FSU football: Special teams continues to be a bright spot for the Seminoles

It has been well-documented that Florida State football has had a roller coaster ride of a 2024 season. The disappointments have been to a point where I didn't know that rock bottom could be even worse.

This is coming off a 2023 campaign where the squad accomplished an undefeated regular season and a conference championship. The coaching staff knew that it was losing a ton of significant contributors such as Jordan Travis, Keon Coleman, Jared Verse, Braden Fiske, and Trey Benson.

They thought that they could just go to the transfer portal and pick up pieces that could still have the team in position for the ACC Championship Game hunt and a spot in the College Football Playoff. However, that is further from the truth than they thought.

The Seminoles are now sitting there with a 1-6 record with losses over Georgia Tech, Boston College, Memphis, SMU, Clemson, and Duke. There is nothing to play for at this point other than beating arch-rivals Miami and Florida and ruining their seasons.

However, we still have five games left in the regular season and I do want to focus on the positives (the very few that are here). One consistent positive has been the special teams play at Florida State.

During the introductory press conference when head football coach Mike Norvell was hired at Florida State, he talked about how special teams was going to be the foundation of what program does. That remained true in his fifth year at the helm.

Kicker Ryan Fitzgerald and punter Alex Mastromanno have been phenomenal this year (as I previously wrote in an article). However, the Seminoles might have found a secret weapon in the kickoff return this year as redshirt freshman running back Samuel Singleton Jr. had a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the opening play of the third quarter versus Duke.

We often talked about Singleton Jr. standing out in camp as a running back. However, it seems like he has caught his stride as a kickoff returner. That could be a massive weapon for the Seminoles.

Florida State's coaching staff thought that running back Jaylin Lucas could have been that for the Seminoles, but the former Indiana transfer suffered a season-ending injury versus Boston College and is expected to be back in 2025.

Overall, as bad as it has been for Florida State, special teams has continued to be a bright spot for the Seminoles.