Greg McElroy on DJ Uiagalelei: Florida State ‘didn’t let him play’

A lot of people have taken heat for Florida State‘s Week 0 loss to Georgia Tech. Quarterback DJ Uiagalelei is arguably at the top of the list after not having the best of days. Uiagalelei threw for just 193 yards while averaging 7.1 yards per attempt.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy is not blaming the Florida State quarterback, though. McElroy was not a fan of the play calls coming from Mike Norvell, claiming Uiagalelei was held back. There was no real opportunity to use his arm strength to throw the ball downfield and instead a lot of action near the line of scrimmage.

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“I saw a lot of people blaming him for the result,” McElroy said. “I didn’t think they let him play. I mean, until the drive there toward the end, when they said ‘Hey, DJ, you got to make some plays for us by throwing it and making some plays downfield’ — they really didn’t let him cut it loose. Everything in the first half was at or behind the line of scrimmage, with the exception being the deep ball that resulted in a pass interference.”

Uiagalelei completed all but two of his 14 pass attempts in the first half, throwing for 96 yards. ESPN put up a graphic at halftime showing the air yards per attempt was sitting at -0.1, proving McElroy’s point of not letting him even throw past the LOS on average.

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The second-half numbers were not much better, going 7/13 with 97 yards — a lot lower completion percentage.

McElroy believes Florida State will have to live with the inefficiency Uiagalelei will show at times. But in return, getting the ball downfield is going to be a requirement, something we saw from him at Florida State. Norvell will need to get aggressive moving forward, in McElroy’s opinion.

“DJ proved last year at Oregon State that he’s not going to be a crazy efficient quarterback but he can throw the ball down the field,” McElroy said. “I don’t think they did enough of that because if you saw the secondary defenders trigger against the run, the should have been more aggressive trying to create big plays.”

Florida State will get another attempt at an ACC opponent, facing Boston College on Labor Day. The college football world will once again be watching the Seminoles and seeing if there are any improvements in Week 1.