College Football Week 0: Florida State vs Georgia Tech Game Preview | CBS Sports

the Morning Buzz. Florida State will play their first international game in program history this Saturday, as the college football season gets underway with week zero, week zero, baby, they're in Dublin, Ireland. Georgia Tech providing the competition in the Aer Lingus Classic at Aviva Stadium. The defending ACC champions, chasing their 13th straight conference win. They're ten and a half point favorites as of Thursday morning to get the job done. Seminoles also going for a 16th win over the Yellow Jackets in program history. The team lost ten players to the NFL draft, but head coach Mike Norvell grabbed 17 in the portal, most notably, former Oregon State and Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, former Colorado State lineman Grady Kelly, and Edge player edge rusher Marvin Jones Jr. Other names. As well. Georgia Tech, coming off a seven and six season themselves where they earned their first bowl berth since 2018. We have these two guys. They don't want to talk about Georgia Tech. They want to talk about Florida State. Let's welcome in our former Seminoles. Danny Kanell and Brian McFadden. Gentlemen, a conference matchup right out of the gate. And they have to travel to Ireland to do it. The longest trip in school history. And when asked about how they're prepping, Mike Norvell said, we've been planning for this for 18 months now. Look, you guys both traveled throughout your collegiate and NFL careers. Danny, what was your longest trip and how does a long trip impact how you prepare as a tea? You know, it's interesting. I think this is something that coaches do not like going this far. And it's part of the business now. Everyone travels. My longest trip at Florida State was all the way up to the Big Apple for a for a game against Kansas. That was at the Meadowlands, which wasn't very far right. So there wasn't much prep for that one in the NFL. Went East Coast to West Coast. We go two nights before to prepare. That could be distracting, but I did actually go to Tokyo when I was on the Atlanta Falcons. But it was for a preseason game, Jeremy. But there are there clearly. I think the biggest thing is the jet lag factor. If anyone has ever traveled. Most people have traveled at some point in their life internationally. You realize what sleep deprivation is and how your body clock is off and when you want to eat. And when you get there, you're a little bit groggy. And I do think it's interesting that Florida State, only going a couple days ahead of time, that they'll probably stay kind of on the same body clock, even though it is a big jump forward and the game kicks off at noon, our time here on the East Coast, but it is a 5:00 local, so I think they'll probably not do too much adjusting. They'll probably have pretty early curfew to try to get them to sleep, but my bigger concern is when they come back, like does that hangover effect impact their next game, which is against Boston College Labor Day weekend? But I don't think it's that big of a deal anymore, especially with luxury travel getting sleep on the planes, the type of hotels and experiences they'll get. I don't think it's that significant of an edge. One way or another. Yeah, for me, my longest trip while at Florida State, traveling to South Bend, Indiana, and to your point about going to the Big Apple, not super far right, but that was the longest trip. And oh, by the way, we became the first team to ever shut out Notre Dame at home 37 to 0. If I'm not mistaken. So that distance of travel had no issue when it came to what we did on the football field. But then when you look at the NFL for me, when I played with the Pittsburgh Steelers, anytime we travel from the East Coast to the West Coast, we would leave our normal times. When you look at leaving midday Saturday to go out west, and nowadays it's so common to see collegiate teams travel long distance. Of course, the NFL, you know, traveling abroad also, it's kind of the new norm in football when you look at where the game is going. And for Florida State, they're already they're in Ireland. So they have a few days to try to get acclimated as much as possible to go out and do what they need to do on Saturday. But I don't think it's going to be a big issue for either side, Florida State or Georgia Tech. And as you guys mentioned too, it's not necessarily going there. It's coming back. The jet lag coming back can be perhaps a little bit worse. I mentioned DJ you, he replaces Jordan Travis here at quarterback position for Florida State Malik Benson the wide receiver comes over from Alabama to replace Keon Coleman. And another Alabama player. Running back Roydell Williams joins Lawrence Toafili in the backfield. Danny what do you expect this offense to look like right out of the gate? Jeremy I think this offense is going to be physical. Like I don't think this is going to be an aerial attack by any means. Excuse me where you're asking D.J. Uiagalelei to go out there and throw for 400 yards and five touchdown passes. I think he's going to be a do a lot of handing off to that loaded backfield that you mentioned, who will be running behind an offensive line that is loaded with depth and experience. This is an offensive line that has redshirt senior, senior grad, transfer, redshirt senior, redshirt, senior, grad transfer. There is guys that have started a lot of football games and I think with so much speculation around what D.J. Yu is going to look like, Mike Norvell wants to take the pressure off of his shoulders, and the way to do that is to establish the run game. I think clearly they'll have some element of a pass game. They'll take some shots, hopefully capitalize, capitalize on some play action passes. But I think the essence of this game and probably for most of the year, is a physical ground and pound run game where D.J, who plays a little bit more of the role of game manager, you know, handing the ball off, hitting some big plays. I think physicality will be the theme of the season for Florida State's offense. As you take a look at the additions and subtractions in terms of the offense on the other side of the ball, they lost two All-Americans on that D-line back. The feeling is that they have some young stars that are ready to break out, especially in the defensive backfield. What do you want to see from this defense in game one? Physical play, dominating play, starting with the guys in the trenches. You talked about losing you know Braden Fiske and Jared verse to the NFL. But when you look at what they have coming back in totality I think the depth is stronger. This season than it was a year ago. Starting off with Patrick Payton, a guy who's played a lot of football there at Florida State, a three year player junior coming up, a guy that can potentially get you double digit sacks. You talked about Marvin. Marvin Jones junior transferring from UGA. When you look at him he's one of the players you want to have. Get off the bus first. He instantly makes the all look team around six five, close to 260. Super Athletic has a little bit of that. Jermaine Johnson in his play. When you talk about his first step and how athletic he is, and also you can't forget about a guy by the name of Darrell Jackson who missed all of last season a year ago, six five, almost 340, has quick feet like a small guy. But when you look at his stature and measurables, he's another guy you would love to have get off the bus first as well. So this defense led by Adam Fuller, they should be a very, very dominating group, especially in the trenches. And when you transition to the secondary, they got potential first round pick in a guy by the name of AJ Thomas. He's also wearing the number eight. He he changed his number from 20 to 8. And the only thing I got to say to Mr. Thomas, the last few corners that wore eight at Florida State, they all got drafted and one of them sitting with us and for this game, gentlemen, FSU started the week 11.5 point favorites. It's now been bet down to ten and a half. How do you see this game playing out? B-mac well, the thing about week zero and week one in college football, that's the week of unknowns because you really don't know what you're going to get from either side. You know, you look at Florida State, you have a new quarterback, you have some new pieces on the offensive side. The same can be said on the defensive side. You don't know exactly what you're going to get. So it's kind of tread lightly when you look at the spread. Me personally, I love the total. You know, when you look at 55 in a hook, something like that. When you look at the defense that I talked about with Florida State, when you look at what Georgia Tech potentially could provide with Haynes King. But in all, for me it's all about Florida State finding a way to establish the ground and pound attack. I think that would be smart. I agree with Danny. And just playing dominating defense make plays when the plays are there for you. DJ you, you have the experience, you have a slew of running backs that can go at any given time and just allow your defense to be able to do what they need to do, which is stand up in the paint and don't allow short fields for Georgia Tech. Yeah, I agree with you. I look at this and Jeremy mentioned that line coming from 11.5 to 10 and a half. About a month ago. It was close to two touchdowns. It was 13.5. So there's some money coming in on Georgia Tech. I'd love to wait out to the last minute to see if you get it around ten, or if it goes under ten, then I think you hammer Florida State, where I think there's some value. I don't love the play because I do think there's this feeling out process of what's, you know, what potentially are you going to see. Haynes King is a dynamic playmaker at quarterback. He concerns me. With Florida State's defense as dominant as they are. He can run around and make some plays and they had fits last year with Thomas Castellanos at Boston College, who did the same early in the season against Florida State. But I think in a close game early, I think Florida State's depth along the offensive line and ability to establish the run game will allow them to pull up, pull away late. So I'll lay the ten and a half with Florida State. Probably not my favorite play, but I'll go ahead and do it with the Seminoles. Seminoles started off 2023 with a 4524 win over LSU. They'd love something similar here thanks to our former Seminoles Brian McFadden and Danny Kanell joining