Clark: The Seminoles aren't back, but they might just be on their way
It was like a trip back in time.
When Florida State cut the lead to 38-35 late in the fourth quarter on Sunday night, and the Notre Dame offense was facing a third down on its side of the field, it was as if we had been transported back to 1994.
Doak Campbell Stadium was as loud as I've heard it since maybe the 2011 Oklahoma game. It was insanely loud. And electric. And, just to put it as honest as I possibly can, it was awesome.
I know the game didn't turn out the way you wanted. We'll get to that in a moment. But let's enjoy, at least for a sentence or two, how incredible that atmosphere was and how good it felt to watch a Florida State team in a game like that. In an environment like that.
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Notre Dame won 41-38 in overtime. So, there wasn't a magical fairy-tale ending for McKenzie Milton or for the first game after Bobby Bowden's passing. This wasn't a movie. No Seminoles were carried off the field.
But appreciate what we got to witness. What we got to feel.
Before he took questions after the game on Sunday, FSU head coach Mike Norvell had a message he wanted to share.
"Thank you for that crowd, thank you for that experience today, thank you for what you mean to us," he said to the Florida State fans. "That was an incredible atmosphere. ... It was truly special."
Jermaine Johnson played in a few big games during his time at Georgia. Here's what the defensive end transfer had to say about that atmosphere on Sunday night.
"The environment was electric," Johnson said. "That definitely surprised me a little bit. I've been in some big games, been in some big crowds, but nothing like that."
Because when Doak is full, and when the students are there, and they are loud, and they stay for four quarters, and the team gives the 70,000 fans inside the stadium something to cheer for, gives them something to be excited about, it's one of the special places in all of college football.
I don't know when Florida State is going to be back to playing games like this every other week. With the whole country watching, and Doak Campbell exploding at the seams, but I do know it's closer than it was this time a year ago.
It turns out, it might be a lot closer.
The Seminoles still have some warts on defense. Clearly.
The all-out blitz on third-and-17 in the third quarter was an all-time bad call. And who knows what was supposed to happen on the Fighting Irish's first TD, when the star tight end just ran free for a walk-in touchdown. That looked a whole lot like what we saw ALL of last season.
But it was just about the only time the Florida State defense resembled the unit from a year ago in my eyes.
Yes, Jack Coan had a career game. Yes, he threw for 366 yards and four touchdowns. This secondary isn't the one from 2013. Understood.
But a couple of those long passes were just tremendous throws and catches. It wasn't as if the defense was confused or uncoordinated. It was just that the Notre Dame player was better than the guy trying to defend him in that moment.
That happens. That's football. This roster isn't a championship one.
It's also not the 2020 one either, is it?
The running backs can play. The defensive line is worlds better. Judging from one game at least, against the Notre Dame offense, it has improved almost beyond comprehension.
Last year, Notre Dame ran the ball 20 times against FSU in the first half. For 240 yards! That's 12 yards a carry, folks. (I didn't even have to use my calculator to figure that out.)
This year, the Notre Dame offense ran the ball 20 times in the first half. For 59 yards!
In the game, the Fighting Irish managed just 65 yards on the ground. After rushing for over 350 a season ago. That's an incredible turnaround.
And maybe equally as encouraging, the Florida State offense ran for 264 yards. And that included just nine yards rushing from Jordan Travis. There is no way, ever, that I would have believed the Seminoles could run for that kind of yardage, have that kind of success, with Travis averaging less than one yard per carry.
That's really astonishing. How many carries would the 2018 FSU offense had to have against Notre Dame to total 264 yards? 90? 100? 264?
It's incredible what this offense can do now on the ground. Against a team with a great defensive coordinator and some really, really good players (the Hamilton kid needs to go ahead and declare for the NFL tonight).
So while the quarterback position will be on everyone's mind moving forward, and it was great to see McKenzie Milton play like that and get to enjoy that kind of moment after what he's been through, what happened in the run game was really important as we look forward.
And that's what we should do, right?
Start thinking about the improvement this team made from the last time it played Notre Dame until now. It can actually establish a running game. It can hit big plays. In a variety of ways.
It has two quarterbacks who can put the ball in the end zone. It has a defense that doesn't get pushed around like bags of sand. It has a legitimate pass rush. It has at least one linebacker -- Kalen Deloach -- who might be able to really play.
And it has some darn fight to it.
Other than what happened in the run game, that was my biggest takeaway from Sunday night. Because after Travis was intercepted on that fourth-down throw and the Fighting Irish just kind of waltzed into the end zone again, for a third straight TD and a 38-20 lead, I figured the end credits were about to roll. Because we had seen this movie so many times in recent years.
Instead, Florida State scored 18 straight points. Travis made a great play to find Andrew Parchment for a TD. The defense got a stop. The special teams got a break when the punter was hit so hard he helicoptered to the ground but it was just deemed a five-yard penalty, and then we all got to watch a little McKenzie Magic as he came in for a cramping Travis to lead two scoring drives to tie the game up.
We got to hear Doak like we haven't heard it in maybe a decade. Or maybe since the last time Notre Dame was here back in 2014.
I will always wonder if Milton could have won the game for the Seminoles there late in the fourth quarter, but a horrendous snap gave him no shot on that critical third-down play.
And that's what still has to be accounted for moving forward.
As hard as the Seminoles fought, as much improvement as they clearly made, it's really hard to beat good teams when you lose the turnover battle and you commit nine penalties and you bust coverages to give up wide-open touchdowns.
There is a lot to clean up. As Norvell pointed out repeatedly after the game.
"Disappointed we came up short," he said. "So very proud of the way our guys battled for 60-plus minutes. ... It was impressive to watch them continue to fight. We made too many mistakes throughout the course of the game against a good football team. Our football team is going to grow from this. I hate coming up short."
Milton was asked about the fight his team showed and he, too, said he was proud of the response. But he also wasn't happy. At all.
"There are no moral victories in football," Milton said. "You win or lose."
It reminded me of a famous saying Bowden, who was honored with a wonderful tribute by the Marching Chiefs at halftime, made during his early days at Florida State:
"A moral victory is like a 6-foot man drowning in three feet of water. He's still dead."
Amen.
There are no moral victories at FSU. That's not how any of us were raised. That's not how any of us want to live.
But man, after what we saw Sunday night, it certainly feels like a whole lot of real victories are coming soon.
Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.
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Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council