Watching the Gus Malzahn offense at Florida State in 2025 was a frustrating experience. At times, it looked like Gus Malzahn was in his prime, and other times, his offense was stuck in the 1950s.
Was his offense terrible? There was an improvement over 2024, no question, but the stats get propped up by FSU beating up on East Texas A&M and Kent State:
FSU averaged 25.3 ppg this year when you remove the two cupcakes and 21.8 over the final six games with teams who had an average FEI defensive ranking of 54 nationally. https://t.co/zsmCknHlyH
— Kelvin Hunt (@khchopchat) December 1, 2025
It looks like Gus Malzahn will return to FSU for the 2026 season, so we wanted to take a look at where and why the Florida State offense struggled.
FSU left A LOT of meat on the bone. They moved the ball well between the 20s, but usually failed to maximize their scoring opportunities. FSU had 27 red zone trips in 2024 and improved to 57 trips in 2025. They went from 14 touchdowns to 37 touchdowns (64 percent touchdown rate), which ranked No. 45 nationally.
FSU easily could have won at least 8-9 games if the offense had some consistency. The FSU defense allowed fewer than 30 points in nine games. FSU was No. 16 at 6.70 yards per play and was No. 9 nationally completing third downs at 50.94 percent. Those are all numbers that should equate to success.
Here’s where the issues were.