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The Florida State Seminoles were far from perfect on Saturday night against the North Carolina Tar Heels.
The 15-yard penalties. The missed short field goals. The failed red-zone trips. Shaky cornerback play. A second-half collapse which almost cost them. Florida State was three yards from taking a 31-point lead (38-7), and yet needed North Carolina receivers to drop multiple passes on the game’s decisive drive in the final minute to hang on for a 31-28 victory in Tallahassee. One can find many flaws in the Seminoles’ performance.
Let’s also realize that much as Miami’s wins over Louisville and the very same Seminoles were not as impressive as they might have first seemed — given how bad Louisville’s offense has turned out to be, and given how fully Miami was crushed by Clemson — this win over North Carolina might not turn out to be such a massive conquest.
It’s true that North Carolina was No. 5 in the country when Florida State beat the Tar Heels, but how many people would say that North Carolina is an elite team? Not very many.
North Carolina — in the jumbled landscape of 2020 pandemic football — might still have a chance to become an elite team. The Tar Heels could evolve into a juggernaut by the end of the regular season in two months. Right now, however, UNC is elite only in terms of potential, not in actuality. Sam Howell, Beau Corrales, and Javonte Williams did their part against Florida State, but hardly anyone else on the Tar Heel roster stepped up. UNC barely defeated Boston College. It allowed 45 points to Virginia Tech. North Carolina filled a rankings vacuum left by the Big Ten’s absence. It was not the fifth-best team in the country, and now we don’t have to debate that point. FSU’s win, as impressive as it genuinely was, should not be overvalued.
But… let’s realize how big this win still is for Mike Norvell.
The magnitude of this achievement is rooted in a simple term: proof of concept.
Norvell needed to prove to his players and coaching staff — and to himself, and to the FSU fan base — that he could improve the Seminole program. This doesn’t mean everything had to be fixed right away. It doesn’t mean FSU has to be able to beat Clemson or immediately reach Clemson’s level of prowess. It simply meant that the mess we saw against Georgia Tech, Jacksonville State and Miami needed to give way to something noticeably better. Once we get past 2020 and the worst (hopefully!) of the pandemic, Florida State can develop and evolve on a deeper level, and Norvell’s concepts can more fully sink in.
First, though, players and coaches needed to believe in Norvell and the process of rebuilding. Proof of concept was needed.
Saturday night’s win is supremely valuable for that fact more than anything else.
Norvell can now show players what happens when they improve, when they hit hard, when they fire off the ball and provide good offensive line play. Florida State built its “three yards from 38-7” lead with conspicuously physical line play and a swarming defense which made life miserable for Sam Howell. For two and a half quarters, it felt like the 1990s all over again, with Florida State bullying a good-but-not-great Mack Brown-coached North Carolina team.
No, I’m not sure we’ll see this level of physical play from FSU for the remainder of the 2020 season — this felt like the Seminoles’ Super Bowl in 2020, and it will be hard to replicate the emotional investment the Noles devoted to this game — but every player now knows what winning football looks like. In the course of one month, every Seminole has made a journey from the ineptitude of mid-September to the elite standard demonstrated in the first two and a half quarters against UNC.
Equipped with this potent knowledge — and given the confidence of an equation-changing victory — Florida State is now much better positioned to escape the chains of mediocrity than it was merely three weeks ago. That’s a lot of progress to behold and a powerful reason for FSU fans to be encouraged about the road ahead.
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