In the immediate aftermath of Florida State’s 24-10 loss at Clemson Saturday night, Mike Norvell used a word in his postgame press conference which I’m not sure a coach that has lost 16 of his last 22 games should be qualified to use as a descriptor of his team.
Uncharacteristic.
“We have five-plus drops, which is very uncharacteristic of what this team has done.”
I’ll give Norvell that. Drops haven’t been the bugaboo for this year’s team — that was one of last year’s many nightmares.
But here’s the
rest of what Norvell listed off in his opening statement as the missed opportunities that were the difference in a game that was close in a lot of ways on paper except for the most important one.
- missed “a lot of tackles” on the first defensive series, resulting in a Clemson touchdown
- sloppy in run fits, allowing Clemson to extend drives
- allowed a few big plays throughout after the defense settled in
- struggled to get things started or sustained offensively
- throws or runs that were just off from being successful “with space”
- “penalties that showed that up that cost us”
- weren’t good enough in conversion downs
He’s also right that some of those things haven’t been Florida State’s biggest issues this season. But having a list that long of issues in Saturday’s game certainly speaks to the larger issue, one that disqualifies him from saying anything about his team is uncharacteristic.
You never know what you’re going to get with this team.
Yes, this year is better than last year, where you certainly did know what you were going to get and it was very, very bad.
But as this team has hit adversity, it’s fair to question how much better this team is as a whole than the 2024 team.
It’s certainly much better statistically, especially on offense. But how much more confidence do you have on any given Saturday that they’re going to come away with a win?
That has dwindled with each loss over this skid of four losses in the last five games. Especially considering the last two have come against teams that entered with a combined 5-9 record.
Clemson had last won a home game against a Power Four opponent Oct. 19 of last year, bringing a six-game losing streak in those games into Saturday.
Florida State made sure the Tigers didn’t really have to even sweat out snapping that streak much in Saturday’s loss, digging itself into an early hole and never really looking like it was going to be able to climb its way out of it.
There’s no one (or two or three) problem with this team. There’s no one Achilles heel that dooms these Seminoles. But in four of the last five games, they’ve been unable to come out on top due to a mix of wasted opportunities, self-inflicted mistakes and not making winning plays in the clutch.
When that’s been the problem now for the better part of two seasons, with two largely different coaching staffs and rosters, that has to be a reflection on the head coach, even if the players themselves say otherwise.
Because at the end of the day, for a team this inconsistent, nothing can be uncharacteristic.
