The Florida State coaching staff enters this week’s game with a unique duality.
Mike Norvell and quite a few members of his staff have experience with people on the LSU coaching staff.
The Seminoles went against new LSU head coach Brian Kelly’s Notre Dame team in each of Norvell’s first two seasons in Tallahassee. Norvell and defensive coordinator Adam Fuller faced off against new LSU offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock a number of times over a three-year period when Norvell was at Memphis and Denbrock was the OC at Cincinnati.
In theory, this should help the FSU coaching staff out with an understanding of each of their tendencies as play-callers and coaches. But considering both Kelly and Denbrock now have entirely new rosters and are entering their first game at a new school, it hasn’t been nearly as easy as expected.
“You really almost have to approach it like this is a game one because we've not seen them in how they're going to implement all the different schemes because it's very multiple,” Norvell said Monday. “They do a great job, running game, passing game, screens, getting the backs out. All those things are a part of what they do and what they've done well in the past schematically, but how does that fit to the specific guys that they have on this team. Each year is going to be different. All schemes will be adjustable and we've got to go in and be able to have a plan, but then also have great adjustments to whatever we will see.”
Although FSU has already played a game, this will be the second straight season that Kelly’s team opens the season against Norvell’s FSU squad. The Seminoles rallied from an 18-point deficit before losing in overtime, coming up just short of a home upset of No. 9 Notre Dame as seven-point underdogs.
This year, that spread is tighter at just three points for Sunday’s 7:30 p.m. game despite the fact that it is essentially an LSU home game set to be played at the Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans.
There’s no denying it’s a chance for FSU to make a statement on the national landscape unlike any the Seminoles have made in recent memory.
“That's the joy of coming to Florida State is you're going to be in these games. You're going to be prime time on that stage. That's where you want to be…” Norvell said. “You don't have to hype it up any extra for what it is. You go play your best and put your best foot forward each and every play and you'll give yourself the best chance to be successful in the moment.”
When it comes to Denbrock, Norvell’s Memphis teams faced off against his Cincinnati offense twice over their three years of overlap between 2017 and 2019. Fittingly, the two games came in consecutive weeks near the end of the 2019 season, a regular-season game followed by an immediate rematch in the AAC Championship Game.
Even more fittingly, those games came in Fuller’s lone season at Memphis with Norvell. The Tigers beat the Bearcats in both games, winning 34-24 at home and then 29-24 in the rematch the following week, which wound up being Norvell’s final game with the program before he took the FSU job.
In the first game, Fuller’s defense allowed just seven second-half points, turning a narrow 20-17 lead at the intermission into a 34-24 win.
In the second game, Memphis trailed 14-10 at halftime and allowed just 10 second-half points to Denbrock’s offense, allowing Norvell’s offense to charge back and win the conference championship.
These results don’t mean that FSU’s coaches are taking the challenge lightly. They saw how Cincinnati exceeded its offensive yardage average that season with over 400 yards of offense in both those games. And then they saw Denbrock’s offense help lead Cincinnati to become the first Group of Five team to make the College Football Playoff last season.
"He's been super successful at every place he's been. There's a reason why coach Kelly is one of the best in the business and he brought him with him to LSU,” Fuller said. “They were a challenge back then in '19 to prepare for. They had good players like they have good players at LSU, too…
“Coach Denbrock has been super, super successful in a lot of different ways. He's been really balanced and he's had success at a number of different places."
Fuller compared FSU’s preparations for going up against the LSU offense to a puzzle. There’s the piece of preparing for the Tigers’ returning players. Then there’s the transfer additions and incoming freshmen.
One of those freshmen, Will Campbell, is set to start at left tackle. FSU special teams coordinator/defensive ends coach John Papuchis said the staff may resort to studying a player’s high school game tape in this situation.
Finally, there’s the piece of studying Denbrock’s Cincinnati offenses. All in all, that makes quite a confusing picture to fit together, one that has taken months of work to create.
“I think no matter what personnel is, the play caller, his personality, his organizational structure of how he calls games, those things, you're always taking that so there's a history of that that you're gonna put in play,” Fuller said. “And then the players he has, and that's not all LSU. That could be transfers, it could be incoming freshmen. Those are the puzzle pieces that you have to put together and that's why you need to get that work started in the summer…
“There's some history there, which helps, but it's definitely a bigger folder up there where it says LSU 2022. It's a bunch of sub folders that you've got to kind of put together.”
On the defensive side of the ball, it’s been an even more different challenge for FSU’s staff to assemble a plan. LSU defensive coordinator Matt House has extensive experience in the college game, but has spent the last three years as linebackers coach for the Kansas City Chiefs.
To prepare for him, FSU’s staff has had to watch NFL film of the Chiefs and film of the Kentucky Wildcats from his last stint as a defensive coordinator in 2017-18.
“Coaches mostly stick with what they've had success with, but also they have to evaluate the personnel that’s in house. You can sit down and throw a playbook down but you got to make sure it fits the guys that’s on the roster…” FSU offensive coordinator Alex Atkins said. “We studied not only the previous stop they've been, where they’ve had success and fronts and situational work, whether it be the Chiefs, whether it be Kentucky, however far you want to go back. But you also have to study the personnel that’s in front of you because those are the guys that are going to run out there and do the scheme.
“How they play blocks, how they play eyes and things like that. It's all inclusive in all that information to come out with the best idea (of) which concepts you are going to get.”
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