Florida State practice notebook: October 20

Update, 12:10 p.m.

Florida State Seminoles football head coach Mike Norvell spoke to the media today, alongside running backs coach and recruiting coordinator David Johnson, tight end Camren McDonald, linebacker Stephen Dix Jr. and wide receiver Keyshawn Helton.

Norvell talked briefly on the challenges that Louisville presents both defensively and offensively, giving props to Scott Satterfield’s acumen.

“He’s an extremely sharp coach. Present a lot of different challenges. A couple of elite receivers, home run hitters at RB, a QB that can do it all.”

“I thought they did a great job up front and were able to contain ND’s passing game. They forced some challenging situations, mixed their fronts.”

Norvell also addressed the energy that the running back room has injected into the offense — a sentiment echoed by Johnson.

“It has been a blessing,” Johnson said. “These guys love to practice. They are all team players. The biggest thing is every day we have to get better. They challenge each other.”

A big reason of that has been La’Damian Webb, who got props from each person who took the podium Tuesday.

“I think he’s come in and done an extraordinary job,” Norvell said. “You watch No. 8 when he doesn’t have the ball in his hands, he’s a true competitor. You see that emerging across our entire running back group.”

“He is one of the toughest kids on the team,” Johnson said. “Real professional. Really good hustle. He loves contact. Everything you would want in a back he has it.”

McDonald, Dix Jr. and Helton all offered their own thoughts on what has changed within the team recently to continue making progress each week.

“The reason why the team is growing the way that we do, is because that is the daily focus of the program,” McDonald, who has already doubled his receptions from a year ago, said. “Getting better by 1% daily. When you see that from an individual perspective and a team perspective that is because it is emphasized.”

“That’s a heart thing,” Dix Jr. said of the FSU’s defensive holds in back-to-back weeks to prevent final scoring drives. “We just have a lot of heart. They can drive down the field, but at the end of the drive they have to score.”

This is just the start, we want to turn Florida State around and have one of the best defenses in the country.”

“It was a great victory, it was one that we celebrated. The second half, we had some things show up that need to be uncharacteristic of this football team.”

“The standard is to get better. That never allows for a letup, because the standard is the standard. Either we do it or we don’t.”

If each week so far under Mike Norvell this season has had a theme, this week’s has been cleaning up the loose ends.

Florida State has taken clear step forwards each week since losing to Miami though each stride has been met with, at the very least, a stutter.

“Good offenses are either explosive or consistent,” Dillingham said. “On Saturday, we weren’t explosive but we were consistent. Great offenses are both.

“We showed at Notre Dame we can be a little more consistent. We showed this last week, we can be explosive. We got to find a week and put it all together.”

Achieving that level of offensive zen rests in the hands of quarterback Jordan Travis, who through both performance and posture has effectively taken the reigns as starter (as if that needed to said.) The one concerning aspect of Travis’ game so far, which necessarily isn’t a knock on his potential, has been that at the end of the last two games, he’s seemed to feel the sum of all forces inflicted upon him. To his credit, he has gamed them out as far as he can, only coming out against Notre Dame once the game swung effectively in the Fighting Irish’s favor and staying in to finish off Saturday’s upset win because “my boys were fighting for me, so I was going to fight for them.”

That quote reflects the energy that’s been injected in the team since Travis stepped in under center, and it’s something that the Seminoles will have to lean into as they take on a Louisville defense that only gave up 12 points to Notre Dame.

We’ll be hearing from Norvell today, as well as offensive players and coaches. 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.