FSU May Be Finding the Consistency Norvell Has Been Chasing
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Consistency is one of those words coaches use so frequently that it can lose its meaning.
For Florida State, it might finally be starting to mean something.
Head coach Mike Norvell has spent much of this season watching a team capable of looking dangerous one quarter and disjointed the next. There have been flashes of what Florida State could become, followed almost immediately by reminders of what it still is.
That is why FSU’s 38-7 win over Virginia felt more significant than simply putting another victory in the standings.
“You play good people, you’re obviously growing as an individual, as a team,” Norvell said. “Consistency is hard to find in life. Turn on college football and look at the results across college football. Look at all the things you go through in your own lives, it’s hard to be consistent.”
Norvell’s point is valid.
Consistency isn’t measured by avoiding every bad play. It is measured by how quickly the bad stretches end.
That might be where Florida State is finally growing.
Against Virginia, FSU actually started poorly. The Seminoles trailed 7-0 after the first quarter. Then something happened that hasn’t always happened this season: Florida State corrected itself without allowing a bad stretch to become a bad game.
FSU scored 17 points in the second quarter, 14 in the third and seven in the fourth. Virginia never scored again. That is 38 unanswered points after falling behind.
“That’s the thing that makes me proud of them,” Norvell said, “is just to watch them and when you don’t start the right way but to be able to go and in the second quarter which was a dominant quarter.”
The numbers make his point stronger.
Florida State rushed for 281 yards against Virginia, averaging 6.1 yards per carry. Quarterback Ashton Daniels ran for 136 yards and five touchdowns,
Running backs Ousmane Kromah added 80 and Quintrevion Wisner had 46. Meanwhile, Virginia finished with only 37 net rushing yards, and quarterback Beau Pribula was sacked 10 times.
That looks considerably different from the Florida State team that has spent this season searching for its identity.
The journey began with a 34-17 win over New Mexico State in which FSU ran for 217 yards and averaged 5.6 yards per carry. Kromah produced 115 yards on 14 attempts, but the Seminoles still allowed 272 passing yards.
Then came the instability.
FSU lost 27-24 to SMU, a game in which the Seminoles managed just 324 yards of offense and 16 first downs. The following trip to Alabama offered perhaps the season’s most extreme example of Norvell’s point.
Florida State looked outstanding early.
The Seminoles jumped ahead 14-3 and eventually built a 21-6 advantage. Then the game flipped violently. Alabama scored 20 unanswered points before halftime and eventually won 50-36.
Daniels threw for 377 yards against Alabama, but also threw three interceptions. FSU produced only 94 rushing yards while Alabama ran for 247.
The capability was there.
The consistency wasn’t.
That is what makes the last two games intriguing.
Florida State beat Central Arkansas 34-7, scoring on its opening possession and building a 24-0 advantage before halftime. The Seminoles averaged 6.4 yards per rush, Daniels threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns, and Jayvan Boggs emerged with six catches for 122 yards.
Beating Central Arkansas convincingly was expected.
Following it by dismantling Virginia matters more.
There was even a weather delay against Virginia, something Norvell specifically mentioned because FSU encountered one against Alabama and did not respond well afterward. This time, the Seminoles came back and kept playing.
Norvell’s favorite sequence may tell the story better than anything else.
“The third quarter start of being able to get the stop, being able to get down and score, being able to continue to roll through that,” he said.
That is consistency in its most useful form.
Not perfection. Response.
Florida State has now allowed seven points in consecutive games after surrendering 50 at Alabama. The offense has scored 34 and 38. The rushing attack has produced 179 and 281 yards.
Two games do not prove Florida State has solved anything. Central Arkansas and Virginia are not enough evidence to erase what happened against SMU or Alabama.
But they are enough to suggest something may be changing.
Norvell said he would love “a perfect game that’s 60 minutes of us just dominating.”
He probably isn’t getting one.
What Florida State might be getting, though, is more important: a team beginning to understand that consistency isn’t playing perfectly for 60 minutes.
It’s refusing to allow 10 bad minutes to define the other 50.
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