On Tuesday night, Florida State completed the first of three planned scrimmages inside Doak Campbell Stadium during fall camp, which opened last week. Nearly all of Mike Norvell’s Seminoles saw live action for the first time in 2026, but JUCO quarterback transfer Malachi Marshall was unable to take the field with his new teammates.
Norvell spoke with the media via Zoom after the scrimmage and informed reporters that Marshall, a 6-foot-2, 168-pound junior who spent last season at Iowa Western Community College after beginning his collegiate career at Stony Brook, was held out due to a “slight” injury.
Norvell hopes to have Marshall back soon, but as he misses time, sophomore quarterback Kevin Sperry will likely continue to separate himself in the Seminoles' QB2 battle, one of the more underratedly significant developments this preseason.
Malachi Marshall missing FSU’s first scrimmage should allow Kevin Sperry to separate
Auburn transfer Ashton Daniels has long been set as Florida State’s starting quarterback for 2026. And through the early part of fall camp, there has been nothing but positivity coming out of Tallahassee about his play.
That continued on Tuesday night with Norvell saying, “I thought he did a good job. You can tell he's got a lot of confidence in what we're asking him to do."
Daniels won’t be relinquishing any first-team reps, barring injury. Still, with a mobile, dual-threat QB who will be asked to rely on his legs by Norvell, who is returning to his role as play-caller after a one-year stint with Gus Malzahn as his OC, FSU needs to establish a reliable QB2 option.
Ideally, that player would be Sperry. Under Norvell, FSU has largely failed to develop homegrown talent at QB.
Norvell needs Sperry to buck FSU's troubling QB development trend
In the 2022 class, it was four-star AJ Duffy. He attempted seven passes over two years before winding up at New Haven. Then it was Brock Glenn, who had a stint on the 2023 team after Jordan Travis suffered his injury, and played some in 2024 and 2025, but completed 43.4 percent of his 175 career attempts. Finally, in 2024, FSU’s top overall recruit was four-star QB Luke Kromenhoek, who transferred to Mississippi State following his freshman year in Tallahassee.
That’s an abysmal track record. It has forced Norvell to rely heavily on portal QBs, particularly as one-year stop-gap options. If Sperry, a 2025 three-star, can hold off Marshall in the QB2 battle, that’s a decent sign that he’s progressing in a way that Duffy, Glenn, and Kromenhoek never did.
That's one of the reasons that FSU added Marshall in addition to Daniels. The former was the NJCAA Division I Player of the Year in 2025 after throwing for 2,750 yards and 33 touchdowns in 13 games while leading Iowa Western to a national championship. He threw three touchdowns in the title game.
In the scrimmage, Sperry reported hitting true freshman wide receiver Jasen Lopez, who has been one of the stars of camp, on a vertical shot. Lopez is pushing Jayvan Boggs for snaps in the slot, so Sperry developing something of a rapport there is meaningful as well.
And, the longer Marshall is sidelined, the more opportunities Sperry will have to throw to a talent wide receiver corps.
The best-case scenario for FSU is that Marshall gets back healthy and Sperry still beats him out in a straight-up competition. The worst-case scenario is that he wins by default.
Marshall already arrived in Tallahassee later than most in the transfer class, so he was already at a disadvantage, and now this setback could potentially decide who is backing up Daniels when the Noles take the field in Week 0 against New Mexico State.
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