FSU football went to Clemson with some momentum after the dominant win over Wake Forest last week. However, the offensive execution we saw that week stayed in Tallahassee in the first half.
FSU had a turnover in the red zone. Thomas Castellanos threw two passes that would have gone for huge gains, and both were dropped.
Castellanos overthrew a wide-open Squirrel White by 10 yards that would have gone for an easy touchdown, as White was 5+ yards behind the Clemson defender on a post route.
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One of the dropped passes was on a fourth-down play from FSU’s own side of the field. Castellanos had usually sure handed Randy Pittman on some sort of wheel route, and he bobbled it out of bounds. The turnover on downs gave Clemson a short field, and they scored on a flea-flicker play a couple of plays later. That was a 14-point swing.
The FSU defense played well enough, outside of Clemson’s opening drive, which went 13 plays for 75 yards for a touchdown. Clemson went for two and got the call, but the runner was clearly short of the goal line.
The FSU offense didn’t reach 100 total yards of offense until the 1:21 mark in the second quarter. FSU managed to get to the Clemson seven yard line on a long run by Thomas Castellanos to convert a big fourth down. FSU narrowly avoided an interception on the next play.
Duce Robinson had a ball trapped against his hip on a pass as he crossed the goal line and went to ground that was ruled incomplete. Castellanos hit Lawayne McKoy on third down to score FSU's first points of the game with 33 seconds left in the half.
As badly as FSU played, it should have been a one possession game at worst.