After one game since unveiling a new defensive system, Harlon Barnett admitted on Thursday morning that he might need to "dial back" what he and Florida State's coaches are trying to teach their defensive players.

In fact, the Seminoles' second-year defensive coordinator said "dial back" six times in his 10-minute interview session before practice.

After a 36-31 season-opening defeat, in which his defense allowed 621 yards and 38 first downs, Barnett had plenty of questions to answer about what went wrong. Internally and externally.

"Are we doing too much?" Barnett said the coaches have asked themselves. "Let's focus on the very fundamentals of the particular scheme or whatever it is. Dial back some. Don't try to do as much. It is new to the guys, give them a good understanding of it, move forward."

Don't miss out on any of our great Football coverage. Get your 30-day FREE trial

As a follow-up to that answer, Barnett was asked if the coaches believe they were too ambitious in trying to install so many different concepts for Week 1.

FSU moved this offseason from a predominantly 4-3 defensive front in 2018 to a 3-4 look with "multiple" concepts in 2019.

"Maybe we were," he said. "Maybe we were for the guys' first game. Really excited. They want to do well. So have to dial some of it back."

Barnett agreed with head coach Willie Taggart that alignment errors were critical in the loss. He said those might have been caused by players thinking too much about their assignments, and he said that is being corrected this week.

He also agreed with Taggart about the lack of pressure on third downs.

The head coach was pointed in his comments on Monday that the defense needs to bring more pressure in passing situations. He said when that happened, it affected the quarterback and led to bad throws and turnover opportunities. When it didn't happen, the defense got picked apart.