Players-only meeting propels ’Noles to win
TALLAHASSEE — Sometimes when a team hits a skid, it slides without traction for the rest of the season.
FSU hopes a taste of success helps it finally pull out of a skid just before its longest stint of away games. It’s a tough portion of what ESPN ranked the second toughest schedule in college football.
During the Seminoles’ 37-19 win over Northern Illinois Saturday, the Seminoles slowed the game down and made executed schemes consistently for the first time this season. Quarterback Deondre Francois spent time in the pocket catching his breath, scoping out the perfect receiving options. The offensive line gave Francois more time to throw for 352 yards. Though they did not clear many lanes for running backs, the linemen still showed improvement.
Players are hoping they can build on the success.
“Yeah, I feel like it can,” FSU kicker Ricky Aguayo said of the momentum change the win over NIU provides. “Like coach [Willie] Taggart said, that was the first quarter of the season — those first three games. So now we’ve got to just wipe our hands off and focus on the second quarter right now and just focus on doing our jobs individually and take care of business.” What changed? Taggart credits the players-only meeting after the Seminoles’ abysmal 30-7 loss at Syracuse.
“I just think our players decided that enough was enough and that they were going to hold each other accountable to practicing better and to be better in meetings, and it paid off,” Taggart said.
“I mean, you guys seen this week guys getting upset when guys dropped the ball, and we didn’t see that before. Guys would say, ‘No, Coach, let’s not move on to the next play, let’s get this corrected.’ ”
Receivers handled the ball better against NIU as Francois completed 23-of-31 passes.
Was the team missing an emotional buy-in the first few games of the season?
“We said, leave your feelings at the door,” Aguayo said of the players only meeting. “Some guys got called out, and we really set a point of what we had to do if we really wanted to change this team.”
Like any team weighed down by losses, selfish personalities crept through, but instead of allowing the year to spiral into a disaster, the Seminoles said they refused to quit.
Selfish behavior would not dictate the results of their season.
“That’s why we talk about them having ownership in this, and they decided to do that,” Taggart said of players being held accountable. “It wasn’t a coach up there saying anything; they said enough is enough. It paid off for them. I really think that meeting they had made a difference on the sideline with our guys being great teammates and not being selfish and playing their roles.”
FSU was far from perfect against NIU. The Seminoles fumbled five times on Saturday, losing possession three times. The team has committed 11 turnovers this season.
Florida State was hit with 11 penalties for a loss of 90 yards against Syracuse and made a slight recovery against NIU with nine penalties for a loss of 60 yards.
Despite the flaws, Taggart said the team is making progress.
“A lot of the guys stepped up and said we’ve got to do better,” Francois said of the players-only meeting. “We’ve got to play better and we’ve got to stop blaming it on everybody else. We’ve got to stop blaming each other, got to stop blaming our coaches. We’ve got to look in the mirror as individuals and everybody got to do their job.
“Everybody’s got to do their job better than the man across the ball is doing his job. Today, I feel like we did a better job at doing our job.”