FSU HC Mike Norvell, coordinators preview Seminoles season opener vs. Duquesne Dukes

Florida State Seminoles football is just days away from its season opener. FSU is kicking off the year in “Week 0,” an early start to the 2022 season at home vs. the Duquesne Dukes. The Seminoles are looking to start 1-0 for the first time under head coach Mike Norvell and for the first time as a program since a 2016 win vs. Ole Miss in Orlando. Norvell mentioned in the final days of preseason camp that the team had already begun the early stages of game prep and now, with camp over and the focus fully on the Dukes, he’s eager to see his team rise to the opportunity. “We blew it out of the water from years past. I love the competitiveness we saw from our team and I'm really excited about the opportunity we have ahead,” he said during Monday’s season-opening press conference, adding that quarterback Jordan Travis has shown a great improvement throughout fall camp. He mentioned that having an extra week of practice really benefited the team, “I love it. It really added to the sense of urgency, we started a week earlier one of the things that was a benefit is that today was the first day of school. we were able to get an extra week of camp.” Offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Alex Atkins, defensive coordinator Adam Fuller as well as special teams coordinator and defensive ends coach John Papuchis all took the podium today to preview the start of the Seminoles’ season, speaking on the progress of the team in all phases of the game. Atkins mentioned the position changes on the offensive line and what makes his group unique in regards to depth, “We have true competition where, even there is a depth chart out there, guys are still fighting for those opportunities,” adding that having multiple players cross trained has benefited the team, “Having multiple guys that can go in there and not have that drop-off be steep. Just more competition, I think guys have grown a lot more just answering the bell.” Fuller went over how well he felt his team transitioned from spring to fall camp with the new practice rules in place “Felt really good from spring to the summer to fall camp. Kinda three different sections with new rules and our access to the players. It was the first in my tenure I've had a smooth transition from spring into summer.” John Papuchis spoke about his own evaluation of last season and evaluation throughout the course of spring and fall camp saying that they looked at what they could do better and focused on that. “At the end of every season especially when things don't go as planned in a lot of cases there is a critical self-evaluation from everything to how we teach the fundamentals and what we're doing schematically and after you go through that evaluation you kinda step back and say ‘what do we like about what we did and how we can do better?’” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices