Florida State football played its first scrimmage of its fall camp Saturday night at Doak Campbell Stadium.
Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell and defensive coordinator Adam Fuller spoke following the scrimmage, with Norvell saying he was happy with what he saw from his team.
“I thought it was a good work night tonight, I think we got about 120 plays,” Norvell said. “Good work from the majority of the guys on the team, we were able to get in all three groups.”
“I thought it was an active scrimmage.”
With some of the Seminoles’ best players taking limited reps, Norvell said Saturday’s scrimmage gave some of the younger players on the team a chance to impress. He singled out freshman wide receiver Elijah Moore as one of the players that impressed him.
While Moore was a standout, Norvell said he felt the wide receivers left a few big plays on the table with some drops. Despite some of the missed moments, Norvell is excited about what the receiving corps can do this season.
“There was definitely some good moments, but we still had a couple of missed opportunities,” Norvell said. “I feel good about the group that we have, I feel good about the guys that have been performing at a high level. We are trying to get a sense of what the rotation is going to look like… there were some good moments, but also plays we left out there that we got to get better at.”
Norvell was happy with his quarterbacks, with DJ Uiagalelei impressing him with his command of the offense and his ability to lead them down the field.
The Seminoles are currently still scheduled to have a normal practice week and head to Jacksonville for two days of camp, but Norvell said the program is monitoring the potential impacts of now Tropical Storm Debby.
Adam Fuller happy with defensive effort despite “sloppy” tackling
On the defensive side of the football, Norvell said he was happy with how his defensive line played, calling them “disruptive” on several occasions. While Fuller agreed the line was disruptive stopping in the run, he said the pass rush wasn’t at that same level.
“I thought for the most part, the execution was good. I thought our tackling was sloppy, we made a lot of costly penalties,” Fuller said. “I don’t think we were very disruptive in the pass rush. I thought we were better in the run game, but we hit the target. It was important in this scrimmage to not only get certain people the right reps but to push what we are doing. “
He singled out guys like Darell Jackson, Cam Riley, Sione Lolohea and Kevin Knowles as some veteran players who got some needed reps in the Seminoles system. He also said both linebackers Blake Nichelson and Justin Cryer got important work in a game situation and that he’s excited about the potential of the linebacking room.
“I’m excited about that group,” Fuller said. “I think they’ve all got a chance. I think we’ll be deeper, but we got to continue to push the high-level play out of that group.”
There were some moments where Fuller said the defense could have capitalized better, with he and Norvell singling out one long drive by the offense that the defense allowed a few third-down conversions. Despite a few missed moments, Fuller said he was happy to get a large rotation of players in during the scrimmage.
Fuller said his defensive line has six players who could contribute, with Jackson, Joshua Farmer and Patrick Payton obvious standouts.
The defensive backs continue to be a strength for the Seminoles, and while Fentrell Cypress, Azareye’h Thomas and Shyheim Brown are the leaders of the group, Fuller feels the freshman class of defensive backs can contribute to winning football.
“Every one of them are not All-Americans yet, but I think we can get winning football in certain roles out of all of them,” Fuller said. “That’s exciting to me, to Pat [Surtain] and to our entire defensive staff.”
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Aug. 24 vs. Georgia Tech *Dublin, Ireland at noon p.m., ESPN
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Sept. 2 vs. Boston College at 7:30 p.m., ESPN
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Sept. 14 vs. Memphis
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Sept. 21 vs. California
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Sept. 28 at SMU
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Oct. 5 vs. Clemson
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Oct. 18 at Duke
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Oct. 26 at (U) Miami
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Nov. 2 vs. North Carolina
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Nov. 9 at Notre Dame
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Nov. 23 vs. Charleston Southern
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Nov. 30: Florida
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Dec. 7: ACC Championship
BOLD = ACC
* = Neutral Site
Liam Rooney covers preps sports for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at LRooney@gannett.com or on Twitter @__liamrooney
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU football play first scrimmage of fall, here is what Mike Norvell saw
