{"id":231890,"date":"2026-04-14T22:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/231890\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T22:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:21:19","slug":"tony-whites-comments-should-worry-florida-state-fans-about-the-defense-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/231890\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony White&#8217;s comments should worry Florida State fans about the defense in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5m\">Florida State fans didn&#8217;t have warm and fuzzy feelings after the 2025 season. The Seminoles finished with a 5-7 record, with the most notable win coming against Alabama in the opener. Head coach Mike Norvell is now classified as on the hot seat after combining to have seven wins in two years. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5p\">As a result, Norvell needs to find positive leaders on his squad to turn this program around. Fans were thankful to witness coaches such as Bobby Bowden and Jimbo Fisher, and they combined to have three national championships in program history. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5s\">That is exactly what the standard here is at Florida State: Competing for championships. The Seminoles are hoping for a major bounce back. Florida State had a disappointing end to last year, as the struggling <a href=\"https:\/\/chopchat.com\/this-rocky-qb-situation-from-the-florida-gators-should-make-seminole-fans-very-happy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Florida Gators<\/a> beat the Seminoles by multiple touchdowns, thanks to running back Jadan Baugh having over 200 rushing yards. <\/p>\n<p>Tony White didn&#8217;t mention the Desir Twins as leaders on Florida State&#8217;s defense <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"61\">This faced criticism from the defensive coordinator, Tony White, and his 3-3-5 scheme. Some fans didn&#8217;t believe that 3-3-5 would ever work at Florida State. The Seminoles had success against Alabama in the opener, but as soon as Tony White&#8217;s name came up for the UCLA coaching vacancy, the defense changed its aggressiveness. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"64\">Florida State&#8217;s defense looked like it was a step behind, where the Seminoles were used to running a 4-3 or even a 4-2-5 scheme with man-to-man coverages. Coach White even mentioned that the players are sometimes a couple of steps out of position, which would result in large gains for opposing offenses. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">The Desir Twins were a bright spot in the defense, specifically <a href=\"https:\/\/chopchat.com\/rylan-kennedy-delivers-an-update-on-the-desir-twins-that-should-get-fans-pumped\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mandrell Desir<\/a>. The former three-star prospect led the team in sacks with 6.5. He was asked to be versatile in the defense, playing defensive tackle and defensive end.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">Tony White was asked after Monday&#8217;s practice who the leaders were on defense, and surprisingly enough, he didn&#8217;t name the Desir Twins as leaders. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6d\">One of the biggest priorities of the offseason was retaining Mandrell and Darryll Desir when they tried to go in the transfer portal. The Seminoles probably paid a couple of million dollars to retain them, and gave Darryll (No. 1) and Mandrell (No. 3) <a href=\"https:\/\/chopchat.com\/desir-twins-get-another-florida-state-reward-for-staying-with-the-noles-after-all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">new jersey numbers<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">Florida State needs the Desir Twins to emerge as leaders, even if they are classified as quiet players. They need to lead by example so that the defense can thrive in 2026. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow chopchat.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=chopchat.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida State fans didn&#8217;t have warm and fuzzy feelings after the 2025 season. The Seminoles finished with a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-231890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}