Florida State fall camp notebook: August 22

Update, 8:30 PM

Mike Norvell spoke to the media tonight after FSU’s second scrimmage of the fall. Tonight’s scrimmage was more of a normal game style, focused on the clock instead of certain situations.

While he complimented the defense for its effort and progress since last scrimmage, he, along with offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham, had plenty of criticism for the offense.

Self-inflicted mistakes and an inability to sustain drives were brought up as the main issues by both coaches, who each declined to identify a particular area or position group that allowed the mistakes to happen.

“When you’re in a game situation, those things are magnified,” Norvell said during a Zoom call with the media. “I want to be faster in our communication. I didn’t think we were communicating as fast as I’d like to see.”

“To play good offensive football, every position group has to do their part.”

“I look at us as a unit. It’s about a group, today as a group I didn’t think we were good enough,” Dillingham said. “You have to be able to own the ball and sustain drives. That’s where we failed today.”

“We can’t be a team that gets affected by momentum. It’s alway about the next play.”

Defensive coordinator Adam Fuller and Norvell gave a lot of credit to the defensive front seven on their effort tonight, honing in on praise for transfer defensive tackle Fabian Lovett.

“We’ve got a talented group there and the depth is really starting to show itself,” Norvell said. “Robert Cooper is having a really nice camp. Fabian Lovett is going to be a really, really impressive player.. [Joshua] Kaindoh is having an incredible camp.”

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“He’s an excellent addition just as a football player, but as a person as well....he’s going to be an impact player for us,” Fuller said of Lovett.

“He’s an impact player. He wins 1-on-1’s. He’s really aggressive as a run stopper.”

Special teams coordinator John Papuchis also spoke on the battle between his kicking specialists, both in placekickers Ryan Fitzgerald and Parker Grouthas as well as punters Tommy Martin and Alex Mastromanno.

“[The kickers have] been super competitive, their numbers are almost identical,” he said. “The competition is tight, tonight it was pretty balanced again.”

“There’s no hurry when we have two capable guys.”

Watch all the interviews with the coaches below:

After a week that saw the team emphasizing brotherhood and community service (and also laser tag and go-karting), Florida State Seminoles football is heading back out on Bobby Bowden Field for its second scrimmage of the fall.

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The first saw an emphasis on situational drills — think two-minute drills, red zone offense and defense, overtime and special teams — but Norvell has said this week that today’s will more closely resemble a live game.

“The first scrimmage, I like that we are set to ensure we get all the situations that were necessary.

“In this scrimmage it is going to be based more off of time...I always try to involve the clock. We’ll probably play two-and-a-half, maybe three quarters, mix in guys, putting the ball as it lies, wherever the situation, whatever it calls for, try to keep guys locked in to the flow of a game.”

Norvell hinted Monday that there’s a chance we’d be receiving a special teams depth chart within the week, so while that isn’t completely set in stone, we could get some actual clarity. We’ll hopefully be getting more insight into who has been primarily repping as return man on special teams (some of the names we’ve heard mentioned by Norvell have included DJ Matthews, Keyshawn Helton, Meiko Dotson, Jashuan Corbin, Asante Samuel Jr.), and also, who will be starting at kicker. Last week, special teams and defensive ends coach John Papuchis said that both Ryan Fitzgerald and Parker Grothaus have performed well through camp and that the decision’s proving to be difficult.

We expect to hear from Norvell and the players starting around 8:30 p.m. tonight, similar to last week’s scrimmage schedule.

You can follow along with live updates in the comment section, as well as as on our Twitter and Instagram.