The scores were high everywhere. Alabama beat Ole Miss, 63-48. Texas A&M beat Florida, 41-38. North Carolina beat Virginia Tech, 56-45. And on and on and on.
But Adam Fuller isn't worried about what the rest of the country is doing -- how well or poorly the rest of the teams are defending. Florida State's first-year defensive coordinator is only concerned about what his defense is not doing following a 42-26 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday.
"Maybe this is the wrong answer, but I don't care," Fuller said Monday, when asked why defenses seem to be struggling across all of college football. "I've got a TV, too. I've got a phone. So, you see other teams. But I don't really connect that with anything that's happening with us.
"Our job is to stop people. Sometimes we've done it, but we haven't done it enough. And it falls on me, it falls on our staff and our players. I believe in our players. I believe in what we're doing. We just have to do it better more often."
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The Seminoles have played two ranked teams this year -- Miami and Notre Dame. In both of those games, they allowed 35 points in the first half.
The Hurricanes scored touchdowns on all five of their drives before halftime as they methodically moved the ball down the field and eventually marched into the end zone.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, was actually stopped a couple of times in the first half but still amassed a whopping 365 yards of total offense and averaged 12 yards per carry in the first 30 minutes. The Fighting Irish had numerous explosive plays on their way to a 35-20 lead at the break.
In the second half, the Seminoles held Notre Dame to just seven points and 189 yards of total offense. But the damage had been done.
"It's hard to say you settled in when you gave up over 40 points," Fuller said. "You never want to say that. It just wasn't a good overall performance. But I was proud of the second half, I was proud at the end of the game, the fight (to get the fourth-down stop). And I was proud about the overall effort. We've got good kids that want to get better. They're eager to try to make this thing turn, too. And our job is to make sure we do it the right way constantly every single day."
