed positions or finally focused on one sport.
What’s cool now is, thanks to the transfer portal, these players get a second chance to play major college football, and a school like Florida State can flip its roster in just two or three years.
By any metric you choose, Clemson has one of the most talented rosters in the country. There are only three or four schools in college football with more elite recruits on their roster. And the Tigers just lost at home to a team that had three-stars (or lower) filling two-thirds of its start lineups.
It’s a new day. And the good news for Florida State fans is they have a coach who embraces it.
2 — Situational Success: FSU flipped script from last year’s loss
From a broad statistical standpoint, it makes little sense that Florida State won that football game. Clemson controlled the time of possession (34:36 to 25:24), the Tigers dominated in total yardage (429 to 311), and they posted a laughable edge in first downs (25 to 16).
And when you look solely at those numbers, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that Florida State “stole” that victory. That Clemson was the better team, but the Seminoles had good fortune and well-timed big plays on their side.
And if you want to believe that, that’s fine. But I hope you were saying the same thing one year ago when the script was flipped. Because when Clemson came to Tallahassee last year and won by six points, it was Florida State that dominated total yardage (460 to 370) and first downs (28 to 18). Yet I don’t recall a lot of people saying the Tigers “stole” that victory.
Instead, everyone praised Clemson for winning “the middle eight” — a topic that was a big story line heading into last year’s game. How the Tigers were ultra-successful at winning games when they won the final four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half.
Sure enough, they did it that day as well. Clemson scored 10 points at the end of the first half and seven points less than a minute into the second half to blow open a close game; the score went from 14-14 to 31-14 in what seemed like a blink of an eye.
This time, it was Florida State that won the middle portion of the game. Jordan Travis rushed for a touchdown to end the first half and Ryan Fitzgerald kicked a field goal to start the second half, as the Seminoles erased a 10-point deficit and tied the score at 17-17 with Clemson essentially not touching the ball. And the Seminoles won a bunch of different situational portions of the game.
After that 34-28 Clemson win one year ago, the No. 1 observation in my 3-2-1 was that, “Clemson gives blueprint for playing smart situational football.” And what I wrote about was how the Tigers were winning games by being great in certain key areas; they were great in the red zone, they won the turnover battle, and they were exceptional on special teams.
How did Florida State knock off Clemson on Saturday? The Seminoles were better in the red zone (FSU scored two touchdowns in two trips, while Clemson scored on only four of six trips — three touchdowns and one field goal), they won the turnover battle, and they were excellent on special teams.
Fitzgerald made his one field goal, a 48-yarder, while Clemson missed one of two. And punter Alex Mastromanno was outstanding at flipping the field with four punts of 50-plus yards.
While it’s difficult to count on always winning the turnover battle, the Seminoles’ strong play on special teams and in the red zone are very good signs. Florida State currently is tied for No. 1 nationally in red-zone offense with 17 scores in 17 trips. The Seminoles have cashed in with touchdowns on 14 of those opportunities, and the FSU defense has allowed opponents to score on only 70.6 percent (12 of 17) of their red-zone trips. That ranks 24th in the country, and is an improvement from 61st (82.9 percent) a year ago.
3 — Teams want no part of FSU run defense
I’m not here to tell you that Florida State’s pass defense has been good this year. It hasn’t. What I am going to suggest is that teams are throwing the ball excessively against the Seminoles because they know they will have little success running it, and that skews our perception a little bit.
Through four games, FSU opponents have attempted 144 passes while running the ball 137 times. And those rushing attempts include 11 sacks and many quarterback scrambles. If you take those out of the equation, the ratio could easily be something like 165 passes to 116 runs.
Now compare that to one year ago, when Florida State was banged up all across the front-seven and teams pounded away on the ground. During the 2022 season, opponents ran the ball 514 times while attempting just 349 passes.
The Seminoles did record 40 sacks last year, and there undoubtedly were plenty of scrambles as well. But even with those included, teams were still disproportionately choosing to run the ball at Florida State’s injury-depleted defense. And so far this year, that trend has been reversed.
Just look at Clemson’s game plan on Saturday. The Tigers came into that game with one of the nation’s top rushing offenses, and they had sophomore QB Cade Klubnik attempt 38 passes to go with 13 runs, scrambles or sacks. Meanwhile, star tailbacks Will Shipley and Phil Mafah carried the ball a total of 28 times.
One year ago, Clemson attempted just 23 passes in this game.
I get that the pass defense needs to improve — and I have a feeling it will when safety Akeem Dent comes back from injury — but I’m pretty sure if you gave defensive coordinators the choice, 100 percent would rather be strong against the run than anything else.
And after one month of football, I think it’s safe to say this run defense is light years better than it was in 2022.
Two questions we’re asking
1 — How great is the timing of this bye week?
When the 2023 schedule was first released, I think many of us wondered if Florida State’s bye week was too early. With the bye coming on Sept. 30, it means the Seminoles will have to play their final eight games without a break.
Well, after these first four weeks, I’m not sure it could have come at a better time.
Some ACC teams haven’t even played a conference game yet. Florida State has played two — both on the road — and one against the team that was picked to win the league. The Seminoles’ other two games were against a top-five opponent in LSU at a neutral site and a Southern Miss team that won a bowl game last year.
This has been an extremely challenging first month of the season, and this team definitely needs some time to get healthy. Jordan Travis, Maurice Smith, Robert Scott, Akeem Dent and several others will benefit greatly from the extra time off physically, and I bet the entire team could use the time to recharge mentally and emotionally.
There is a lot of football left this season, but this first month has been an absolute bear.
2 — What is holding this Florida State running game back?
One month is not a huge sample size, but it’s not nothing. And through four games, FSU’s running game is not performing anywhere close to what it did last season.
In 2022, the Seminoles averaged 5.5 yards per carry and 214.1 rushing yards per game. In 2023, those numbers have dipped to 4.7 per carry and 147.8 per game.
That’s a pretty staggering dropoff, and there have been any number of legitimate theories posited by fans and media — mostly related to RB Trey Benson not breaking as many tackles as he did one year ago, and the new offensive linemen (Jeremiah Byers, Casey Roddick and Keiondre Jones) not being as comfortable running some of Alex Atkins’ running schemes.
I honestly don’t know the answer for sure. My guess is it’s a combination of both. But I will say this: I thought Benson looked more like his old self on Saturday against Clemson, even if he didn’t have a lot of yards to show for it (that is an outstanding defense front the Seminoles were going up against).
If he continues to run like that, I believe he will turn his season around pretty quickly. And I have a feeling Atkins and Mike Norvell will spend a lot of time over these next two weeks figuring out what they need to adjust scheme-wise to give this offensive line a better chance for success.
One Prediction — This FSU team is better than we realize
I get that there areas of concern for this Florida State football team.
The tackling hasn’t been great at times. The pass defense could be better. The running game is falling short of expectations. And the passing game doesn’t seem to be tapping into all of its available weapons.
But with proper credit to Tallahassee’s own T-Pain, all these Seminoles do is win.
With victories already over LSU and Clemson, Florida State has arguably delivered the most impressive first month of the season in all of college football.
And I don’t care what Clemson does the rest of this season, I thought the Tigers played an exceptional football game Saturday night. Their receivers made tough catches. Their defensive backs made play after play. Their running backs and offensive line played well. Klubnik was much more impressive than I expected, despite getting hit repeatedly. And as we discussed earlier, they boast a super-talented roster.
And yet they still lost at home — before an incredible crowd — to a Florida State team that didn’t play as well as it could.
You can dwell on the negatives if you want. But for FSU to be 4-0 against this schedule, with so much room to improve, I think that just speaks to how special this team could be.
Contact managing editor Ira Schoffel at ira@warchant.com.
Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State football fans on the Tribal Council.
The post Warchant 3-2-1: Florida State and Mike Norvell flipped the script on Clemson Tigers appeared first on On3.
