FSU football: One major concern from Mike Norvell’s press conference

FSU football head coach Mike Norvell spoke with the media Monday as the team prepares for their first road game in 2021 at Wake Forest.

Coach Norvell looked visibly shaken in the early part of the press conference, and it seems the weight of the first-ever FSU loss against an FCS opponent wore on him. Rightfully so, FSU is a job where expectations are high no matter what, and I think he understands that expectation even better now.

FSU must win, and I don’t care how you get it done, but he must win. I can see changes in the program. The defense does look improved as a whole compared to last year, and the team plays harder overall. I think the team practices hard, and of course, they don’t go out in a game seeking to drop passes or committing penalties.

The 15:00-18:10 mark gave you a glimpse into Mike Norvell and what he believes. He mentioned several factors that need fixing, and they are obvious. The penalties that put them in long down and distance or eliminating positive plays were a big problem in the second half as FSU committed nine penalties in that half alone.

However, one thing that stuck out to me that’s a major concern is the audio starting around the 7:35 mark for context. I’m not sure if he misspoke or what, but he says a lot of times players come in and watch film and can’t explain why they reacted a certain way on certain plays in the game.

Thoughts

If players can’t explain why they reacted or did something on certain plays, how can they correct the mistakes? That’s like asking a quarterback what he saw from the defense and the quarterback not articulating what he saw.

Where do you do in that position as a coach? I guess it’s stick to the fundamentals, getting more practice reps in the situations they don’t understand?

That’s how you create situational awareness, and hopefully, the things we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks will begin to show up less and less.