Alabama Football 2026: Previewing the Florida State Defense

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Let’s be up front and honest: the Florida State Seminole defense has been pretty bad to start this season. They gave up 17 points and nearly 300 passing yards to New Mexico State in the season opener, then followed that up by giving up 430 passing yards to SMU last week in a loss. They do have 3 interceptions through two games, though, so it’s not as bad as it could be, I suppose.

DC Tony White returns after a year with mixed results in 2025. A year ago, I said this in our study on White’s scheme:

Just like with their with the offense, the Seminoles also totally overhauled their defense to go into the 2025 season after giving up an atrocious 28 points per game last year. Defensive coordinator Adam Fuller was fired, and the Noles hired Tony White from Nebraska. White was a huge hire for FSU, as he’s won multiple Recruiter of the Year awards and has been a Broyles Award nominee a couple of times at both Nebraska and Syracuse.

White brings a 3-3-5 stack defensive scheme to the Noles, and I’ll lean on our brethren at Tomahawk Nation for some exceptional pieces they’ve written on the defense.

• Drawing It Up: Explaining the 3-3-5 defense and what it means for FSU
• Drawing It Up: A Deeper Look at the 3-3-5’s Blitzes

The short of it is that they’re going to blitz, a LOT. The formations will be fairly versatile depending on the players in the game, but they’ll be blitzing from every angle possible in an attempt to keep the offensive line confused.

As with most teams these days, FSU has mostly turned over their starting cast from last year, but a few key players have returned. Chief among them is defensive tackle Mandrell Desir, who led the team with 6.5 sacks a year ago on his way to earning a nod as a Freshman All-American. His twin brother, Darryll, is also now a starter on the line as well.

At linebacker, Ryan Kennedy has transferred in from Texas A&M as a multi-year contributor as a rotational pass rusher with 3.5 sacks for the Aggies, and Chris Jones has transferred in from Southern Miss to play the middle linebacker after being named a 1st team All-Sun Belt player a year ago while racking up 134 tackles and 9.5 sacks.

They did lose Earl Little Jr. to Ohio State (man that guy really likes to transfer, huh?). But veteran Ashlynd Barker retains his safety role as a multiyear starter, as does corner back Ja’Bril Rawls, who started 7 games last year and did break up one pass vs Alabama. They’ve also brought in CJ Richard from the FCS ranks as a guy who was an FCS Freshman All-American and is looking to show himself in the next league up.

If there were ever a “get right” game for Alabama’s Keelon Russell, this should be it. The Noles’ pass rush has been next to non-existent, and they’ve allowed 700 passing yards already through two games. Their rushing defense has been decent, though, for what’s that worth. They’re only allowing 3.7 yards per carry, and Southern Miss transfer linebacker Chris Jones seems like he’s going to be a big piece for them.

Now, granted, I wasn’t too sold on this unit a year ago, and Alabama’s offense struggled with them some, but I think they’ve backslid since then, and this will be in Tuscaloosa, with the Tide already having a couple of games to warm up.

I think this winds up being the Keelon Russell breakout game we’ve been looking for, with the young QB throwing for over 300 yards and the Tide scoring something like 35 points or so.

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