Florida State’s defense was bad under Adam Fuller, so Tony White was brought in from Nebraska to fix it. Two years later, Florida State’s defense is bad under White, and everyone can see it but him.
After giving up 585 yards in Monday night’s 27-24 loss to No. 19 SMU, White– somehow– didn’t seem to have many issues with the way his unit played.
“You’re pissed off like hell,” White said of his initial feelings after the game in a Wednesday press conference. “But when you look at the football, and I think there was 69 plays in there, or something, and the men went out there, and they played their tails off,” White continued, “For about 60 plays in there, they balled, you know, and there’s nine plays that you want back.”
In some cases, it’s true that if you strip out the explosives, a defensive effort can look much better on a down-to-down basis, but that’s simply not true of his unit’s performance on Monday night.
Tony White couldn’t be more off-base with his assessment of Week 1
Anyone who watched the game could see the persistent communication issues on the back end, the lackluster tackling, the impotent pass rush, and the overly conservative approach on third down. But two people can watch the same tape and come to vastly different conclusions, so let’s look at this from a statistical perspective.
Yes, SMU had a high explosive play rate in the game, 10% to be exact. And if you strip out those seven plays, SMU’s non-explosive EPA/play was -0.15. The Mustangs had a 79-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter, a 50-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter, and a 64-yard completion to Jalen Hale in the second quarter.
Even if you strip out just those plays, it does start to look better. Kevin Jennings would have averaged just 7.18 yards per dropback rather than a 96th percentile output of 11.94 yards. That’s significant.
However, on a down-to-down basis, SMU still dominated the game. The Mustangs had a success rate, which doesn’t factor in explosives at all, of 57%, which is a 91st-percentile performance. Their late-down success rate was also 57%, and Jennings’ dropback success rate of 61% was equal to Julian Sayin’s season-long mark that led the country in 2025.
Tony White’s seat is almost as hot as Mike Norvell’s through two games
No matter how you slice it, that was a bad defensive performance from Florida State. Especially because you can’t just take away those explosive plays. They happened, and they were ugly.
Further, if you flipped it the other way and took out FSU’s turnovers, which were mostly self-inflicted mistakes by SMU, particularly Jennings’ interception in the end zone when his receiver ran the wrong route, it would have a similar impact on the outlook.
By GameOnPaper’s turnover luck metric, FSU was +12.8 points in the turnover battle, and that doesn’t even factor in SMU’s missed field goal early in the game.
Like Mike Norvell, White is hanging on by a thread at Florida State, and the fact that he’s trying to put a positive spin on such a dreadful defensive outing looks like a pretty clear sign he can feel his seat warming up, too.
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