TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Florida State’s defense was up to the challenge early. The Seminoles made forced a pair of three-and-outs that helped build early confidence.
Even after the first Ashton Daniels interception, which gave Alabama the ball at FSU’s 34-yard line, the Seminoles held the Crimson Tide to 20 yards on eight plays and forced a field-goal attempt.
Coupled with FSU’s offense generating three touchdowns on the first four drives, there was momentum with the Seminoles ahead 21-6. Those positives quickly shifted in a wild second quarter where Alabama scored touchdowns on three straight drives and the Crimson Tide eventually took home a 50-36 win over FSU.
Alabama scored on nine straight drives and racked up 567 offensive yards, including 268 rushing yards in the second half.
“The last two teams we played are top offenses,” FSU coach Mike Norvell said. “But, no, we got to be able to get off the field. We showed capability in the early part of the game. We allowed too many explosive plays tonight. I thought we did a better job on third down, they converted two fourth downs that extended drives.”
When Norvell says too many explosive plays, the Seminoles gave up a whopping 19 chunk plays (15 yards or more passing, 10 yards or more rushing). Whether it was Keelon Russell escaping or throwing, or powerful backs like Trae’shawn Brown and Daniel Hill.
FSU’s defense played better in some situations, holding Alabama to 4 of 12 on third-down conversions. Alabama also converted a pair of fourth-down conversions.
But the Seminoles couldn’t force a turnover, which was a frustration considering Russell had turned it over three times in the first half at Kentucky. That inability to turn over Russell, a five-star quarterback making his third career start, hurt a defense that was often put in a bad spot because of Daniels’ three interceptions — but also couldn’t deliver its own takeaways.
Russell also finished an accurate night (23 of 30) with 320 yards and three touchdowns. In FSU’s game against SMU, Kevin Jennings completed 26 of 36 passes for 430 yards and three touchdowns.
Another concern was the run defense, which had been good against a pass-centric New Mexico State (47 yards) but then struggled against SMU (155 yards, 5.0 per carry). FSU held up well in the first half against Alabama, giving up just 27 yards on 14 carries.
“We came out fast,” linebacker Chris Jones said. “We knew the game plan and we went out there and executed the first half.”
But the defense kept wearing down against the punishing Alabama ground game in the second half. The Crimson Tide had 22 carries for 220 yards in the second half.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with effort or want to,” Jones said. “It’s about execution. We just didn’t execute the right way.”
Jones’ comments would seem to run counter to the theory that FSU’s smaller defensive front physically was overmatched and couldn’t stop the run in the second half. The smaller line and its ability to defend the run was a preseason storyline, and significant question mark and will be one moving forward.
A few days after the loss to SMU, defensive coordinator Tony White argued that the Seminoles played quite well with the exception of nine chunk plays (in reality it was 11). His comments drew widespread criticism from FSU’s fans on the Osceola’s social media accounts as well as on other sites.
A trend of allowing chunk plays is also disturbing as coaches had a bye week to make corrections. Now they seek adjustments and fixes.
The Seminoles go back to the drawing board in practice as they prepare for Central Arkansas on Saturday (3 p.m. on ACC Network). But coming up are games against top 30 scoring offenses like No. 28 Virginia, No. 12 Louisville and No. 3 Miami.
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