Mike Norvell on FSU's QB situation, Brock Glenn replacing DJU late vs. SMU
By: Bob Ferrante - The OsceolaCoach Mike Norvell said he was ready to see what Brock Glenn could do in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game, with SMU comfortably in front of Florida State 42-16.
But Norvell said it didn’t have anything to do with DJ Uiagalelei’s third interception, the last one being returned 82 yards for a touchdown.
“In all reality, DJ on the last hit, obviously something with his hand,” Norvell said. “His hand got hit. We’ll see where that’s at. But in all reality I was going to make a change anyway to give Brock an opportunity.”
But some of the same pass protection issues popped up again and again with Glenn in the game. The redshirt freshman was able to fire off a few passes, but he was 0 for 4 on a couple drives with the game's result no longer in question.
Norvell stopped short of criticizing Uiagalelei, offensive linemen or any player specifically by name. Uiagalelei was just 12 of 30 for 222 yards and two touchdowns, but he was under constant duress, misfired at times and saw would-be pass-catchers drop throws.
Norvell said again that the Seminoles' offensive struggles — a fifth straight game with fewer than 300 offensive yards and a fourth consecutive game of scoring in the teens — are not solely on the quarterback.
"It’s real easy to point to the quarterback," Norvell said. "We all look at it, get better. There’s a lot of things that DJ did, putting the ball on guys in challenging situations. There’s times where we had lapses in protection where he thinks he’s protected and we missed that, you get somebody on you running free (at the quarterback).
"There’s some mistakes from guys that they haven’t done that in the moment. … They executed better than we executed."
Norvell frequently mentioned FSU's mistakes in the loss to SMU and often said things he's seeing in practices, Seminoles showing consistently they are executing well and the play is being done right, have instead resulted in mistakes in games.
FSU is stunningly 1-4 through what was considered a lighter portion of the schedule, including losses to Georgia Tech, Boston College, Memphis and SMU. The Seminoles are also 1-3 in the ACC.
Coming into the SMU game, FSU was 126th among the 134 teams in the FBS in scoring with an average of 15 points per game. FSU managed just 16 on Saturday, not much of an output and not nearly enough in a game that became a shootout.
Moving forward, will FSU go with Uiagalelei, Glenn or Luke Kromenhoek?
"Some of the things show up tonight, playing quarterback, you can have a freshman, you can have whatever talent in the world, we got to help the quarterback out, too," Norvell said. "And obviously the quarterback has to play at a high level. We’re going to continue to push and evaluate. It’s easy for everybody to point to that one individual and that’s part of the position. DJ knows that."
