{"id":392221,"date":"2026-09-06T15:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/392221\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T15:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:52:26","slug":"fsu-looks-for-improved-defense-as-seminoles-host-smu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/392221\/","title":{"rendered":"FSU looks for improved defense as Seminoles host SMU"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TALLAHASSEE \u2014 Florida State\u2019s two-touchdown victory over New Mexico State also showed two glaring concerns: An offensive line that struggled in pass protection and a third-down defense that was suspect.<\/p>\n<p>After just 60 minutes of football, it\u2019s tough to know what is fixable and what is a team weakness. FSU\u2019s coaches are optimistic, of course, about the ability to review the film, make corrections on the practice field and deliver a cleaner performance beginning on Labor Day against No. 19 SMU.<\/p>\n<p>FSU defensive coordinator Tony White said he went to sleep frustrated despite allowing 47 rushing yards in a 34-17 win. What prompted the restless night was the Aggies converting 10 of 17 third-down plays (Trey Hedden connected on nine straight third-down pass plays).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe secondary, there were a bunch of different combinations of guys in there,\u201d White said. \u201cWe took Neo (Nehemiah Chandler) and moved him into the nickel. We took Ricky (Knight) and made sure he got his reps. It\u2019s just guys being organic and working together and not seeing the same pictures. A lot of times when you put those groups together on the field, they know what each other is thinking so there\u2019s not that much communication going on. There may be a thumb\u2019s up or a blink.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>White felt that two veterans, rover Ashlynd Barker and safety K.J. Kirkland, knew the calls and assignments. But newcomers to nickel or safety like Chandler and Knight just didn\u2019t have enough experience in the scheme on the practice field or in a game. The Seminoles had two guys on the same page, but the third wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"The Seminoles have spent the last few months trying to learn new defensive coordinator Tony White's 3-3-5 scheme, and they had their first chance to run through it on the field Wednesday when spring practice began. (Bob Ferrante\/Orlando Sentinel Correspondent)\" width=\"3561\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TOS-L-FSU-assistant-coach-Tony-White-01_4b25c4.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"14410926\" \/>Seminoles&#8217; defensive coordinator Tony White said he was frustrated after the season opener, despite FSU allowing 47 just rushing yards in the 34-17 win. (Bob Ferrante\/Orlando Sentinel Correspondent)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou put one new guy in there, and now all of a sudden, and you see it on film, you see guys turn around and like, \u2018What\u2019s going on? What\u2019s this? What\u2019s the check?\u2019 And then he\u2019s taking out the mouthpiece and the ball is snapped and now you got one half of the guys playing one thing and another side playing another thing,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s confidence in a resolution to the communication issues on defense. But on the offensive line, how much of the struggles were related to cohesion with four transfers? How much of it was just linemen not winning the 1-on-1 blocks?<\/p>\n<p>Coach Mike Norvell has said in the preseason and after the opener that he\u2019s not locked into a depth chart at any position, stating: \u201cCompetition is a beautiful thing.\u201d That extends to the offensive line.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it\u2019s consistently showing up (as a problem) then it\u2019s time to make a change in-game, then we\u2019ll do that,\u201d Norvell said. \u201cYou take all of the things you see in practice, trying to put the best five guys out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE \u2014 Florida State\u2019s two-touchdown victory over New Mexico State also showed two glaring concerns: An offensive line&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[111,28,3731,76046,110,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-392221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392221","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=392221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}