Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, Florida, the Seminoles are preparing for battle, too.
Florida State’s preseason camp is wrapping up this week as coach Mike Norvell and FSU turn their attention to devising a game plan for Georgia Tech ahead of the Aug. 24 opener for both teams in Dublin. The Seminoles opened their preseason practice July 24, just as the Yellow Jackets did, and also recently worked out for two days in Jacksonville on the campus of the University of North Florida.
Norvell’s team is coming off a 13-1 season in which it won the ACC title game, was left out of the four-team College Football Playoff despite a 13-0 record and was then knocked around in a 63-3 bowl loss to Georgia. The fallout from the latter result lingered long into the offseason.
“Our objective this year is to go get better,” Norvell said at the ACC Football Kickoff in July about his team’s mindset going into 2024. “Coming off what was a 13-0 regular season and championship game was something that was really a special experience for our entire program. It sets the stage and opportunity for us to continue to push and continue to elevate this program to ultimately where it deserves to be, that’s among the nation’s elite.”
Norvell once again has a team ripe with talent, but also one that needs to answer plenty of questions pertaining to its starting lineup and cohesiveness.
One of those spots is along the offensive front where FSU returns all-ACC left tackle Darius Washington and two other starters but is counting on transfers to plug in the other holes. Behind that line will be DJ Uiagalelei, a former Clemson and Oregon State quarterback returning to the ACC for his final season of college ball.
Florida State’s skill positions are littered with highly ranked former recruits and quality newcomers via the transfer portal.
Defensive coordinator Adam Fuller has one the league’s better secondaries to work with, but his defensive front and linebacking corps mostly will have new faces. The Seminoles do feature linemen Patrick Payton and Joshua Farmer, and it will be incumbent upon returning players such as that duo to teach the newcomers the ropes.
“Showing them the standard,” Farmer said of the challenges of roster turnover. “We went 13-0 last year. Whatever we did last year worked. Just helping them when the days get tough, things get hard, show them we all went through it. It’s only good to make them stronger.”
Farmer and Florida State’s defense will have its work cut out for it right off the bat going up against Tech’s offense. The Jackets have quarterback Haynes King, running back Jamal Haynes, four of five starting offensive linemen and a bevy of key wide receivers back from the 2023 squad that scored 31.1 points per game.
Tech scored at least 21 points in every game last season and averaged 36.1 points in seven wins. Florida State has said it knows what challenges lies ahead of them.
“I think it’s one of the better offenses in the league and probably in the country,” Norvell said of the Jackets. “They return a lot of guys. Up front, they do a good job. They got very explosive skill-position players, guys that are really fast, they’re tough to tackle.
“I think they do a good job of putting those guys in a position to be able to make plays. (King’s) going to be involved in the run game, trying to stretch it out sideline to sideline. But (they’re) also very physical in their approach of what they want to do. Horizontally, vertically, they’re going to try to attack everything on the field. So it’s really going to take all 11 being on point and playing at a high level.”
Florida State is riding a 17-game regular-season win streak into the matchup with Tech, a streak that began with a 41-16 win over the Jackets on Oct. 29, 2022.
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