Florida State practice notebook: October 26

Today, we heard from Florida State Seminoles football head coach Mike Norvell, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kenny Dillingham, quarterback Chubba Purdy and wide receiver Keyshawn Helton.

Norvell took the time to address the lapses in the team’s performance on Saturday, saying that as the Louisville Cardinals started to pull away in the game, it caused FSU to revert back to what felt comfortable, not correct.

“We lost momentum throughout the course of the game, started pressing and went outside the realm of what we could do. Need to continue to trust the techniques, trust the fundamentals. We need to respond and play at a high level.”

“When we gave up a couple of those explosive plays early and fell behind, it was a little bit of a shock. We have to have faith and belief.”

That sentiment was echoed by Dillingham, who insisted while there has been progress, there hasn’t been enough.

“Honestly, I thought we were past that,” he said of the team’s small technique messups.

“When we’re in base down and distances, we are solid. We are really good in base situations. We are not good in must-throw situations, middle of the third quarter down by a lot, or third and long, must-throw situations.”

“Anybody who wants to see the improvement go put on Georgia Tech and then go back and watch the last 3 weeks. I said it last week, we are getting better, not to be confused with good. We are not where we want to be, not even close.”

Purdy spoke on his first collegiate action, speaking on his mentality heading into the game and his approach during and after.

“When I first got hit, it felt pretty good,” the true freshman, who missed multiple weeks with a broken collarbone. To see if I could take more hits, it felt pretty good.”

“When we got in the huddle I just said, ‘let’s go work out there, lets look good out and there and focus on one play at a time.’”

“I feel confident in every single receiver that we have. In practice they are always making plays, and against UNC they were making plays. It was just one of those days.”

Helton, meanwhile, took the time to address the offensive’s less-than-impressive performance after three games of success.

“We are still not where we want to be offensively or as a whole,” he said. “Disappointing performance by me, I will be the first one to say it. It goes back to those little things. It’s a bad feeling that I don’t ever want to have again.”

“I liked the way our guys approached practice today. Even though we have a bye week this week I felt like we still practiced hard.”

Florida State Seminoles football is on its second bye week of the season, taking the time to regroup and restructure after a deflating loss to the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday.

FSU’s performance on the field was a stark contrast to what the Seminoles accomplished against then-No. 5 North Carolina the week prior, something that head coach Mike Norvell and players acknowledged after the loss to Louisville that dropped FSU to 2-4 on the season.

“We won the game last week but there were still lessons that had to be learned,” Norvell said. “We played a really good half of football last week and we missed out on some opportunities in the second half...that showed up today.”

“We just weren’t doing our jobs,” linebacker Emmett Rice said. “Like, eight of the 11 [on the field] would do their jobs and the big play would happen. If all 11 did their jobs, we wouldn’t have those big plays.

“We need to find some of the little things and get back to detailed football, focusing on the little things and working hard.”

Today, we’ll be hearing from Norvell, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kenny Dillingham as well as several offensive players around 10:30 this morning. You can follow along both in the comment section and on our Twitter, and in the meantime, drop any questions you have in the comments and we’ll try to get to them.