Coming into the 2025 football season I had no idea what to expect of Florida State when friends and family asked. Florida State brought in 49 new players and six new assistants with lingering questions of a haunting 2-10 season. Predicting anything before seeing FSU play was truly a game of 52-card pickup, as the playing cards in the deck of a dozen FSU’s opponents had been shuffled during the offseason, too.
Could FSU go from 2-10 to 10-2? We all know a lot of fans who were just hoping to once again be bowl-eligible.
Each week has been a learning experience for the fans and the press.
Alabama? They came in with a second-year coaching staff, lost 35-plus four-and five-star players from the Nick Saban era, so I asked — Who is Alabama now? — in this space a week before that game. We’re still asking that after Bama lost to FSU then beat Georgia.
And how about Virginia, now 5-1? Head coach Tony Elliott was on thin ice coming into the 2025 season with a 11-23 all-time record. Elliott went all in on the portal to transform the 2025 outlook, led by fifth-year senior Chandler Morris, who played at three prior schools. Tony White warned Morris was an underappreciated quarterback. And when have you ever seen a roster with 35 players who are in their fifth, sixth or seventh year of college football?
A year ago, Miami had pushed all the chips in with Cam Ward, reported to be a $4 million one-year rental, and many folks thought UM would fall off in 2025 without him. Even after the Canes went all in with Ward in 2024, they reportedly pushed another $4 million in on Carson Beck, who underwent Tommy John surgery in December. It seemed a huge gamble as the procedure used to require a 12-18 month rehabilitation. But thanks to a miracle of modern science – an internal brace – he was full go in less than six months.
Look around the country objectively and you’ll see vast improvement in some teams like Virginia (and FSU), teams that were written off a year ago. And look how much teams are able to evolve during the season.
Heading into the 2025 season, most of us thought the most threatening teams on FSU’s schedule would be Alabama, Miami, Clemson, Florida and the road game at NC State. I’ve met others who worried Virginia was a trap game, a Friday night game and the first road game.
After the Virginia game, I wondered how much effect the three-week layoff had on FSU’s competitive edge, as the players had the bye and two games where the starters didn’t play past halftime. That’s a long time to eat the rat poison without being tested.
FSU beats Bama and Seminoles are giddy with expectations rising, but FSU had to wait three weeks to test itself against a competitive team at Virginia.
FSU gets upset, but Bama beat Georgia that same weekend, and you are still left to wonder, what’s a reasonable expectation for this FSU team?
You watch Clemson start at 1-3 and wonder if Dabo Swinney's refusal to use the portal has caught up with him. Unhappy talk at the Esso Station about Dabo’s future in Tiger Town and his defensive behavior at press conferences leaves you thinking he’s hearing paw prints.
Miami struggled into the 4th quarter with Florida and you wondered if that 13-7 score in the 4th quarter was a sign of weakness in Miami’s firepower or whether Florida’s defense is just that good. FSU plays Miami and you see the firepower and it validates the strength of Florida’s defense. And then an offensively-challenged Florida goes out and blows out Texas, a team, and a legacy quarterback, who have not been able to live up to their overblown preseason billing.
College football is crazy and fun and just as unpredictable as ever.
So who is FSU and where does it go from here?
As noted in preseason, we needed to see FSU play someone to know whether FSU was improved enough to return to a bowl or become a playoff contender. The Bama game led us to believe FSU had a chance to compete with anyone. While the two games against East Texas A&M and Kent State didn’t tell us much, at lease FSU didn’t play down to their competition.
Each game has helped to shape an understanding or at least a more-informed opinion.
The Virginia performance was concerning — particularly defensively — as FSU didn’t match UVA’s intensity or physicality in the third quarter and two-yard gains turned into seven. The turnovers and penalties were chinks in FSU’s offensive armor, lapses in focus, but it was FSU’s inability to dial up an Alabama-level of intensity on the road that proved fatal against a solid opponent.
Tommy Castellanos and others thought the game to be a wake-up call and that the players would refocus for Miami.
As they spoke of re-focusing in time for Miami, I thought about a Mickey Andrews’ quote I always loved when we’d ask him about what halftime adjustment he’d made to shut down an opponent. Andrews would always say, “There isn’t but one adjustment that works and that’s the one on your chinstrap.”
You likely remember the humble folksy quip, crafted by wisdom, what Andrews called “want to,” pronounced “won’t to,” as in “they won’t score If you won’t let them.”
In the days that followed the Virginia loss I wondered if the adjustments necessary were as easy as tightening a chinstrap … or whether the problem was the player wearing the helmet.
The Miami game would tell us everything we needed to know about who FSU has become and I think it did. The 2025 team is much improved over the 2024 version, one that’s willing and able to compete, and one that still has very little margin for error in terms of talent, depth or maturity.
An example came in the Miami game. FSU suffered a loss at right tackle, a position that faced a game-changing, generational talent in defensive end Rueben Bain, and didn’t have a veteran replacement. Instead, offensive line coach Herb Hand moved guard Adrian Medley to tackle, a player he coached at UCF, and inserted former Harvard lineman Jacob Rizzy at guard.
I don’t question Hand’s decision — he knows his players — but pointing to where this FSU team is today in terms of depth at important positions.
The FSU defense did tighten their chinstrap to better match Miami’s physicality. The tackling wasn’t perfect, but it was better and there’s something to build on there for the rest of the season. Where the secondary got in trouble was over-commiting to the run and getting torched on play-action passes, most notably the flea flicker. As frustrating as it was to witness, hat’s off to Miami’s game plan.
Personally, I was surprised by the FSU offense, a unit I didn’t think Miami or anyone else could stop consistently. The turnovers and penalties didn’t help. FSU did shoot itself in the foot a few times. It wasn’t perfect. But my impression was this loss was more about Miami’s closing speed than it was about FSU mistakes.
Sitting in the end zone, where you can see the running lanes open and close, there were a number of times an FSU running back was going to rip off a chunk of yardage and then bam! Hurricane players would close and hold the play to minimum yardage.
Miami has recruited 1990s Hurricane closing speed and got more hats to the ball. When one of those chunk runs goes for 2 or 3 yards, those plays affect the FSU players as well as the play caller. Miami’s defense was ready for a lot of what FSU ran, especially the reverses and Castellanos scrambles and it caused impatience in play calling and in the quarterback’s feet.
FSU couldn’t finish drives until the score was 28-3 and then FSU managed two long drives to make the score a respectable 28-22. Give FSU and Castellanos credit for not quitting, for scoring twice and for completing two 2-point conversions. Give the defense credit for getting the ball back quickly. That was impressive.
What changed? Did FSU find something? Did UM players lose focus? Did Miami’s scheme change, where the secondary was told to keep FSU in front of them and force long, time-consuming drives. I believe it to be the later. But that doesn’t diminish FSU’s effort and execution.
What I saw was FSU players who buttoned up chinstraps, who played hard, who didn’t quit but were beaten by a more-talented and veteran Miami team that executed its game plan throughout. There’s no moral victory in a loss to the archrival. It’s a pain coaches and players will bear for the rest of their lives but we did see qualities important to the challenges this team will face in the back half of the season.
Climb back against Pitt
Can the players bring this physicality to the Pittsburgh game on Saturday, when the No. 2 rush defense in the country comes to town to face the No. 2 rushing offense in the country? Or will there be a let down after losing to the arch-rival.
This FSU team struggled at points against Virginia and Miami but they haven’t quit when many teams would. FSU was beat Saturday, and will feel beaten this week at practice after a hard-hitting game, presenting a challenge to refocus early in the practice week.
Saturday does not seem like a big game to many people but it’s going to be the on ramp, or the off ramp to the back half of the season. If FSU wins this game, numerous goals are still in play to play themselves back into consideration to re-enter the playoff conversation if enough teams go bust in the backhalf of the season.
At 3-2 with two ACC losses, FSU would need a lot of help to get back into the ACC Championship game or playoff talk but that’s not the conversation Florida State players or coaches need to engage in for at least a month. The conversation today is how do you dust yourself off, fix your issues and go beat Pittsburgh at home this week.
FSU coaches need to pick their cards off the floor and assemble them into the best hand they can to face a 3-2 Panther team that on paper looks like FSU with high-scoring wins over Duquesne, Central Michigan and Boston College, and tough-to-swallow, 7-point losses to bitter rival West Virginia and Louisville.
The Panthers defense – which features three veteran linebackers – is ranked No. 2 in the country against the run, 64.6 yards per game and 1.72 yards per rush (No. 22 total defense). And, guess what, FSU is ranked the No. 2 in rushing offense at 295.4 yards per game and 6.15 yards per carry, including games against Alabama, Miami and Virginia.
The FSU coaches need to emphasize the task at hand: An immovable object meeting an unstoppable force, while we fans have the luxury to peek ahead.
To extend the pursuit of the season’s goals, FSU must win this game then fly across the country to play Stanford (2-3) for win No. 5. The Noles will take a week off then play Wake Forest (3-2) at home. Beat Wake and FSU is bowl-eligible, and at 6-2 has created another exciting road game at Clemson (currently 2-3).
And over those four weeks, a couple of those ACC teams will have stumbled a time or two.
But can this 3-2 FSU team beat 3-2 Pitt and 3-2 Wake in Doak and 2-3 Stanford on the West Coast?
There’s reason to believe if FSU brings its A game, they can go to Clemson 6-2. FSU gets the toughest two at home, and faces a struggling Stanford away.
Take care of business with three wins and you’ll lock down a bowl bid, which many would have been happy to receive following a grave 2024 season. Beat Clemson and who knows, a path to the ACC Championship game may present itself.
FSU doesn’t have to worry about what the ACC teams ahead of them do, they only have to play the next four hands they are delt and let the chips fall where they may. This month is about improving, building your case, and putting yourself in position.
FSU will still have Virginia Tech (2-4) to play in Tally, A very challenging Friday night game at NC State (4-2) and a rivalry game at Florida (2-4). The Noles will need to evolve, get better each week, if they’re going to have a chance to make a run.
A lot of games to be played
Georgia Tech (5-0, 2-0 ACC), Miami (5-0, 1-0 ACC), Virginia (5-1, 3-0 ACC), and SMU (3-2, 1-0 ACC) are in the best position for one of the two spots in the ACC Championship Game and for a playoff bid but there’s seven more weeks of games to be played and plenty of loose rocks and fallen branches to stumble over along the way
Even though Virginia lost to NC State early, it was not considered an ACC game so the Cavaliers remain 3-0 in ACC play. Why? Because the two schools chose to preserve their rivalry in years the ACC does not schedule them for ACC play. Virginia will have to lose three ACC games for FSU to have a chance. The Cavs remaining schedule includes: North Carolina (2-3), Cal (4-2) and Duke (4-2) on the road, with ACC home games against Wake (3-2) and Virginia Tech (2-4).
Miami (5-0, 4-0 ACC) would have to lose three as well, as they earned the win over FSU. UM is on the road at SMU (3-2), Virginia Tech (2-4) and at home in against Louisville (4-1), Stanford (2-3), Syracuse (3-3), NC State (4-2) and Pitt (3-2).
Georgia Tech (5-0, 2-0 ACC) would have to lose two. The Yellow Jackets play Duke (4-2), NC State (4-2) and Boston College (1-4) on the road and Virginia Tech (2-4), Syracuse (3-3) and Pitt (3-2) at home.
Louisville (4-1, 1-1 ACC) would only have to lose one more. The Cards play at Miami on Oct. 17, at Virginia Tech (2-4), at SMU (3-2) with home games with BC (1-4), Cal (4-2) and Clemson (2-4).
Anything can happen on any given Saturday (or Friday), so all FSU can do right now is ante up and play the cards they are dealt, and pray the others go bust.
