Florida State’s game against Boston College began with a broken game clock. Despite the 28-13 loss to FSU, which finished 0-2 on the season, this can hardly be called a harbinger of what was to come in the Seminoles’ season opener.

A broken clock is right at least twice a day. After two embarrassing losses to start the year, it is clear that everything is wrong with this Florida State team as it stands.

Florida State compounded a disappointing performance in Dublin with the worst performance Monday night in the Mike Norvell era. The team struggled from the opening kickoff, went three-and-out to start the game and then withered away. The toughness Norvell had tried to make a bedrock of his program went out the window as Boston College rushed for more than 200 yards. Florida State’s composure and discipline melted away on a hot September night as multiple unnecessary roughness penalties sucked the life out of an already half-empty Doak Campbell field due to construction.

Not only did the Seminoles lose, they looked disinterested.

Norvell, speaking in his postgame press conference, again used his usual catchphrases tonight about taking full responsibility for the performance, but those beliefs about what a team can be in the face of adversity lose their luster when the Seminoles, instead of getting off to a terrible start in the loss to Georgia Tech, somehow seemed to perform better. worse as double-digit favorites at home.

His team never heeded the call or instigated the fight, and no leader called for the “Seminole Standard.” In the postgame press conference, he gave his patented, ready-made filibuster answers to the details, but when pressed on major issues like the quarterback controversy, the head coach bit his tongue.

Have you ever considered changing a quarterback, since the passing game was tough early on? And after a bye, do you have some sort of open competition or are you going to stick with DJ from here on out?

Norvel: Obviously we struggled offensively. There are a lot of reasons for that. Obviously everything we do, we have to push and get better. That’s what we’re going to focus on. We’re going to focus on pushing to get better, and we’re going to put our guys in the best position to succeed. And that’s what we’re going to focus on.

When asked later about his decision to force the transfer portal, he again failed to provide the answers the outside world deserves.

You lost a lot of talent and leadership from last year’s team, but you were pretty aggressive in evaluating and closing those holes by going into the transfer portal. Is it too early to say that some of those evaluations may have been wrong, and was there a risk that it would have looked that way with how quickly you’ve filled out the roster?

Norvel: Obviously I haven’t put our guys in a good position to show what I think they are, so I’ll be better.

What’s most striking about these losses is that Boston College and Georgia Tech did everything FSU prides itself on: being physical, playing with emotion, and doing the little things right. For the second straight week, a talented but flawed football team did nothing wild or crazy on either side of the ball. Boston College let quarterback Thomas Castellanos run like a workhorse, taking advantage of a ridiculously gullible defense and unathletic linebackers. They stacked the box so that Florida State couldn’t run the ball, forcing a talentless wide receiver core to win one-on-one. Malik Benson, the veteran and arguably the best wideout on the roster, didn’t get on the field on FSU’s crucial fourth-down attempt to start the third quarter, and an interception followed.

After FSU lost to Georgia Tech last week, Norvell addressed the locker room and wanted to emphasize that the loss was a lesson, an opportunity to move forward and make progress over a long season. It appears his message fell on deaf ears, as Florida State became the laughingstock of college football for the second straight week, getting trounced on national television and falling two games behind in the ACC standings before teams had even begun to prepare for their Week 2 opponents.

Vocal leaders, or those who lead by example? Nowhere to be found on the sidelines, replaced by poor body language and a team that openly pushes and plays nervously. No more lively conversations in the huddle; this team walks off the field with an emotionless attitude.

Indeed, in a season that was supposed to be both a celebration and an affirmation, the connection with the fans has been severed. The same group that turned Winston-Salem into a home game for FSU traveled to Charlotte in the pouring rain and then crossed the pond to cheer on the Noles, deploying DJ Uiagalelei and the offense when the game was still technically within reach. Unable to watch the slow suffocation of hope that a new season brings, fans began to find the exits early in the second half, leaving the limited-capacity Doak Campbell Stadium nearly empty as the final seconds ticked away.

The Seminoles have been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the last few months. They became a national storyline after missing the playoffs last year, with a 60-point loss to Georgia following the team in the offseason. Suing the ACC brought more attention and dreams of schadenfreude from the outside, while the stadium redesign generated more noise, both physically and from fans who disagreed with the decision. Norvell’s 2024 team had a chance to catapult the Seminoles into the next phase of college football, proving that last year’s team was no fluke, silencing the jibes from the peanut gallery and cementing Florida State as one of the best in college football, on and off the field.

Instead, after just three days in September, they don’t look like a team that can make it to a bowl game.

A deadly running game plus a timid attack, an attacking failure in every way

DJ Uiagalelei and the offense never found a rhythm. They went down the field for three straight three-and-outs to start the game and didn’t manage to record a first down until midway through the second quarter. The transfer quarterback made the easy difficult and the hard impossible in the first half with a horrendous amount of inaccurate passing and a lack of composure when the game was thrown on his right arm.

When he found a rhythm in the third quarter, his teammates let him down with dropped passes, multiple procedural penalties, and a general lack of execution. Fans chanted “We want Brock!” several times throughout the game, and hopefully Norvell will consider the idea after a bye, but Tom Brady couldn’t fix this offense as it was built.

The Seminoles, who had touted the rushing attack as a potential point of pride this season, were unable to run the ball for the second straight game. The running backs were limited to just eight carries for a lousy 26 yards, as the loss of Alex Atkins looms large on the offensive unit, with the offensive line disintegrating for the second time this season, allowing multiple sacks and rarely giving Uiagalelei a clean pocket. The offense lost its cool without its offensive coordinator, drawing six of FSU’s seven penalties, including a mindless dead-ball unsportmanlike on Richie Leonard in the fourth quarter that turned a convertible fourth-and-five into an insurmountable fourth-and-20.

Last week, Norvell repeatedly drove the ball into the teeth of Georgia Tech’s defense to no avail, and he paid the price. On Monday, he gave up the running game and the offense became one-dimensional in the second quarter. The worst example of this came late in the first half. With the ball on the six and less than a minute remaining, Norvell opted to throw the ball three times in a row instead of keeping the ball on the ground with multiple timeouts in the pocket. While he came up with some excellent plays that Uiagalelei flat out missed, a rushing attempt could have sparked a unit that needed one or at least gotten more time off the clock. Instead, Uiagalelei finished the half with 21 pass attempts and the game with double that amount.

Defensive disaster, team again struggles to show willpower and make plays

While the offense gets most of the headlines for its ineptitude, the defense shockingly held up against a mobile quarterback — again. The Boston College schedule seemed to have flipped to what FSU was calling for, with Bill O’Brien driving the ball down the Seminoles’ throats and Adam Fuller failing to respond. The Eagles finished with 263 rushing yards on 52 attempts, compared to a minuscule 16 passing attempts by Thomas Castellanos. DJ Lundy stated after the game that his team would “find a way to stop the run, I promise you,” but that sounds like wishful thinking.

Once again, the defense never earned the right to overwhelm the passer and rely on their vaunted secondary, as BC stayed in front of the sticks all night and seemingly never left the field. The defense lost its spine and allowed their second nine-minute drive of the season en route to a 14-0 deficit. The third-down defense disappeared as O’Brien’s team dominated time of possession, converting their first four attempts and finishing 9 of 16 on the cash down for FSU.

The drive that encapsulated the disappointment came after Kentron Poitier’s touchdown to bring the game within one score, one of the few moments of emotion and heart a Seminole showed. Boston College went to its bread and butter, the quarterback run, and the Seminoles couldn’t pull it off. In the blink of an eye, aided by a penalty, the Eagles marched to the FSU 35 and reached the end zone shortly thereafter. The Eagles ran all 60 yards on their touchdown drive, mowing the ball down a soft front seven for a statement score that put the nail in the coffin of a “sick” performance.

Mastromanno and Fitzgerald are doing their jobs, but FSU still suffers from inconsistency on special teams

As Florida State had to present an award for MVP after Monday night’s failure, Alex Mastromanno would take home the hardware. The preseason All-American did his best to turn the field over with three boots for 60 yards, including one that rolled out naturally at the four-yard line (FSU gave up a 20-yard rush on the next play). Kicker Ryan Fitzgerald, who has been excellent for the Seminoles so far this season, was 2-for-2 on the night to put the Seminoles’ first points on the board. However, even with their success, there were still issues on special teams.

Malik Benson and Jaylin Lucas strangely decided not to field multiple punts that grazed or nearly grazed an incoming Seminole player multiple times, resulting in a fearful and negative punt return performance that gave their team negative yards. Lucas returned kickoffs today and his one attempt did not reach the 20-yard line, earning him a demerit.

The worst and costliest mistake, however, came from Byron Turner Jr., who inexplicably was given a personal foul of 15 yards after a touchback. His lack of discipline started the Boston College drive at the 40 instead of the 25 and continued the one step forward, two steps back theme with this team, as it happened right after Poitier’s touchdown.

Florida State calls its special teams its “identity unit,” and it makes sense that a team as disorganized as this one would struggle with the things it prides itself on.