More than a few media figures predicted that Florida State would suffer from a “hangover” against Wake Forest. The Seminoles were coming off an intense victory over the rival Miami Hurricanes, and their next opponent after the bye week is another tough rival in the Clemson Tigers.
Wake Forest is not a bad team either. It has a good defense that helped lead the Demon Deacons to a 5-1 start and head coach Dave Clawson has an impressive pedigree in program building.
Hangover games have the same symptoms:Â slow starts, sloppy turnovers, and reduced effort. Usually a team will overcome these by the second half and take control the rest of the way. Florida State had all three of the aforementioned symptoms on Saturday afternoon, but never actually recovered.
Sure, the Seminoles won 17-6. The defense had back-to-back impressive performances, successfully holding Wake Forest to just six points and under a four yards per play average.
Travis Rudolph had 238 yards receiving, and Dalvin Cook added 115 yards on the ground for FSU. If one had predicted those numbers at the beginning of the season, it would have been assumed that the Seminoles had blown out the Demon Deacons.
Yet, Florida State once again stumbled its way to a close victory. Against Wake Forest.
The problem with Saturday’s win is that the game provided no answers. Instead, it just amplified the question marks heading into the season-defining match-up against the Clemson Tigers.
Who would step up at wide receiver for the FSU offense? Huge amounts of preseason discussion were centered around this question. There still seems to be no answer.
Auden Tate caught a touchdown — his fourth of the year — but he has only had eight receptions and just over 100 yards receiving on the season. His contributions seem to be more situational than anything, though he is steadily receiving more reps. To make matters worse, Jesus Wilson suffered some sort of foot injury in the second quarter, and was later spotted with a medical boot on. Wilson was the leading receiver for FSU coming into the game, and it now seems that he will be sidelined for at least a game or two.
It was refreshing to see Rudolph have yet another huge game, but it once again solves nothing. Rudolph was the only player with more than three receptions, and the second leading receiver for FSU was Kermit Whitfield with just 29 yards. It was evidently not a very diverse passing attack. Rudolph has not caught a touchdown since the home-opener against Charleston Southern, which would seem to indicate that he benefits from playing weaker competition.
Florida State’s offense has previously been able to recover in the second half and help carry the team to victory. That also did not happen Saturday. The Seminoles scored only seven points in the final two quarters and turned it over three times in the same span. It was functionally the same offense from the first half, with only one drive showing any sort of rhythm from quarterback Deondre Francois.
Speaking of Francois, there is probably not one player that is happier for the bye week to be here than him. He was getting hammered in the backfield all game. Some of that is his fault for holding on to the ball too long and not moving in the pocket enough, but Wake Forest’s defensive line consistently embarrassed the FSU offensive line.
Left tackle Roderick Johnson had perhaps his worst game of the season, and the right side of Landon Dickerson and Brock Ruble struggled mightily. Even Cook in pass protection left plenty to be desired.
While they did comparatively better with run-blocking for Cook, it was still a worse performance than the one against Miami a week prior. The Demon Deacons have NFL talent on the line, but it’s still worrying that the offensive line cannot put together consistent performances.
One should not draw too many conclusions from Saturday’s victory however. Florida State has defeated better teams more convincingly. But make no mistake about it: the Seminoles won the game due to their talent advantage. If they play the same way against Clemson in two weeks, they will lose and potentially by a very wide margin.
It was obvious that head coach Jimbo Fisher was holding back some of his offense, considering his insistence on screen plays rather than play-action as a means of negating the struggles in the trenches. It’s still a concern however, that the offensive line couldn’t hold it together for one game against a weaker opponent.
Fans and analysts came into the homecoming contest versus Wake Forest with similar concerns. The uncertainty at wide receiver, slow starts, and consistency on the offensive line were all under the microscope.
Those same fans and analysts left with the same exact questions.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login