FSU football: 5 huge takeaways from Wake Forest loss

Missed Tackles

I wrote about my three defensive keys to defeating Wake Forest earlier in the week. One of them was limiting the amount of missed tackles in the game.

It’s something that plagued the Noles in last year’s game, and it reared its ugly head again Saturday. This year it was mostly limited to making tackles in the running game.

Adam Fuller chose to force Wake Forest to beat them on the ground, and it was the right play. However, FSU defenders missing tackles is something he can’t do anything about.

I can’t count the instances Wake Forest ran through arm tackles near the line of scrimmage only to get an additional six or seven yards.

Some of it was Wake Forest offensive linemen holding that went uncalled, but at the same time, it always felt like Wake Forest fell forward for positive yardage in the run game.

There was one crucial third down where FSU had three defenders against one Wake Forest player well short of the first down, and he somehow got free for the first down and more.

I mean, all you can do is have the players in position to make a play, which brings me to my next takeaway.