Alabama Football 2026: Previewing the Florida State Offense

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The Florida State Seminoles had one of the worst offenses in the whole country in 2024, scoring 15.4 points per game across an entire season with D.J. Uiagalelei at QB. They followed that up by hiring Gus Malzahn to be offensive coordinator in his swan song, and brought in QB Tommy Castellanos, famously taking Alabama’s defense behind the woodshed to open the 2025 season.

Things did tail off for them throughout the season, but the Noles still averaged 33 points per game last year, good for 22nd in the country, with multiple running backs and Castellanos all getting them up to 5.2 yards per carry in the rushing game for the whole team. As is tradition with a Gus Malzahn offense, they didn’t pass the ball particularly well, completing less than 60% of their passes, but the balls they did complete tended to go for a lot of yards (15.3 yards per completion).

Unfortunately for the Noles, Malzahn retired, and Castellanos graduated.

In Malzahn’s place, Tim Harris Jr, a young coach who was the RB and then WR coach for Malzahn at UCF before following him over to FSU last year, has now been promoted to OC. Unfortunately, for him (and maybe for FSU fans?), head coach Mike Norvell decided to reclaim offensive play calling duties just 1 year after calling the plays for one of the worst offenses in the country.

Thus far in 2026, things aren’t looking great. The Noles scored 34 in a struggle win vs New Mexico State, then only managed 24 points against SMU. Now, the offense hasn’t been awful to be clear. The run game has been quite good, with RB Ousmane Kromah going for 231 yards at 6.4 yards per carry through two games, and former Auburn QB Ashton Daniels is a known high-volume rushing threat.

Passing wise…. Well, Daniels is completing 58% of his passes at a pretty paltry 6.5 yards per attempt. Which… Well, is pretty on par with his stats at Auburn last year and at Stanford the two years before that. He is who he is, and that’s a guy who is a good scrambler and a veteran player but has career-worth of accuracy and interception issues.

Now, wide receiver Duce Robinson was pretty much THE guy last year. The former USC 5-star recruit is more of a small tight end than a true wide receiver, and had over 1000 yards in the Noles’ low volume passing offense a year ago. He has 5 catches for 75 yards so far this season, as Daniels has struggled to get the ball to him like Castellanos did a year ago.

The other usual target is Micahi Danzy, a former running back that had a shade under 600 yards for the Noles last year. He’s used as a jet sweep guy pretty regularly, but is primarly the go-ball speedster, averaging 21 yards per catch a year ago. He leads the team with 6 catches this year, but has only turned that into 69 yards.

On the offensive line, FSU totally rebuilt it from a year ago through the transfer portal. Center Bradyn Welch-Joiner was originally an Auburn starter that then started for Purdue all last year. Left tackle Xavier Chaplin was a multi-year starter for Virginia Tech and then for Auburn a year ago. Right guard Nate Pabst was a 3-year starter for Bowling Green and was a second-team All-MAC selection. And right guard Chimdia Nwaiwu was an all-conference starter for Stephen F. Austin last year. It’s a collection of players with plenty of experience, and thus far they’ve held up fairly well, paving the way for a decent run game, but have also given up 4 sacks.

While there’s plenty of dysfunction in Tallahassee, I do have enough respect for Ashton Daniels as a scrambler and for Ousmane Kromah’s rushing ability that I don’t think it’s going to be a total shutout or anything. Kane Wommack’s defense has struggled a little over the last two years with offenses that focus on QB rushing, and this game will be a good test to see if the offseason improvements along the defensive line hold up. Still, I think the Noles will score something like 14-16 points or so, similar to Kentucky, but maybe a little more effective on a per-play basis than the Wildcats.

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