Florida State Adopts New "One-Game Season" Mindset In Blowout Win over Boston College

Lamarcus Joyner couldn’t have put it much more simply. A week after an uninspired performance gave way to a gut-wrenching loss to NC State, Florida State bounced back with a vengeance in crushing an overmatched BC team. Joyner said that disappointment has been channeled into a new mindset for the rest of 2012.

"You’re always seven days away from being humbled," Joyner said. "And after being humbled against NC State last week, we decided each game was going to be a one-game season. How do you want to finish the season? That’s how we’re approaching these for the rest of the season and we always want to come out on top."

While treating every week like a one-game season would be considerably easier if the opponent was BC every week, there was a noticeable difference in intensity from start to finish from Florida State, which didn’t slump in the second half, but rather scored after taking the opening kickoff of the second half for the first time in 16 games.

"We learned our lesson last week, not playing 60 minutes of football," said James Wilder. "And that’s the main thing we want to do is just play hard, play our ball and don’t let up for the whole 60 minutes"

Florida State players said that the renewal of focus and energy that was evident in Saturday’s win began in the week of practice leading up to the game, when they put the NC State loss behind them and tried to forge ahead.

"We stuck together as a team, nobody pointed any fingers," said Everett Dawkins. "Nobody said the blame was on anybody, we took it as a team, and I think that was the biggest part for us. We switched it up a little bit as far as defensive players rooting for offensive players at practice and everything, there was just a lot of chemistry out there."

"It was great, everybody was focused more this week than Ive ever seen the guys," Chris Thompson added. "We had practices where we tried to make sure we caught every single pass, made every single run, just trying to do everything right. I knew once we started going back to doing all the small things right, we would come back and be able to bounce back from everything."

While most of the players said there was no drastic difference in the routine or preparation of the team this week, it was clear that the extremely talented bunch was licking its wounds after a stinging loss.

"It was really tough to swallow, it was a nasty taste in our mouth all week," said Cam Erving. "I feel like that just made us go that much harder. Practice hard, play hard."

The next one-game season will begin with a trip to Miami this upcoming Saturday, but one thing is clear. BC found itself in an unenviable position as the first leg of the Seminoles’ six-game redemption tour.

"It was a loss, and I think a loss is motivating for anybody," Dawkins said of the NC State loss and the edge it gave his team. "With the goals and how good we know this team is and how we know we never should’ve lost that game, that’s the motivation for you right there."