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Three Up, Three Down: Florida State

This still really, really hurts. I mean, it wasn’t a soul crushing game. Far from it; if anything, this game largely bolstered my hopes for the rest of the season. But it’s still tough to come so close and lose it in the end,

By SamuraiFoochs
NCAA Football: Florida State at Wake Forest Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

The Ups

367 Yards Of Offense. That’s good production against anyone, especially a football powerhouse like Florida State, whether they’re depleted or not. I have some issues with playcalling, which I’ll get into, but it was still a very solid offensive outing.

School Record Tackles For Loss. I really have a love/hate relationship with pretty much every phase of this game. But the defense is doing SOMETHING right when they have an absolutely staggering 17 tackles for loss, the greatest posting in that stat in school history. Our defensive line might honestly be the second best in the ACC behind, obviously, Clemson. Goodness me.

Greg Dortch. This kid is unbelievable. 110 yards on 10 catches, and the better part of 100 yards in the return game on top of that. Incredible performance, and it seems to happen every week now. Thank you, Greg.

The Downs

Turnovers And Missed Chances. For the first time this season, we lost the turnover battle, one of which when Wake was in the lead, and the other when Wake was down 4 deep in scoring position. What’s worse, there were three instances we were over midfield and came away with nothing. Many missed opportunities on offense.

Special Teams Miscues And Missed Tackles. A missed extra point, big kick returns for FSU, and what’s worse, more miissed tackles on defense, especially on rushes, that led to gigantic chunk plays for the Seminoles despite Wake’s almost uncanny ability to hit them behind the line on the day.

Why Not Air It Out More? I’m not just talking about the final drive. All day, there was questionable playcalling. I know you need to mix it up, but Florida State’s secondary vs. our receivers was clearly a better matchup for us than our rushing game vs. their front seven.

The Bottom Line

I’m nowhere near as mad as I was in the moment. I don’t want to call it a moral victory but I will say it made me a lot more confident about our ability to hang with the rest of our schedule, and shoot, we’re still 4-1. Hopefully we do a little less zone read action, a little more air raid (please) in the future, and don’t sacrifice as many scoring opportunities. Other than that, it was a solid outing. Let’s see what we do next week.

On to the next. Go Deacs.

—SF