The FSU Seminoles had no answers for the SMU Mustangs Saturday night, losing 42-16 in Dallas. They are now 1-4 on the season and 1-3 in conference play, just five weeks into the 2024 season.
The Florida State fans were not the only ones upset after the game as head coach Mike Norvell met with the media after the game to discuss it and admitted that it was a disappointing and embarrassing performance.
There were just way too many mistakes that showed up tonight, penalties that cost us extended drives, big plays that were taken off the board because of poor technique that resulted in penalties. When we started to get things going or had opportunities to get things going, just a lot of times where we hurt ourselves. Give credit to them.
They took advantage of those opportunities. But at the end of the day, it’s extremely disappointing. It’s embarrassing for how we were in the second half.
Norvell also discussed the questionable run plays with DJ Uiagalelei, the team’s lack of identity and leadership, and why he decided to put in Brock Glenn for Uiagalelei in the fourth quarter. Read everything he said after FSU’s loss to SMU below.
First off, congratulations to SMU. Great performance by them, obviously very disappointing on our end.
The things coming out, coming into the game, had a lot of confidence. I thought our guys would respond. In the first half, we had opportunities.
We weren’t able to capitalize on a few. We got the ball down inside the five. We had an early turnover. We got some pressure on the quarterback. But we had a few missed assignments there. We let guys get free in the secondary.
We had too many explosive plays, but still going in at half. It’s a five-point game. We come out, start third quarter.
I’ve said the drop-ball interception, gave short field. When things did not go well for us, we did not respond like we needed to. You go into the second half, as things started building upon itself, as a football team, as leaders, individuals, we’ve got to stand up and go and get it fixed.
There were just way too many mistakes that showed up tonight, penalties that cost us extended drives, big plays that were taken off the board because of poor technique that resulted in penalties. When we started to get things going or had opportunities to get things going, just a lot of times where we hurt ourselves. Give credit to them.
They took advantage of those opportunities. But at the end of the day, it’s extremely disappointing. It’s embarrassing for how we were in the second half.
Ultimately, we’ve got to make a choice as a football program of what we’re willing to allow ourselves to look like in the course of the game. Obviously, we’ve got a team that’s hurt. I’m highly embarrassed by how we just finished the second half of that game.
But at the end of the day, I believe in the young men that we have. You get caught up in tough and challenging situations, you still are in control of your response. I’ve seen these guys go through a lot.
Obviously, I did not see that response tonight that I know that they’re capable of. We’ve got, as coaches, players, everybody involved, we’re all accountable to them for what just showed up. The things that we’ve been emphasizing are working.
We’ve missed way too many missed tackles. Our communication was poor. There were too many mental mistakes, things that we repped too many times for it to show up in the moment.
Obviously, very poor performance by us and how that played out there at the end.
How do you try to rationalize yourself to have that many mistakes, including by older players and so many different position groups?
That’s the thing that’s so frustrating. I watch them prepare.
I watch them throughout the week. Even this week, we’d leave early with the storm. You have some distractions and just all of the things that our guys worked on.
The intent, the focus, I thought they were doing all things with a purpose. In the moment, it’s hard to put my finger on. Obviously, it’s my job to figure it out, but there were just too many mistakes in too many different areas.
Guys that I know are capable, guys that I’ve seen play at a high level, guys that pour a lot into what we’re doing. As coaches, we’ve got to look at that. You simplify things.
We’ve put these guys in much more challenging situations than what they’ve had to know when I’ve seen them execute in the past. There’s just some simple things. The frustration of things that show up.
I know we’re better than what we just put on display. Like I said, it comes down to all of us having to make the choice of what we want to be and what we’re willing to do. It starts with me and where we’re going to continue to go to get a better response than what we’ve put on the field tonight.
Obviously, that starts right now from the second we get on the plane, start watching the film. All things are out there because that is not Florida State football in any capacity of how we want to play or what we want it to look like. Like I said, too many mistakes.
I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe that that’s where it is. Once again, I’m around these guys every day.
I think the disappointment of where we are, it’s hard. It’s challenging. The identity of each of these individuals, the dreams, the desires of what these guys, what they want it to look like when they play the game, what this team desires it to look like when we play the game, we’ve got to make a choice.
I don’t feel that, and I don’t believe that that will be the case. This program means a lot to the guys that are in that locker room. Unfortunately, we’re not representing it very well, but we get to choose to continue to fight to go get it better.
That’s what we’re going to do. I think we talk about sometimes building confidence, confidence being contagious in good plays.
I think momentum can work for you in a good way and a bad way, but like I tell teams all the time, momentum can change in one play. You’ve just got to be willing to trust the things that you know to do, the things that you train to do, the things that you invest so much time to be able to go execute in the moment. If you get caught up in the situations that are around, if one side of the ball is doing well or not doing well, or if you’ve given up a couple of plays, you can still go make the next one.
I do think that if you allow momentum to affect you in a negative way, it will. That’s where you’ve got to— it’s the mental toughness of being able to stay focused on what it is that you’re supposed to do in that moment and just truly take it one play at a time. I don’t think that we did a very good job of that tonight.
When we had a couple of negative situations that showed up, we let it kind of snowball on us and obviously got the result that we saw there at the end. I know we’re a better football team than that, but we’ve got to make the choice. We’ve got to stop the negative or the disappointment or the things that aren’t going well by just going to play the next play.
Going to take control of the things that we can’t. I believe that we have a team that can do that. We’ve got to go show it.
In all reality, I mean, DJ, on the last hit, I was saying I did it as it was going through. We’ll see where that’s at. In all reality, I was going to make a change anyway to give Brock an opportunity.
It’s really easy to point to the quarterback. I know a lot of people say, yes, we’ve all got to get better, but there’s a lot of things that DJ did. Putting the ball on guys with challenging situations.
There were times where we had lapses in protection where he thinks he’s protected. We missed that and you could get somebody running on you free. There were some mistakes from guys that they don’t do that.
They haven’t done that in the moment. There’s not anything that was unexpected. We didn’t plan on seeing that tonight.
I’d like to say that they drew something up that was really good. They executed better than we executed. They did a good job of being better than us tonight.
That’s where it’s disappointing and frustrating for me. All of us, when you look like we’ve looked offensively the first five weeks, nobody’s doing a good job. Whatever that needs to look like moving forward for the best display of who we are and what we can be, that’s got to show up.
I’m doing all things in my power. I’ve been doing that throughout the course of the season. What you see is where you are.
We’re not where we want to be, so we’ve got to go get better.
I think there’s guys that want to.
That’s not from guys that have worked to try to be that. In the moment, leadership people get caught up in this great speech that you have to give or where you need to say. Go be the action.
Go be the person that stands up and does exactly what they’re supposed to do in the moment consistently over and over and over again. If you show up and do that, people will actually listen to you when you say a word. There’s plenty of people that think, I need to be a leader.
I need to stop this right here. I’m going to stand up and give a speech. If you’re not willing to have the actions that back that up, then that’s where it can fall down a road.
It’s the leadership of just guys that can, they need to do, and they need to be confident in that. Some great, great players and young men that care so much have made mistakes tonight that I don’t wish I had a better explanation for it, but that’s where they’ve got to trust themselves and just go lead themselves, and that’s going to make the difference for everybody else. Yes, I didn’t do a good enough job leading.
Obviously, we needed to. We’ve got to put it when things go downhill, when things are starting to go downhill, and you’ve got to be able to make a stop, to make the choice, and just to trust all the things and how you prepare and what you do. I love this group.
I get to coach. I really do, and I believe in them. It hurts, and it’s frustrating, and it’s so mad when you see it not translate in those moments because I know they care, and it just doesn’t translate.I felt very confident in the plays, and I’d like to say that we had a couple of very easy just mistakes that showed up. I don’t know who went to who or what, but, yeah, disappointing. Sure.
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