Florida State offense shows big-play ability in first scrimmage, but improvement still needed

You could tell head coach Mike Norvell and offensive coordinator Alex Atkins weren’t overly pleased with Florida State’s first scrimmage of the preseason on Sunday night.

Both coaches mentioned that while there were some nice moments and some big plays, the consistency and execution weren’t anywhere close to what they were hoping to see inside Doak Campbell Stadium.

Atkins and Norvell each mentioned the word “tempo” multiple times during their press conferences on Sunday night. As in, they didn’t see enough sense of urgency from the Florida State offense in various situations.

“We’ve got to continue to push our tempo offensively,” Norvell said. “It’s the first scrimmage. The coaches are off the field. Playing it like it’s a game. And that’s definitely something we’ve got to get better at.”

Both coaches mentioned that the offense needs to play situations better. In practices, the offense will often have three first-down plays and then rotate out. Then three third-down plays and rotate out. In a scrimmage like Sunday night, the situations aren’t dictated ahead of time.

They can change. Suddenly. And Atkins said he wanted to see the quarterbacks, especially the younger ones like Brock Glenn and A.J. Duffy, respond better to those moments. To be quicker. More decisive. Think faster in the moment.

“I think it was solid,” Atkins said of the quarterback play. “You saw some guys pick up some big-time third downs. They took what the defense was giving them. But it was understanding situations. We had a couple of times where we might have taken a negative when it wasn’t time to take a negative.

“Overall, I believe it was a solid performance. But we’re looking to take that next step to ownership of the offense. Whether it be dictating and controlling plays, speeding up the tempo, watching the clock — we had a couple of procedure penalties. … I want to see that next step taken. I think you saw flashes of it, and they did a solid job. But you want to see ownership.”

Unlike Florida State’s practices, the scrimmage on Sunday night was closed to the media. So the details of what actually happened during specific plays can be a bit hazy at times.

From the sound of it, running back Caziah Holmes had a couple of big runs for the Florida State offense. Rodney Hill also drew praise from Norvell, as did first-year tight end Kyle Morlock.

“I think Kyle had a great night tonight,” Norvell said. “I think he’s going to be a great weapon.”

But the tight end who had the most impressive play, without a doubt, was South Carolina transfer Jaheim Bell. For perhaps the first time since he joined the program in January, the multi-talented playmaker was allowed to go “live” and be tackled. Or, more accurately, attempted to be tackled by Florida State defenders.

Apparently, it didn’t go well for the defense.

“Obviously, you’ve seen it on film,” Norvell said with a hint of a smile. “But to be able to see it live and in person was definitely impressive.”

“He came up to me after the scrimmage,” Florida State defensive coordinator Adam Fuller said of Bell. “And he told me we need to work on tackling more. And I said I appreciate his observations. Jaheim is one of my favorite guys. … It was good to see him. I wasn’t excited with how it played out. He took about six hits and kept going.”

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But as impressive as that play was, and as many chunk plays as the Florida State offense might have generated throughout the scrimmage, Atkins kept coming back to not being able to finish.

Not being able to keep the tempo at the pace it needed to be. Not being able to score on one red-zone trip despite having four tries from inside the 5-yard line.

The Seminoles’ offense got stuffed on that fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, but then came back and punched it in the next time they got down there, Norvell said.

“To see the give and take on both sides of the ball (was a positive),” Norvell said. “I thought the defense came out and started extremely strong in the scrimmage. … And I thought the offense responded well.”

The coaches didn’t make it clear how the reps were divided at quarterback or even how much starter Jordan Travis played, but Norvell and Atkins did have at least a couple of the backups go “live” and get used to being hit during a play. In normal practices, the quarterbacks wear green non-contact jerseys.

Both Norvell and Atkins said they liked what they saw for the most part out of freshman Brock Glenn. And it sounded like that position group as a whole played pretty well. Norvell said the offense didn’t have a turnover on the night.

But, as Atkins noted, “we’ve got to learn to operate with some tempo. We’ve got to manage the situations as they come.”

The Seminoles have Monday off before returning to the practice field on Tuesday morning.

“This is going to be a huge week for our football team,” Norvell said, adding that there will be “movement” on the depth chart following the scrimmage.

On the injury front, while Florida State’s head coach is never keen on giving out specific details, he did say he didn’t think anybody got seriously hurt during the scrimmage on Sunday night.

“Nothing excessive,” he said.

***Click here to see running transcripts from the coaches’ interviews*** 

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