FSU Seminoles

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Jimbo Fisher had pushed for the ACC to consider reverting to an eight-game conference schedule for months, but now that he's gotten his wish, he admits the change has thrown Florida State into a bit of a quandary.

"It's kind of weird how it's happening right now because it's going to put a lot of teams scrambling here quickly," Fisher said.

After deciding on a nine-game conference slate for 2013, the ACC reversed course Wednesday, switching back to an eight-game schedule in lieu of the addition of Notre Dame as a partial league member.

That's a step in the right direction, Fisher admits, but it also leaves the Seminoles -- along with the rest of the ACC -- scrambling to fill out their 2013 schedules.

FSU has already been in the process of trying to find an opponent to replace Nevada, which hasn't officially pulled out of its scheduled meeting, but is looking for alternatives. Fisher said that may give the Seminoles a jump on understanding the market, but that doesn't necessarily mean the process will be simpler.

"We've been jumping, but I don't know what we're seeing out there," Fisher said.

Florida State was in a similar situation in the spring when West Virginia pulled out of its planned Week 2 game in Tallahassee, forcing FSU to sift through dozens of potential alternatives before settling on Savannah State, an overmatched FCS foe that drew groans from fans.

"Everybody joked about us getting Savannah [State] but you could not find a game," Fisher said. "And everybody thinks I'm crazy but wait until 12 [teams] go through it this year."

One potential alternative is to simply keep nine ACC games on the schedule for 2013. It's an option several athletics directors are considering, but Fisher said Florida State hopes to avoid that possibility.

"I don't know if you want to do that, but I want to wait and see everything," Fisher said. "It may be the only way you can get a game until you can get your scheduled fixed out in the future."

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Heather Dinich talks about Florida State's trip to NC State on Saturday in the Atlantic Division race.

ESPN 300 wide receiver commitment Tony Stevens (Orlando, Fla./Evans) said he has decommitted from Florida State late Wednesday night.

The 6-foot-4, 184-pound prospect had been committed to the Seminoles since February 25 before making an announcement on his personal Twitter account.

"I'm decommitting from Florida State," he said.

The Seminoles, it seems, aren't even in his top five any longer.

Stevens later said that Ohio State, Georgia, Louisville, USF and USC are his top schools. He did indicate in August that he was likely going to take other official visits.

"I'm going to take all of my visits because it's my senior year," Stevens said earlier. "I know I'm going to visit Ohio State, FSU, Louisville, South Carolina and USF ... but I'm still solid to Florida State."

That's obviously not the case now.

ESPN ranks Stevens as the No. 22 receiver in the class of 2013 and is the No. 35 player in Florida.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Jimbo Fisher got his wish, and the ACC will move forward with an eight-game conference football schedule, the league announced Wednesday.

Fisher had railed against the proposed nine-game slate, which would severely limit non-conference scheduling for teams like Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech, who already play an annual rivalry game against an out-of-conference foe.

With Notre Dame coming on board as a partial member of the ACC -- set to play five games a year against ACC opponents -- another wrinkle was added to the mix, making it financially problematic for member schools who want to maintain seven home games each season for revenue purposes.

But while the change of course back to the current eight-game slate offers Florida State more flexibility, it also means the Seminoles will need to find at least one more opponent to fill out their 2013 schedule.

Currently FSU has non-conference games against Wofford, Nevada and Florida scheduled for next season, but losing the ninth ACC game opens up a vacancy. Meanwhile, Nevada is hoping to withdraw from its scheduled trip to Tallahassee next season and is working with Florida State to find a viable alternative opponent.

The Seminoles endured similar last-minute scheduling issues this season when West Virginia pulled out of a planned Week 2 meeting in February, forcing FSU to scramble for a replacement. The school eventually settled on Savannah State, an FCS program that won just one game last year. The game had low attendance and FSU won in a route, despite weather putting an end to the contest midway through the third quarter.

With the tepid response to the Savannah State game among fans and questions swirling about how Florida State's lackluster schedule will affect its chances at a national championship, it seems likely AD Randy Spetman will want to avoid scheduling a second FCS foe for 2013, but he said the process of filling out next year's slate is only in its infancy.

"The change in the ACC's schedule plans obviously happened very quickly over the last few days," Spetman said. "We are immediately assessing what that will mean for Florida State, but speculating about potential opponents is premature right now. It is particularly difficult to plan too far in the future without knowing where and when Notre Dame is going to fit into schedules."

The plan for Notre Dame at this point would be for each ACC team to play one home game and one road game against the Irish every six years. When and where the first of those meetings would take place for Florida State remains a mystery.

Things will be a bit simpler in basketball, where the new schedule -- which includes Notre Dame as a full member -- will be an 18-game slate that includes one game annually against every other ACC team. Each team also will play an annual home-and-home series against two partner teams, which for FSU will be Clemson and Miami.

The ACC’s decision to stick with an eight-game conference schedule for the foreseeable future was the result of one main factor: Notre Dame.

Considering the new agreement in which Notre Dame will play five ACC opponents annually beginning in 2014, the majority of league athletic directors believed it would best serve the conference if there were more flexibility in scheduling. A nine-game league schedule, which the ACC planned to adopt in 2013 with the addition of Pitt and Syracuse, would have left little to no wiggle room, especially for Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State, which have built-in SEC rivalries.

This move wasn’t catering only to Florida State and Clemson, though. It was approved by a close 8-6 vote of league athletic directors, including Pittsburgh and Syracuse, according to a source who voted at the fall meeting in Boston.

While this change will likely benefit Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech the most, it certainly isn’t going to hurt the rest of the ACC. It will, however, force everyone to scramble to fill a Saturday in 2013. The good news is it’s still only October, and filling the open date with a home-and-home agreement should still be an option for a lot of programs. The bad news is we’re probably going to have to watch more FCS games than we’d like to next season. It’s not nearly as disastrous of a scenario though as in February, with FSU scrambling to replace West Virginia. There is no need to panic, there just might be a few more snoozers next season.

Overall, though, this shouldn’t affect the ACC’s strength of schedule moving forward in the new playoff system. The ACC has had one of the country’s best lineups, and with Notre Dame added to the mix, it will have a guaranteed opponent no other conference in the country will have. The eight-game schedule is likely what the Big Ten and SEC will stick with, too, so it’s not like the league has taken a step down. Instead, it’s remaining the same while adding Pitt and Cuse to the mix. ACC teams will play their six divisional opponents and two cross-divisional teams. This will also allow ACC schools to have the same number of home games, so it will be a fair lineup across the board.

Wednesday’s news shouldn’t come as a surprise. The majority of league coaches have voiced their support for an eight-game league schedule next seasonr, and ACC commissioner John Swofford said it was up to the athletic directors if they wanted to stick with it.

This news will make the ACC coaches happy, and it should certainly make Florida State fans happy knowing the Noles won’t have to get through nine ACC teams, Notre Dame and Florida in any given year in order to have a shot at the national title. They’ve got NC State in Raleigh on Saturday, and even that is hard enough.

Florida State heads on the road to face a reeling N.C. State team that just dropped a heartbreaker to Miami. The Wolfpack are reshuffling their offensive line, trying to find answers for a defense that has been torched by the Hurricanes and Tennessee this season, and still haunted by the memories of last year's 34-0 loss to Florida State.

So, how is NC State planning on staying competitive this year? For some insight, we checked in with David Morrison, who covers the Wolfpack for the Greensboro News & Record.

NoleNation: Jimbo Fisher and EJ Manuel both rave about how talented Mike Glennon is, but he didn't find much success against FSU a year ago. What has Glennon said about last year's meeting, and how's he planning on improving this time around?

David Morrison: Glennon has said that FSU is the fastest team he’s ever faced, before or since. To the point where he wasn’t really prepared last year for that speed. He said he’ll have a better idea of how much time he’ll have to throw this year before the rush gets to him.

NN: David Amerson got plenty of hype after recording 13 INTs last year, but he's been picked on routinely this year, including a pretty bad performance last week against Miami. What's been the difference for Amerson?

Morrison: Amerson's a very intuitive player that makes his living guessing and jumping routes. When he's right, he comes up with interceptions. When he's wrong, he gets torched. He's been wrong much more often this year and has yet to compensate in his aggressiveness.

NN: Speaking of that Miami game, from a defensive standpoint it was pretty much a disaster for N.C. State. How much do you think the Wolfpack will be looking to tweak from a technical standpoint this week, and what did the outcome do to the team from an emotional standpoint?

Morrison: It'd be a mistake to change too much schematically in the week leading up to the toughest game of the year. From an emotional standpoint, it has to wear on the defense that, in both of State's losses this year, it has gotten shredded. Saturday's loss bothered the teams' captains enough to call a players only meeting Sunday to make sure everyone is on the same page.

NN: Amerson's flair for INTs was a big help last year, but this season it's been N.C. State's penchant for giving the ball away that has been front and center. Through five games, Glennon has six INTs and the team has seven fumbles lost (and another seven they put on the ground but managed to hang on to). How big of a focus have the turnovers been, particularly going against a defense like FSU's this week?

Morrison: It's got to be a big emphasis, especially after giving the ball up six times to Miami. Cutting down on mistakes, in general, seems to be the focal point this week. The Wolfpack had an uncharacteristically high amount of penalties and turnovers last week and were still in it. Things could get ugly if Saturday's a repeat of that.

NN: Given what you've seen of N.C. State so far, what do you think are the two or three biggest keys to the Wolfpack pulling the upset?

Morrison: First, find a way for the piecemeal offensive line to give Glennon enough time against a scary front. Second, keep Manuel in the pocket, because bad things happened when Stephen Morris broke contain. Third, find some way to negate the sizable speed advantage the Seminoles enjoy. Good luck with all three...

A big thanks to David for all the insight. You can read more of his N.C. State coverage HERE or follow him on Twitter at @DavidCMorrison.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The playing time comes in spurts -- a series here and there, a few more snaps the next week.

The time Karlos Williams spends on the field is sacred but fleeting. They are a handful of snaps that mean everything, yet he knows the results must be quickly excavated from his memory.

"The snaps go by like a blink of the eye," he said.

Williams loves being on the field. He wants more playing time. He wants to fulfill his immense promise, blossom into a star, play a significant role in Florida State's championship aspirations.

That's the dream. The reality, for now, is that he is a back-up.

Williams speaks of Florida State's starting defense with reverence. He talks of his own play as a work-in-progress. He has goals, but he's not interested in maintaining the facade that they are close at hand.

"There's room for improvement, and as the season goes on, I'll mature more, and the playing time is definitely going to increase the more I mature and am prepared to play," Williams said.

Slowly but surely, that playing time has crept upward, and Williams said last week's game against USF represented a high-water mark for meaningful snaps.

"Going into camp, everything was a lot more comfortable for me," Williams said. "[Defensive coordinator Mark Stoops] is trusting me more to go in the game and there's no fall off."

Still, Williams' game Saturday wasn't perfect. He finished without a tackle, and in the fourth quarter, he missed a big one. B.J. Daniels hit Derrick Hopkins with a 15-yard pass. Williams was there immediately, but whiffed on the tackle. Hopkins sprinted another 22 yards to the FSU 7-yard line. The Bulls scored two plays later.

That's the trouble with those fleeting snaps -- the bad plays tend to be magnified.

But if there's anything that Williams has learned this season, it's that, while those Saturday snaps must be savored, he'll be judged on far more than that.

"He's become a better practice player," safety Lamarcus Joyner said. "If you want to go out there on Saturdays and compete, you have to show the coaches what you can do in practice. It's all about, 'Can I trust you?' [Stoops] wants to know what you can do all the time, not just on Saturdays."

Williams said he talks with Stoops nearly every day. It's a progress report of sorts. And at this point, progress remains the priority. The playing time will follow.

"Me and Coach Stoops talk a lot about that," Williams said. "A lot of the [safety] rotation is prepared to be put in. But for me, I'm just feeling comfortable."

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A week earlier, Jimbo Fisher suggested his punt returner needed to do a better job of ignoring defenders as he fielded a catch. Fisher just didn't expect the defense to be quite so aggressive with Rashad Greene in his next game.

USF's punt coverage unit held Greene without a return, but the Bulls still pressured Greene on each of his fair catches, with defenders setting up just a step or two from Greene as he secured the ball.

"I thought there had to be some room," Fisher said. "But he made some nice [catches], and they were right up on him."

Fisher suggested he might check in with the league for a clarification on how close defenders could be when a player signals for a fair catch -- it was an ACC officiating crew against USF last week -- but also said Florida State may try to pressure returners more now, too.

"We're going to have to do some of that," Fisher said.

Whether or not USF worked the periphery of the rule book was less significant than the job Greene did of avoiding distractions.

After fumbling two punts earlier this season, Fisher made a point of grilling his sophomore on the importance of making a clean catch -- no matter how tight the defense plays him.

"I was more focused on my technique, keeping my nose on the ball, catching the ball first," Greene said. "It doesn't bother me. I'm getting more comfortable catching the ball with defenders around me in traffic."

Greene said he felt USF pushed the envelope in coverage, too, and Saturday's game marked the first time FSU was held without a punt return in more than a year. Still, the lack of negative plays was progress.

"He kept his elbows in, and he was very smooth with it, too," Fisher said of Greene. "His body wasn't out of whack, got squared up on the ball, read the nose of the ball very well and got his angle very well."

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