Florida State's defense didn't play perfect Sunday night.

FSU defensive coordinator Adam Fuller would probably be the first person to tell you that.

The Seminoles allowed nearly 300 yards of offense to LSU in the first half. They allowed a screen pass to go for 55 yards on the first play from scrimmage against the Tigers.

And yet, it's hard not to feel largely positive about what the Seminoles' defense did Sunday night in Orlando. Because when the FSU defense was in its toughest moments against LSU, it had its biggest successes.

The Tigers were 0 for 3 on fourth downs against FSU, including a goal-line stand in the first quarter and a red-zone stand in the second.

"The response in that moment of whether it was fourth-and-goal or fourth-and-1 in the shadow of our end zone, those are critical times," Fuller said Wednesday. "We talked about the history of playing great defense and that comes in all shapes and sizes, but for sure, fourth-down stops are takeaways. Fourth-down stops are momentum, especially when they put it in the hands of their best player and we can make the play. Those were great situations for us and good football."

The FSU defense definitely appeared to set the tone with its goal-line stand on the opening drive of the game against the LSU offense. The Tigers were down inside the FSU 10 with a first-and-goal two plays into the game.

And yet, the FSU defense stuffed a trio of runs, forced two incompletions and then got a sack to keep LSU off the scoreboard despite a personal foul penalty, which gave LSU six plays on the goal line.

In what was expected to be a closely contested battle of the trenches that could determine the game, this was a remarkably strong statement.

"We were impactful. We were impactful in short-yardage situations," Fuller said of FSU's defensive line. "Once we were able to get in the mode of these are the run sets, these are the pass sets and they were able to tee off a bit, they were really impactful. It's our job to give them the keys and the work and we've got really good players. I thought they really did a good job."

As the game progressed, FSU's defensive line made its presence felt more regularly. The Seminoles had four sacks and five tackles for loss in the victory.

While star defensive end Jared Verse made his presence felt on a few occasions, he was held to just two tackles on the box score. Instead, it was the lesser-celebrated defensive linemen like Dennis Briggs and Joshua Farmer who had sacks against the Tigers.

"I thought it was multiple people," Fuller said of FSU's defensive line impact. "Obviously, Jared was impactful, but Pat (Payton), Malcolm Ray, Dennis Briggs, Braden Fiske, Josh Farmer. There were a lot of pieces who made impacts."

As things began to snowball in the Seminoles' favor in the second half, the defensive line in particular took that to another level. After LSU had 105 rushing yards in the first half, the Seminoles had just eight in the second half on eight carries.

If you remove Jayden Daniels' big 40-yard run to set up LSU's second touchdown and Josh Williams' 35-yard run to set up LSU's go-ahead field goal, the Tigers averaged 1.52 yards per carry.

Those big plays were really the biggest issue for the FSU defense Sunday night — 238 of the Tigers' 460 yards against FSU came on five plays. Remove those five plays and LSU averaged 3.76 yards per play.

Before FSU put a large group of true freshmen on the field for the final LSU possession of the game, who promptly allowed a 75-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the drive, the Seminoles' defense allowed 4.18 yards per play against an LSU offense that averaged over 6.3 yards per play last season.

Perhaps most encouraging of all for the Seminoles, they held LSU to 3 of 10 on third downs (30%) and a combined 3 of 13 on fourth downs (23.1%) after allowing opponents to pick up over 41% of their third downs a season ago.

FSU may have began its season with an LSU offense that could be the best the Seminoles face in their entire regular season, but it's hard not to be encouraged by the defense's body of work.

"The proudest thing was just the responses in the bad moments. Whether it was penalties, whether it was just the first play of the game, poor eyes..." Fuller said. "We got overanxious (early) but what I loved about it was it wasn't next series, it was next play."

Follow The Osceola on Facebook

Follow The Osceola on Twitter

Subscribe to the Osceola's YouTube channel

Subscribe to the Osceola's podcasts on Apple

Subscribe to the Osceola's podcasts on Spotify