Florida State is a bad team this year and we should win by a lot. I seriously considered ending this preview after that. But I’m pretty excited that we’re (probably, don’t want to jinx us) playing some football!
Florida State (+21) at #5 Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, Oct 10, 2020
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
#TheNarrative
2020 has been a weird year, but I still find myself surprised as I write this preview. I’ve been watching college football and kept track of the Seminoles – a sometimes antagonist of Notre Dame – ever since 1993, I am at a loss to describe how much worse this team is than I could have imagined even five years ago.
Of course, this isn’t the first year they’ve struggled. There has been a clear downward trend since Jameis Winston and the 2013-2014 National Championship team.
| Year | Wins | Losses | 247 Composite Recruiting Ranking |
| 2015 | 10 | 3 | 3 |
| 2016 | 10 | 3 | 6 |
| 2017 | 7 | 6 | 11 |
| 2018 | 5 | 7 | 18 |
| 2019 | 6 | 7 | 22 |
The current year is not off to a more promising start than the last couple years. The Seminoles blocked multiple field goals but still lost to a Georgia Tech team who is not looking great. They got absolutely shelled by in-state rival Miami. Then they went down 14 points to FCS team Jacksonville State before turning things around and winning that game.
That’s a trend Notre Dame fans of my generation might recognize all too well. How did the Seminoles get here?
- BCS Championship winning coach Jimbo Fisher left Florida State for Texas A&M in 2017. It doesn’t look like success has followed him, even after he poached Mike Elko from Notre Dame.
- The Seminoles hired Willie Taggart, who promised that the team would not have to rebuild under his leadership. He was more right than he realized, but in his defense, very few people would have suspected that he would be fired before he could complete his second season.
- The Seminoles hired Mike Norvell from Memphis. Then there was an offseason controversy about his communication. Then another.
Let’s dive into the football details.
FSU’s Offense
I contemplated writing this preview before the weekend and am glad I did not, because FSU’s game against Jacksonville State produced some major changes in the offense. After the Miami debacle, FSU benched multi-year starter James Blackman in favor of redshirt freshman Tate Rodemaker. But in his first career start, Rodemaker struggled mightily, including throwing a pick six. He was in turn benched for dual threat QB Jordan Travis, who led FSU to five consecutive TD drives.
The youth movement at FSU also got a lift from freshman running back Lawrance Toafili who had 12 rushes for 99 yards in last week’s win. He leads the team in rushing yards (163 total), just ahead of Jashuan Corbin (124). Interestingly, Jordan Travis has 139 – so in terms of running threats, FSU has balance.
The passes are also evenly distributed among the team. WR Tamorrion Terry is the leader with 129 receiving yards, followed by TE Camren McDonald with 122 and WR Ontaria Wilson with 111. Two of the next two top targets are Toafili and Corbin, so look for some routes out of the backfield – in particular screens.
I suggest screens because the FSU offensive line is currently in the third year of terrible struggle. It appears that the offensive line was competent against Georgia Tech prior to some injuries (Dontae Lucas, back to play against ND), but has no depth and has subsequently collapsed. They have allowed 11 sacks in three games this year, 6 of those coming against Miami. Notre Dame might not have Miami’s front, but we should be seriously concerned if we get less than three sacks. It should also be noted that James Blackman threw three picks against Miami. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess some of those were generated by QB pressure.
FSU’s Defense
I am relying heavily on insights from the opposing fanbase for my outline here. On the line, Joshua Kaindoh at DE and Marvin Wilson (DT) are players to watch. That said, they’ve struggled to generate QB pressure – the first sack generated by the FSU front seven came against Jacksonville State.
Part of their failure to pressure the QB may stem from coverage. Miami averaged 9.6 yards per catch against them and even Jacksonville state averaged 8 yards per catch. And it’s not like the secondary is being targeted infrequently because it’s a strength; through three games, 2 of the top 3 and 3 of the top 5 tacklers were players in the secondary. Yikes.
A strong point in the secondary is Asante Samuel Jr. He’s the team’s third leading tackler and he already has 3 interceptions (returned for 74 yards!) and a fumble recovery. FSU is not afraid to bring him on blitzes, so even if we don’t throw at him, we’re likely to hear his name called on Saturday.
Prediction
By pretty much every measurable, this game should not be close. Notre Dame is at home. ND has an SP+ ranking of 5; FSU is sitting at 46. Notre Dame sits at #9 in the 247 (current) team composite talent rankings, whereas FSU is at 16th. Side note: I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this.
More importantly, FSU struggles hard at offensive line, and mobile QBs only help so much with that (hello, Demetrius Jones and 2007). However good Jordan Travis is, he’s a freshman QB who will be making his first career start on the road against a good ND team. I don’t see this ending well for the FSU offense.
My main questions are around what ND will look like after having ~39 players out for about two weeks due to a Covid outbreak. The offensive depth chart has few major changes – but the most noteworthy is that Kevin Austin is likely to return and get targeted a couple times. Given the moribund wide receiver play we’ve seen so far, we should pray that his foot remains healthy and he makes a play or two, leading to an increase in activity in his next week. Although he should have little impact on Saturday’s game, Austin’s involvement is one of the points I’ll be watching most closely.
I still expect the WRs to be the weak point of ND’s offense, so look for Tommy Rees to exploit FSU’s poor coverage by (a) using two TEs since the FSU linebackers struggle in coverage and (b) using Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree as pass catchers out of the backfield (for the same reason).
On defense, the depth chart will look familiar with the exception of Jack Kiser held out; this is likely Covid given his exceptional play against South Florida. We wish him a speedy recovery and in the meantime look forward to Marist Liafau and Shayne Simon getting more reps. I don’t have many questions about the defense these days, which is an amazing thing to write as an ND fan after the run of sub-par play from 2014-2016. If I had to look for one thing going forward, it would be what happens at the safety position when Shawn Crawford and Kyle Hamilton (the chosen one has returned!) are not playing. Neither highly rated Houston Griffith nor highly rated OSU transfer Isaiah Pryor have looked great – perhaps DJ Brown will secure the “third safety” position.
Look for ND to start slow after so much missed practice, but then pull away firmly in the late third quarter.
We’ve got a push!
I listened to the II podcast this morning and I’m wondering if I should have taken FSU to cover with how long ND has been off. They made a point that CBK is worried about conditioning and so we might have to rotate in more players (and less playing time for the most talented players). However, the O-Line apparently has been healthy so far (knock on wood), and I think that will be the big difference in the fourth quarter.
I have already bet on ND to cover. Florida State is bad. Really, really bad. I don’t think they’ll score more than 10 or 13 points. It also sounded like Kelly was more confident in his talks today than he was earlier in the week. Who knows if he’s posturing now or if they’ve won him over with a strong week.
Either way, I think FSU is going to fall behind and more or less give up like they did in their last trip to ND, or like they did against Miami. Might not be 38-3 in the first half, but for once the ND defense should be getting takeaways and tipping field position. FSU doesn’t seem to have any heart, pride or fight in them right now.
FSU is, like, 2007 ND-level bad. Sagarin thinks we’ll win by about 28.
Getting excited after mounting a 14 point comeback against an FCS team-level bad.
I was worried about some rustiness, but the more I read, the more of a mess this FSU team sounds like.
It’s genuinely fascinating how far they’ve fallen. Their 2013 team was one of the more dominant national champions I’ve seen; they blew out everyone except Auburn in the title game. Now they’re one of the worst P5 teams not named Kansas, and, optimistically, are at least five years away from being nationally competitive again.
One wonders if paying a lifetime’s worth of karma for Jimbo & Jameis’s Traveling Circus was worth it.
So Kevin Austin: Superstar or Supereststar?
First game since October 2018? I’m just hoping it’s not Alize Mack vibes of having missed so much time and Austin can gear up for a game where he’s needed. Like 3 for 40 on Saturday seems like a good day for a guy with 5 career catches..
Totally agree that I will be watching Austin very closely. He is going to be limited in reps but they need to target him 3-5 times for sure to get him involved so he can get the rust off.
I’m less concerned about safety. I thought that Griffin has looked quite good in his time in there. He reportedly had to miss time due to contact tracing right before the first game, and granted the competition wasn’t too tough, but he looked capable out there. No big plays, but maybe more importantly, no mistakes either.
Agreed there. I’m pretty confident with the secondary given Hamilton is back and IMO McCloud and Bracy are at least competent.
Anyone held out could be a wildcard. Kelly said today MTA and Kiser are out for Saturday, presumably COVID tracing or quarantine related. If those are the only 2 two-deep players unable to go, I think it’ll be just fine. II said they believed Book+whole O-line was free and clear, so that’s good.
Kinda worried about the middle of the d-line without MTA, but they seem to have good depth. And FSU ought to be down early so it’s not like they’re going to be running up the middle a lot, should be zone reads, QB keeps and passing, which if there’s ever a good week to not have a solid starting DT against a P5 team, you’d think this would be it.
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Thank God we got the ‘Rona outbreak when we did. If we were coming back after a 2 week layoff to face VT, Miami, or Clem’s Son boy I would be terrified. But going up against what might actually be our worst opponent on the schedule is a good way to ease back into it. I expect us to be rusty and a little off-kilter early. Similar to the Duke game. But we are so much more talented, better coached, prepared than FSU will even dream to be in this game. Just watch out for trick plays because the Noles will bring the kitchen sink to this game. Do that, win by 20 and get out of there healthy