Grading Ashton Daniels’ all-or-nothing outing in Florida State’s loss to Alabama

Last season, Florida State’s best performance of the year came in its Week 1 upset win over Alabama. Mike Norvell needed his team to do that again in Week 3 of 2026 to right the ship and, seemingly, to save his job. 

Behind an ultra-aggressive passing attack and a quarterback who was suddenly willing to trust his receivers, the Seminoles threw an early haymaker. But when Alabama punched back, Norvell and Ashton Daniels ran out of answers in an up-and-down offensive performance, as Tony White’s defense was helpless to slow Keelon Russell, and the Noles fell 50-36 in Tuscaloosa. 

Ashton Daniels finally let it fly in Week 3

From the very first play, Ashton Daniels made it clear that, finally, he understood the assignment. The fifth-year quarterback ripped a slant to Duce Robinson off an RPO for a first down. After two games with an average time to throw well over three seconds, he was on time and accurate, and most importantly, he gave his best receiver a chance to make a play. 

Nearly the entire day, Robinson was the best player on the field for the Seminoles, and Daniels did his best to press that advantage, funneling eight targets in his direction, including four in contested situations. 

The second possession of the game, however, was the flip side of giving Daniels the green light, as Norvell reportedly did this week, imploring his QB to let it rip. Daniels didn’t see Red Morgan dropping underneath Jayvan Boggs, who was running a seam route on an RPO, and he threw it right to him.

Before the lightning delay, Daniels was letting it rip, but eventually, it devolved as Daniels once again ended with an untenable 3.81-second time to throw, which, along with a shaky offensive line, invited pressure on 18 of his 36 dropbacks.  

That’s the thing about Daniels’ performance against Alabama: it’s really hard to pin down. On one hand, he was pushing the ball downfield with a ridiculous 15.8-yard average depth of target and finally giving Florida State’s talented wide receiver room the opportunity to be difference makers. He averaged 11.78 yards per dropback, a 96th-percentile output, and the offense put up 36 points. 

Norvell did a great job scheming up deep shots, and when Daniels wasn’t turning them down, they hit. He went 4/7 on throws over 20 yards downfield for 151 yards, and simply the fact that he took seven deep shots is meaningful. 

Until he didn’t anymore

On the other hand, his willingness to force the ball into coverage brought back his turnover issues, which have never really left him, and once he started to turn it over, he started to hold onto it longer and stopped pressing the issue. For as much good as there was, there was far too much bad to make up for an atrocious defense and trade blows with Keelon Russell, who is in his third career start, is already starting to look like a top-5 quarterback in the country. 

Florida State had nearly the same deep shot drawn up in the fourth quarter, and Daniels inexplicably turned it down. It’s almost as if the turnovers got to him and reverted him back to the quarterback he had been through the first two games of the year. 

Daniels had his best game of the year against Alabama. The problem is that Daniels’ best game is a highly volatile performance that relies heavily on hitting schemed-up shot plays and almost inevitably includes multiple turnovers.

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