Happy Friday and welcome in to Noles News Now, your audio home for all things happening in Florida State athletics on the Tomahawk Nation podcast network. I’m your host Brian Pellerin on this Monday, September 12th. Thanks so much for joining me as we enter a new game week for the Noles after the bye.

Florida State will travel to Louisville for its first ACC game this week. Remember this is a Friday night game as the Cardinals try to run their program like a high school team for some reason. That means it will be Friday Night Lights for the Noles and if you missed it over the weekend, they’ll do it in the debut of their-white uniforms. White helmets. White jerseys. White pants. FSU going for the clean look as they head into a sea of cardinal red. That look is not impressing oddsmakers thought as this game opens as a pick em so it’s a coin toss in the eyes of Vegas.

If FSU gets that coin to land on them, they’ll be headed for their first ranking since preseason 2018. The Noles landed just outside the top 25 again in both the coaches and polls this week. A road win against a conference foe should be enough to push them into that number. They weren’t expected to leap in with the bye week but had a chance with the chaos that unfolded around them.

Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M’s loss to App State was the headliner. But Notre Dame also lost to Marshall at home. Florida lost to Kentucky. Pitt lost to Tennessee and many more in the top 25. It was a bloodbath and even some of the ACC teams that won didn’t look all that great. The aforementioned Louisville escaped Orlando with a narrow win over UCF. Clemson’s offense looked rough. Boston College continues to slide to open the year. The ACC could be open for the taking. So can FSU be a player for it? We discuss what’s wrong with Jimbo as he struggles in Year 5 in College Station and of course, we preview Florida State Louisville as well on this week’sSeminole Wrap podcast. You can find that in the Tomahawk Nation podcast feed or on Tomahawk Nation dot com.

This week also meant the return of the NFL season and the headliner was Jameis Winston who led the Saints (WHO DAT) on a miraculous comeback win against the Falcons. Down 16 in the 4th to win it in the final seconds. Two long TD drives and a game-winning field goal drive in the final seconds. A more recent FSU star Jermaine Johnson made his debut Sunday for the Jets getting a sack of Lamar Jackson, who isn’t an easy guy to bring down. Lamar’s Ravens won, but congrats to Jermaine on his first career sack.

The FSU soccer team posted their third consecutive 5-0 win on Sunday against Rice in Houston. Next for the Noles is a trip to Boston College on Friday. Meanwhile, the softball team started fall practice this week as they get ready for their spring season. Two beach volleyball players - Carra Sassack and Alexis Durish earned AVCAAll-American First Team honors. Arden Besecker and Chloe Charles received honorable mentions. And lastly, the men’s golf team broke two program records scoring a team total of 261 in the 2nd round of the Maui Jim Invitational. Noles ended up with a third-place finish in the event.

That’ll do it for this week’s Noles News Now. As always, please follow, rate, and review the show if you like what you hear. It helps us out a lot and allows us to continue bringing you the content we do every day. Including this podcast that you can catch three times a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So until Wednesday, I’m Brian Pellerin. Thanks for listening.

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Happy Friday and welcome in to Noles News Now, your audio home for all things happening in Florida State athletics on the Tomahawk Nation podcast network. I’m your host Brian Pellerin this Friday, September 9th. Thanks so much for joining me and a quick thank you to Perry for covering the last few episodes for me while I dealt with a family emergency.

This Friday is unfortunately not a football Friday for FSU. The Noles will get a chance to heal their bodies with a bye week after their first 2-0 start since 2016.The next game on the docket is Louisville the following Friday and if you’re interested in a sneak peak of the Cardinals, they’re in action tonight... this Friday against UCF. That game is in Orlando at 7:30 Eastern tonight on ESPN2. Louisville is looking to avoid an 0-2 start themselves after a blow out loss to Syracuse a week ago. UCF is a 5.5-point favorite. A Louisville loss could really quiet the crowd for next week’s game in Louisville. Something to keep an eye on.

If FSU is able to get the win next week, they’ll already be halfway to bowl eligibility, but ESPN’s football power index likes their chances to go bowling already. TheFPI gives them a 94.2% chance to reach a bowl game with a projection of 7.7 wins and a 4.2% chance to win the division. That would be their first bowl game since 2019.A big reason for their growth will be this strong d-line especially the emergence of Jared Verse. The Albany transfer’s impressive Week 1 was enough to land him onPro Football Focus’ All-Defensive Team for the week.

The win over LSU will likely prove dividends in recruiting as well with a lot of recruits in attendance including 2024 five-star RB Kam Davis who was rocking garnet and gold attire in the Superdome. The Noles commit has also received an invite to the All-American Bowl. One of the big names left on the 2023 board for the Noles is4-star linebacker Blake Nichelson, who just announced his commitment date on September 20th. That’s next Wednesday. Nichelson will choose between FSU, Oregon, and UCLA live on Youtube.

Elsewhere on campus, the FSU soccer team rattled off another dominant victory, posting a 5-0 dub on Florida Gulf Coast. The FSU volleyball team has posted its 5thstraight win en route to its best start since 2014. And the FSU men’s golf team is set to open its year with the Maui Jim Intercollegiate around 1 pm on Friday.

If you’re unsure how to spend this first bye week and looking for games to watch, check out my picks article on Tomahawk Nation as well. I along with anybody who wants to play along in the comments will give picks to the 10 games I think are the best to watch this week. Some of the ones highlighted this week — Alabama at Texas, the return of Sam Hartman for Wake Forest at Vanderbilt, Baylor at BYU, Appalachian State visiting Texas A&M, Kentucky at Florida, and many more. It’s all for fun and takes like 2 seconds to hammer out your picks. You can join in on the fun on Tomahawk Nation dot com and we use the comments to talk about the games as they happen as well.

That’ll do it for this week’s Noles News Now. As always, please follow, rate and review the show if you like what you hear. It helps us out a lot and allows us to continue bringing you the content we do every day. Including this podcast that you can catch three times a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So until Monday, I’m Brian Pellerin. Thanks for listening.

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The Florida State Seminoles are 2-0 for the first time since 2016 following their thrilling win against LSU in the Allstate Louisiana Kickoff.

For much of the game, the Seminoles looked dominant. At the end, it was much closer than they’d have liked.

So which team is the real Florida State? How good can this team be? Has Jordan Travis truly taken that next step? What allowed the defense to hold LSU in check for so long?

And, dare we ask, is Florida State back?

The Seminole Wrap crew — Brian Pellerin, Jon Marchant and Max Escarpio — breakdown the good, bad and more from Florida State this weekend including that incredible garnet and gold crowd in the Superdome and FSU’s hopes of contending for bowl eligibility, the division title and potentially the conference championship.

Are the Seminoles ready to take that leap? Find out on this week’s episode of the Seminole Wrap podcast.

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Coming off a dominant victory over Duquesne, the Florida State Seminoles are headed to New Orleans to face off against the LSU Tigers. Labor Day weekend is nearly here, and the Three Stars are celebrating with a new podcast!

The guys first discuss the newest name on the roster, Penn State transfer running back Caziah Holmes.

What makes him special, and what does his addition mean for the running back unit?

Next, Josh breaks down some high school junior names to know, as September 1 was the first day that coaches may communicate with prospects in the 2024 class.

The Three Stars close out the podcast by discussing a very important sideline visitor for this Sunday’s game.

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Welcome to the Line of Scrimmage, the latest show on the Tomahawk Nation podcast network.

Ahead of each game this football season, we’re giving you insight into Florida State’s opponents from those in the know.

This week, we welcome Zach Junda, who is the site manager of our LSU SB Nation sister site, And The Valley Shook. We spoke with him about how the Tigers match up with the Seminoles this season, the names to know on each side of the ball for LSU, how the two teams are almost mirror images of each other and more.

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The Florida State Seminoles are 1-0 for the first time since 2016 after dominating the Duquesne Dukes, 47-7, on the backs of an overwhelming rushing attack. Now, the Seminoles turn their attention to adding to that total next week in New Orleans with a primetime showdown against the LSU Tigers.

This week, the Seminole Wrap crew — Brian Pellerin, Jon Marchant and Max Escarpio — give their takeaways from Florida State’s win, all the good, bad (as little as there was), and more.

They also look ahead to next Sunday’s game against LSU. Who will be the Tigers’ starting quarterback? Can the Noles keep up the running game going against LSU’s formidable front? How will FSU’s defense match up against the Tigers’ deep wide receiving corps?

And most importantly, does the Seminole Wrap crew think Florida State will put another W in the record column?

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Florida State Seminoles football earned its first season-opening win since 2016 on Saturday, taking down the Duquesne Dukes 47-7 inside Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee.

It was a fantastic showing by the running back room, with the Seminoles setting a school record by having three players (Treshaun Ward, Trey Benson and Lawrance Toafili) record at least 100 rushing yards. All six of the Seminoles touchdowns came on the ground, with quarterback Jordan Travis and true freshman Rodney Hill also ending the end zone.

With no turnovers forced and just one sack, there weren’t any “wow” plays from the defense, but statistically FSU got the job done, only allowing a score following a 50-yard interception return off an errant Tate Rodemaker throw.

So what takeaways are there from the 40-point win? Immediately after the game wrapped up, we hit a live stream to offer instant reaction and analysis from the Seminoles’ season debut.

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The Florida State Seminoles football season is here.

Doak-Campbell Stadium reopens for the first time in 9 months tomorrow with the Week Zero contest against Duquesne. The Noles are huge favorites, as expected, against the Dukes and should open the season 1-0 for the first time in 6 years heading into next week’s marquee, primetime matchup against LSU in New Orleans.

With anticipation building and expectations rising, the Seminole Wrap crew — Brian Pellerin, Jon Marchant and producer Perry Kostidakis — give their overlook at the season.

What are the main takeaways from the first depth chart? Who are their MVPs for each side of the ball? Who are the other breakout candidates? And what are realistic win-loss possibilities for the Seminoles this season?

The crew answers all that and more on this week’s bonus episode of Seminole Wrap.

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Welcome to the Line of Scrimmage.

Ahead of each game this football season, we’re giving you insight into Florida State’s opponents from those in the know.

This week, we welcome Brad Everett, who covers sports at all levels as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Seminoles open the season against the Duquesne Dukes, who have found a relative standard of success in the Northeast Conference on the FCS level.

• Duquesne is coming off of a 7-3 season that included their first win over an FBS opponent. The Dukes are preseason second in the Northeast Conference, can you speak to the overall success of the program under head coach Jerry Schmidt? Is there a particular area that Schmidt has excelled in during his tenure?

Brad Everett: They’ve just been consistent. I mean, ever since he’s been there. You know, this is a program that you know, I mean, I’m sure not a lot of your readers or listeners are very familiar with Duquesne athletics. But I mean, up until, you know, up until 1993, this was the division three program. You know, they weren’t even at the division two level. They’ve only had two coaches since 1993. Jerry Schmidt’s been at Duquesne for 18 years, he’s actually longer tenured than Mike Tomlin is here in Pittsburgh.

• On offense, the Dukes enter the season with the always favorite quarterback competition. Do you have a pulse on how this completion shakes out and also some background on Joe Mischler and Darius Perrantes?

Brad Everett: Yeah, they’re in a unique situation. And, you know, it’s not a case, you know, some schools are still trying to, you know, are still trying to figure out how to have one decent quarterback but you know, Duquesne has, you know, not only to decent ones, but two good ones. Both of those guys, you know, have good arms can move. Not your traditional, like dual-threat guys, like, they’re not gonna, you know, be doing these 20 - 30 yards runs that Jordan Travis might be pulling off or something, but they can both play and they both have experience under their belt.

• Switching to defense, the name that sticks out islinebacker Todd Hill. If you could give some details to the listeners on him and also the base defensive formation that Duquesne runs?

Brad Everett: This is a team that’s been strong defensively in recent years. They went out and they got a new defensive coordinator this year. They went out and got a guy named Mike Craig, who was previously defensive coordinator at IUP up here in the area, a really strong division two program and so he’s bringing that three, four defense over there.

Todd Hill, he played at a local high school, Still Valley High School, was the day one starter there his freshman year and was just a kid that just produced and produced and produced throughout his career, just made plays every time you saw him. And it’s like, man, like this dude, you know, this dude is good enough to play, you know, he can go anywhere. He, I mean, he can go anywhere he wants in college, but there’s the size issue, he’s not very tall. And you know, and that’s what you’ll get a lot of these FCS schools, you know, guys that if they were three or four inches taller, they’d be playing on ACC teams. he’s going to be playing more of an edge position this year, and they’re going to try to deploy him in a lot of different ways. They’re gonna try to keep offensive coordinators guessing as far as where he’s gonna line up at on defense, but they expect him to have a really, really big year. 

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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?’”

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