Warchant Report: Can FSU Football bounce back vs. Wake Forest?

First segment - look back at JSU debacle all right welcome into the warchant.com report i'm jeff cameron there you see the two gentlemen on your screen that's ira that's corey and we can't wait to talk about what just happened against jacksonville state in the game this weekend against wake forest which by the way 3 30 on eb abc no that's espn you can get it right jeff either way are you going to watch do you dare watch can we can we hang in there and watch this game i don't know let's start with you guys we have to do the post more and i'm i'm supposed to do an overview of what just occurred but uh first as you see hit the like button always ride and die with us guys no matter what happens on saturday no wonder what happened just last saturday cory you want to start maybe you want to start ira either one go ahead let's talk about what just happened go ahead ira you do it you go it didn't just happen it happened a few days ago but yeah floor state suffered a uh maybe perhaps the worst loss in school history losing 20 to 17 on a last-second 59-yard play to jacksonville state an fcs school they had lost one week earlier uh they got blown out by uab one week earlier in the game that they got shut out so not high times right now for florida state football but uh in the biggest problem as you mentioned is this week they got to go to play at wake forest which you know in years past the wake forest we all grew up with that would be an opportunity to get right you'd feel good about going in there winning by 30 or 40 points the problem is this is a decent wake forest team this is a wake forest team that was picked to finish higher than you in the first place in the conference it has actually it beats you the last time you went up there and uh it's a team that really has played well the last couple of years under dave claussen so it's going to be a big test florida state's an underdog in this game and uh even if they rebound from that last game and i know we're going to break down this game and and kind of look at it from all the different angles even if they rebound and play well there's no guarantee they're going to win this game yeah but wouldn't it be nice if they rebounded and played well uh no matter you know what i mean like there is a there is a avenue we can all see where this season drives down into a a pit of despair um and it would start this saturday if they go up there and do not compete and do not play well and it looks a lot like uh what some of the games last year looked like it's it's like a record scratch on a on a you know in one of those movie scenes where somebody walks into the wrong bar uh it will it will that's what saturday night was frankly the jacksonville state loss that was the record scratch this would be taking the record player and smashing it over your head with it i i don't know there we can we can argue i guess there's semantics it's the worst loss in program history modern day uh po post bobby bowden being hired it is easily the worst lost in florida state history and you wonder what the mindset will be because i know fans have jumped off the bandwagon have the players you know i you know we haven't really seen at least ira it doesn't sound like you've seen a lot of that at practice but we'll find out on saturday man especially if they get down 10 nothing or 14 nothing early um that was that was a game that almost completely defied belief and really kind of altered the perception of this coaching staff and they have to build trust back up by actually having a team ready to play and going winning games guys how do we think it happened all signs pointed all three of us said this anybody who was out of practice covering this team thought this i heard players talk about this we didn't see a team that was disjointed we didn't see the most talented team in the world but we saw a team that was together in the offseason working harder playing smarter building towards a performance against notre dame that i think a lot of people figured florida state could build on it was visual evidence of all that hard work it was visual evidence of buy-in how do you think we arrived at that scene late saturday night with the debacle that we saw against jacksonville state because it's not just the final play which was very emblematic really of the entire game which is that florida state played poorly and in some cases put themselves in jeopardy of something like this happening and then finally it came to fruition well in my opinion i mean i think the the encouraging thing is this wasn't to me this wasn't exactly like some of the losses the last few years especially the losses last year or even the year before where the players didn't compete because and that was what was so exciting about the notre dame game is that the players did compete even when they got down they competed they fought back they took the game to overtime they didn't get the win but they competed this past game i thought they played hard again i thought you saw guys competing i feel like this game was on the coaches and from that standpoint that at least you feel like these coaches can can coach better than they did that game they can prepare a better game plan they can have the players more mentally focused that but that last game to me wasn't a situation where oh these are a bunch of loser players that i think you're starting to see some on social media people in on our message board saying oh they still got that loser blood in them man i don't that game wasn't on the players now that last play was to a degree there was a bad play call and you had a couple players not make a play but for the most part i thought god play hard i don't think that's the problem with this team right now and uh yeah so to me that's that's encouraging because i think the players can will compete if put the right position now it's up to the coaches to do that well it it that it's encouraging in the sense that it wasn't the player's fault we'll see how the players react though we have no way to know or understand or um predict how this group of players will react to that that loss but man the coach coaches let them down i don't know how it's to say it the offense was abysmal the reason you lost that game is because your offense put up three points in the second half against an fcs team and that was a 53-yard field goal it was abysmal there was hubris involved there was we're going to do all this fancy stuff to make wake forest prepare for us we're going to play if jordan travis is your backup quarterback which clearly he is now why is he in the game at all in the first half of a 0-0 game it's it's hubris that's the only way there is this they obviously don't have a feel for what this team is right now to think they can do that and at the end of the day the offense was uh dreadful he put 330 yards in two touchdowns both of those drives were 50 something yards no explosive plays you played your third best tailback for a majority of the fourth quarter everything in my opinion on that loss was on the coaches now that does not mean they're a bad coaching staff that does not mean mike norvell's a bad coach he had an awful awful night and he needs to put his players in a better position to succeed and yeah jarvis brownlee didn't make that tackle it was a ridiculous play on his part it was ridiculous he was in that position not only that they called that defense when they did but that the game was close you should have 35 on that team man the game should have been over and your backup quarterback should have been playing so that to me is all on the coaches and well we think just let me add one thing and when i say that the players weren't to blame the players did there were certain guys definitely played poorly they committed a ton of penalties they had a lot lack of focus but at the end of the day that to me goes back to the coaching staff if guys just aren't giving effort and i know there wasn't a lot of effort on that last play from a couple guys on the defense but for the most part the effort was there that's the that is the bottom line or excuse me that's the the minimum standard as mike norbell said this week you want to see that i did think you saw that you just didn't see focus but to me that goes back on the coaching staff as well corey alluded to a moment ago we'll talk about the quarterbacks neck as we preview the actual wake forest game we'll put this jacksonville state game in the rear view obviously it's a devastating loss it's not one anybody else had on the ledger we thought florida state at worst would be one and one right now now they find themselves in a desperate situation heading to wake but it is a game they can win we'll talk about the wake forest demon deacons and what they represent as a challenge from florida state next on the warchant.com report live and living color and totally free subscribe to warchant tv on youtube thedigitalhomeofwarchant.com from the practice field to pre-game and the phone calls afterwards war chance youtube channel is home to live programming like seminal headlines wake up war chant the jeff cameron show as well as trench talk a live q a with knolls offensive lineman davonte love taylor just search war chant on youtube and click or tap the subscribe button that's it it's totally free warchant tv on youtube just another reason we're the ultimate seminal sports source as mentioned before here on the Second segment - scouting Wake, importance of Saturday warchant.com report florida state wake forest 330 espn on the road wake forest is 2-0 on the season hard to gauge much of what they've done obviously two easy wins against norfolk and old dominion uh they are an experienced team they get almost everybody back on offense they are a team that uh well number 28 in total offense last season average 444 yards with 36 points per game uh they brought most people back most people know sam hartman at this point let's talk for a second about what they represent we'll kind of circle back to what florida state's doing at quarterback as well um corey what do they do well well they they do everything pretty well on offense right like they run that unique kind of i'm gonna hold the ball in the belly for five seconds i'm gonna see what you do and then i'm either gonna pull it out and pop pop a pass or i'm gonna the running back's gonna run hartman i don't think is much of a runner uh but he's number one he's only a sophomore which seems preposterous i feel like he's been around forever um but he's a redshirt sophomore but he you know he's already eighth in their in career passing at wake forest he's a he's a mature veteran quarterback man and if you give him holes if you give him windows to throw the ball he's going to find his receivers he's a guy that's not going to make a ton of mistakes and you know he's a guy that will pick you apart if you if you're pick a particle and that's what was so that's what was so a little bit worrisome about those last two drives is that it wasn't just that last play the drive before florida state's dbs didn't compete real well uh they gave up two touchdown passes one was called back and then they also you know there are a couple pass interference penalties that's the stuff man you you hope um you can limit that a little bit and just don't give him wide open receivers to throw to because he will find them and hit them ira shift to the run game for a second i think most people when they think about wake forest think about how aggravating it is to play them how frustrating it can be traditionally like corey said they do some things that are very unique to the college football world they do a little less of that they don't hold it as long as they used to at least in the two games that i've seen them and they changed some a little bit last year but talk about the run game yeah but that's still a big part of it you know just the the option and the mesh point and and really trying to get you to you know they throw a lot of eye candy do different things to try to get you distracted into to chase where you think the play is going to be instead of just doing your job and then using your aggressiveness against you and that's why really a lot of teams like florida state miami teams that are traditionally very aggressive up front defensively sometimes struggle against wake forest because they will use your aggression against you because they know they can't just man up and block you so you know talking to fsu's players this week fabian lovett we spoke to him earlier this week and he said really it's all about beating your man and then going to make the play don't just try to get around them just don't don't don't think you know where the play is going to be and and chase that uh because they'll go the other way and use some misdirection i think you know from what i've seen the first couple of games from florida state's defensive front i feel like they're going to handle that pretty well they've been disciplined so far i thought at the notre dame game you saw a really good example of it where they did not let notre dame out flank them they did a really good job of staying home on misdirection things encounters and played all that much better i think i think you'll see that defensive front play well and if they do that's the key to the game but as corey said i mean there's going to be some breakdowns there's going to be some guys uh running free because of the things they do the pressure they put on you so the key is to minimize those and and to not give up touchdowns on those plays you know it may be one thing for a corner to bite but you can't have the safeties by two you can't give up easy touchdowns or or multiple easy touchdowns um so i think it's a game where floor states defense can play really well for long stretches they just can't give up those huge plays corey i want to shift to you and talk about the wake defense for a second because at the end of the last segment we talked about what florida state chose to do at quarterback and that's to go with mackenzie milton this week as the starter it's an interesting choice by the way that wake defense at the end of last year was simply terrible gave them a ton of points they haven't been great uh for the last couple of years frankly but we don't know really what they are through their first two games given their opponents what do you expect to see from four states offense against this wake defense which i think could be had i mean i i i don't know man i can't answer that question i i don't know um i feel like if mackenzie milton's your quarterback you're going to try to get the passing game going a little bit um one way or another it's got to be better than it was saturday night when you averaged less than four yards per pass play um so with that said if i'm wake forest don't you just defend them just like jacksonville state defended them you play some guys back you assume that florida state will not drive 80 yards and 12 plays because they're not built that way they're gonna they're gonna have a penalty they're gonna have a missed assignment there's gonna be a bad snap a tackle for loss a hold and it's gonna be second and 22 and then you're gonna they're gonna be punting in two downs so i feel wake forest will play like that i don't know that i mean you know it's not like the receivers have shown any ability to beat man to man so i guess you could you could just go all out to stop the run i just think with milton back there if travis was back there they'd play completely different i think than it with milton being back there i think with milton back there they play more soft coverage uh you know not not wanting to give up a big play not thinking that they're going to give up a big play and that florida state's going to drive 80 yards to score do we think at the end of the day fellas both of you can answer this before we start to do the actual predictions and keys to the game and all that good stuff do we think at the end of the day this is a little bit more about florida state to some extent now they may not be a talented team but if they execute and they're also playing well within themselves they have an opportunity to win this game this is about avoiding penalties i you know i think that's part of it i mean obviously florida state has to play a cleaner football game to have a chance and this is also their first game on the road so that's a bigger challenge they they didn't play clean at home offensively uh certainly not in the second game and that was at home against an fcs team so to expect them to go play a clean game is probably asking a lot and again the but the other problem is it's not like they've got a huge talent advantage over wake forest is the point you made jeff i mean there you know florida state's not a 1990s or even 2000s talented football team so you know they have to play cleaner but it's going to be a challenge doing it on the road so on the one hand i say yeah it's about florida state but it's also they're going to have to win some one-on-one matchups that was one of the things that mike norvell really hammered home this week is not just offensively but defensively the cornerbacks the safeties they have to make one-on-one plays not just you know contest the catch but actually make the play either pick it off or break it up and and those are things you got to see on both sides of the ball for them to win this game guys make sure you are liking and subscribing and if you want to be a subscriber to warchant.com obviously now would be a good time to do it this could be a hell of a ride you guys are going to want to watch this thing play out let the boys know you're going to want to be a part of this we come back we'll talk about what this game means to the program how important it is for the remainder of the season and give you the breakdown of what we think are the keys on the warchant.com report [Music] [Applause] [Music] Final segment - more thoughts on FSU-Wake, game MVP welcome back to thewarchant.com report hit that little bell like and subscribe make sure you get all these and you find out when we got more content coming pound that like button there you go simple enough there's iron corey i'm jeff and you're you and we're thinking to ourselves how important is this game to the future of the program certainly to the future of this season what do we see who wants to start uh you started last time i asked an opening question like that corey go ahead uh how big is this game on saturday enormous uh it really is enormous like not for this seat i mean i guess yeah for this season that's fine this season is what it is you're hoping to get to six wins maybe seven if you get to a bowl and that's like the top top of the line uh hope um but it just would say so much i think about this coaching staff and this coach if they even rally up like willie's team did after louisiana monroe and play well at virginia for three quarters and have a lead over a ranked team like at least that was something that that gave you a little bit of hope it was short-lived clearly but that team showed some fight this guy preaches fight he preaches accountability he preaches hard work and bouncing back i would love to see that this week win or lose um that's why to me it's important if you go out there and play hard and just lose because you're not great you're not very good it's a coin flip you lose the coin flip okay it's a bummer you need to start winning games but at least play well or play hard um and score some points touch the end zone get in the end zone but yes it's it's a very important game because if it looks bad and goes bad you have a feeling it could really go off the rails yeah ira i'm going to let you comment uh corey i just had to note and the reason i was laughing was the score some points sounded so desperate so angry and so perfectly summarizes where the fan base is at right about now i think i hear you loud and clear ira we do know this could go off the rails and we've watched too many seasons go right off the rails too early in the year but we didn't expect to see it this year i don't know if it will or it won't but we do know if they go 0-3 there's a whole lot of apathy a whole lot of angry and a whole lot of what in the world are we going to do now amongst this fan base amongst these players and maybe even amongst these coaches yeah i mean honestly i i think wake is not who you want to have in this situation especially on the road i mean wake up people aren't you know some people are going to roll their eyes about this but florist you know wake hasn't lost a home game other than clemson since 2019 i mean they've won i think they've won their last eight eight home games other than clemson so they're a formidable opponent virginia lost their last year virginia tech lost their last year florida state lost their two years ago it's not like florida state's going to just kind of easily cruise into this game i think you'd much rather have a home game against syracuse or louisville or somebody like that so on the one hand i say yeah this is a huge game for florida state but it's hard to say it's like a must win because there's a decent to pretty good chance they're not going to win it so that to me that doesn't necessarily uh say the bad things about this program or where it's at right now compared to last week or compared to the week before i do think it would be really important for them to win it if they could win it it would do a lot it would definitely uh strengthen uh you know just the belief not just it would it wouldn't strengthen the belief of fan base fan base is not coming back until they beat uh several they have several good games in a row in a short period of time not just one but from the player's standpoint it would give them some validation that this coaching staff is putting them in the right positions they're doing the right things there's hope for the future and also for mackenzie milton you know this is a guy that had won 23 straight games he lost you know he got he gets the loss for the jacksonville state game it wasn't all on him but he gets the loss if he again doesn't play very well doesn't throw the ball down the field doesn't make a lot of big plays then you start have people wondering are they playing the right quarterback so from those standpoints it's a big game i just think it's it's a lot to ask because this is this is a game we didn't necessarily expect them to win even if they had won last week to that end if they do win the game who's the mvp are we looking on that offense are we looking at mckinsey milton or do we think it's the defensive line that corrales wake forest offense and at the end of the day carries the day i would say towafili get him as me get him as many at bats as he can and just see what happens no i think if you win the game it's going to be slash offensive line doing some semblance of run blocking which they've been pretty good at this year and then your two guys corbin and ward i mean if those guys can combine like they did last week for 150 160 yards like they did the week before actually um i i think you have a pretty good chance if you could run the ball on the road that should travel um i just i don't believe in the passing offense until they prove me wrong i don't believe they're going to make a ton of plays in the passing game i don't believe that's where their their bread will be buttered they need to be a predominantly run team uh getting a lot of third and threes and then you know wildcat it to death no don't count them to death no just run wildcat until they they put their hands up they don't do it anymore at the end of the day i think it'll be the defensive line that wins the game though they'll turn this into a field position game florida state won't have to do all that much if they win offensively score somewhere in the low to mid 20s and maybe hold on to win 24-21 something like that i'll go with the defensive line really quickly we've got to get to our picks i'm not so sure i'm excited about these picks but we got to do them so here we Game picks go virginia tech at west virginia west virginia favored minus three i'm going to say west virginia it's just i'm going i'm riding the acc uh loses these kind of games trains anti-acc yeah yeah uh i don't know man i'm starting to maybe i'm believing a little bit in fuente and virginia tech i'm gonna take the hokies uh i too will take virginia tech michigan state at miami miami it's given six and a half they're off to a rocky start barely getting by against appalachian state i like michigan state in that one michigan state can run the ball right jeff typically i mean they're a big tim team i don't know what else they can do so i would feel like they're gonna be pretty physical the miami defense has not been good um i like michigan state to at least keep it within a touchdown yeah i like michigan state too well i just i'm gonna fade miami as long as i can uh which could be all season something i'm gonna fade them as well virginia north carolina north carolina favorite by eight and a half virginia's played well so far to start the season and i like that quarterback quarterback has a little something to them um you know they dare i say they have the better quarterback in that game probably not it's just just joking i'm just still mad that howell left because what bell wasn't here that's crazy what are you doing sam howell look what you could have been in charge of i'll say uh i think north carolina covers that yeah i'll take north carolina as well give me the who's baby i'm gonna ride the hot hand with virginia give me eight and a half auburn on the road at penn state kudos to both these teams for scheduling this game it's not some silly neutral side game but rather a home at home pretty cool to get that i like penn state i don't trust bo nicks on the road ever really i don't trust bo nick's just standing around uh i'll take penn state and give the six so they're favored by six penn state yeah that's a bigger number than i was hoping okay well then they don't lose those um i'm going penn state i'll go penn state on that one as well three for penn state finally alabama at florida florida is a 15-point underdog uh that's a massive number for a team hosting the game in the swamp but we know it's alabama so i'm going to go with alabama i'll take the over is actually the play for me although i do think that unfortunately florida woke up and realized anthony richardson is the guy it's not henry jones but he pulled his hamstring so how much is he gonna play if he's hurt and he can't play a lot and run around and be dynamic then alabama will blow him out if he plays and he can run around and do the things that he can at six foot four 250 pounds it could be interesting man i i have a hard time ever betting against alabama and with any of these spreads i i do think florida will keep that close i do think that'll be a game in the fourth quarter because i have not been you know alabama's played one solid half so far of football um and their coach is not happy with him and i know he's not never really happy but he's been not pleased with what he's seen but i just that quarterback situation in florida worries me i'm gonna pick alabama i'll say alabama but i do it begrudgingly i uh yeah man i i if anthony richardson was playing i would feel a little bit better about florida i certainly wouldn't uh uh take alabama lane 15 on the road but i don't think he's going to play i think his hamstring is significant and someone say alabama i think florida will fall apart uh as that game of good i just don't believe in emery jones i don't believe in emmy jones either so it really does come down all of our picks kind of go out the window if anthony richardson's richardson's healthy enough to play then it's kind of an interesting game all right we get to the four to state game four to state at wake wake is favored by five and a half give me the knolls i like the knolls plus the points like the goals to win the game out right i'm with you i'm with you i don't i don't know about outright but i definitely think it should be a close game it will be a close game and we'll see how the coaching staff handles late game strategy this week jeff almost talked me into it with the talk about the defensive line because i do think that that's going to be the key to the game and if they play really well i think there's a chance they could even maybe set up some defensive scores or or short fields uh but i made my pick before this and i'm going to stick with it a weight 24 florida state 17. i have a hard time seeing an offense that can't execute at home doing that much better on the road so i'm going to go 24 17. ira's a hater everybody yeah just there's just look at it out of nowhere he picks an opposing team trying to make people feel good about this program and there goes ira no that's all that's all you've done for the last week corey that's all i do i try to pick people's spirits up i'm not mad it's just a game it's football at sports i want to personally thank ira cory and aslan for putting up with me you guys don't know the behind the scenes of this particular broadcast but i wasn't the strongest of the group today so i appreciate it and i appreciate all of you don't forget to like and subscribe to warchanttvworkchant.com and all things war chant dammit gun holes and we'll talk to you next time