There’s still a long season ahead in college football, with most teams having played just one game, but Florida State couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. The Noles, who started the season as a No. 10 seed, are 0-2 with losses to two unranked opponents.
The team has struggled despite the Noles making a major investment in their defensive line this year, with nearly $2 million going to their starting front in an NIL team budget of about $12 million, a source briefed on the NIL said strategy of FSU. The Athletics this week.
On Monday night, FSU was eliminated at home by Boston College, 28-13. The Eagles ran all over FSU, outgaining them 263 to 21 yards.
Meanwhile, the Noles cruised through the ACC in 2023, going 13-0 and claiming the conference before being left out of the Playoff. Since then, though, it’s been a nightmare for FSU.
Georgia defeated a depleted Noles team 63-3, which had 20 players opt out of the 2023 Orange Bowl. Florida State coach Mike Norvell again dipped heavily into the transfer portal, signing seventeen players in hopes of replacing ten draft picks. Norvell has previously done a great job mining the portal, but this year it had terrible results.
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One of the headliners for the new Seminoles was former Clemson and Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, who transferred after FSU failed to transfer Cam Ward, who chose Miami, to Washington State.
Uiagalelei is off to a very shaky start for FSU, with the former five-star recruit throwing just one touchdown and completing 58 percent of his passes, for an average of 6.7 yards per attempt. A team that averaged 35 points per game last year scored just 34 in its first two games.
The more surprising problem, however, is a defense that was damaged in both games. Boston College had 10 runs of at least 10 yards against FSU.
The Noles rank 124th in the nation in run defense, allowing 227 yards per game on the ground. FSU ranked No. 4 in the nation in sacks in 2023 with 46 and has just three in two games this season. The program did have to replace two top-40 draft picks in Jared Verse and Braden Fiske, but was still expected to be front-loaded with transfer Darrell Jackson, a 328-pound defensive tackle, who was brought in along with Georgia transfer defensive end . ending Marvin Jones Jr. to go along with Patrick Payton and Joshua Farmer.
FSU’s problems were on both sides of the ball. The Seminoles rank last in the ACC among 17 teams in third-down defense, giving up conversions 56 percent of the time. The Noles were No. 2 in the ACC last year and allowed first downs less than 29 percent of the time. On offense, they are just No. 14 in the ACC in third-down conversions and their No. 14 in red zone touchdown percentage.
Norvell’s team has this weekend off to iron out some issues before Memphis visits Tallahassee on September 14.
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