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FSU's Dillingham offers insight into what went right, wrong in opener

His offense put up 38 points against a Top 10 team. It rushed for over 250 yards.

And it was perhaps a bad snap away from pulling off an epic fourth-quarter comeback on Sunday night vs. Notre Dame.

Still, Kenny Dillingham was far from ecstatic with how the Seminoles played overall against the Fighting Irish.

Like head coach Mike Norvell, the second-year FSU offensive coordinator loved the fight and effort his players showed in the near-win. But there were plenty of things to clean up as well.

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In his interview following Wednesday's practice, Dillingham talked about first-down struggles, the quarterback play, the running game, Notre Dame's surprising early defensive looks and much more.

Here are some highlights from that interview session.

How he thought FSU's offense fared on first down:

"Horrible on first down, to be brutally honest. Those were the drives we didn't score. On the first drive of the game, defensively, that's a good football coach (Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman). He came out in something he's never done in his years being a coordinator in the past. And we didn't have a good opening drive. It wasn't a good opening script. We didn't put our players in a good position to succeed. ... And then we had two false starts on first down; we had two different (missed assignments) on first downs. So, those killed us within a drive.

"That was kind of the tale of the first half. That first half, we had four or five drives where that play was just catastrophic. ... So, I put a lot of that on me. We've got to improve that on early downs, we've got to be simpler on early downs."

On how hard it is to grade a quarterback when so many things are going wrong early in drives:

"It's hard. It's just as much on me, if not more on me, than it is a player. Because when you ask a guy to go out there and execute something that he's never prepared for or never seen, that is very, very difficult. Especially when you're doing that against a team that is a good football team. ... That's part of first games. That's part of first quarters in first games.

"I felt like the best thing we did is if you look at the success throughout the game, our guys adapted to what they were doing and we improved upon it. Which was something we could not do last year."

On the running game:

"When you put yourselves in good down-and-distances, you can run the football. ... It all goes together. We're a run, play-action football team. We put ourselves in bad situations, it's going to hurt us in the running game. So, when we put ourselves in good situations, we didn't take TFLs, we didn't have penalties, we moved the ball methodically down the field. Through the air, on a touchdown pass by Jordan Travis. Through a scramble, Jordan scrambled for a gain of 15 on a true drop-back, where they peeled the end and he had the awareness to replace the peeler.

"And then McKenzie going in there on a third down on the same drive. So, when we're efficient, when we put ourselves in good down-and-distances, we're a really good football team. When we don't, we're still not very good."

On the play of freshman wide receiver Malik McClain:

"Awesome. We talked about that kid today. That kid's not a freshman. Technically he is, but he's not. That's why you enroll early. Because you grow up faster. And the way he played in that football game, without the ball, is what defines him. That's why he's on the field. .... That's the mentality he has. He's got that dog in him. And that's what allows him to be on the football field as a true freshman."

On how the quarterbacks can impact the running game:

"People don't take into account the effect Jordan has on a defense. You look at the running game and you have to account for Jordan on every snap. Even though he's not pulling the ball, he's not running a lot, because the defense is taking that away. They have to account for him. So, you wonder why we have an 80-yard run? Well, they're down a hat playing Jordan. You may not have that 80-yard run without Jordan in the football game. So, there's a lot of things that go into the game, the dynamics of how a team calls defense.

"If you listen to [Notre Dame coach] Brian Kelly postgame, he said they had kind of two different plans: One for Jordan and one for McKenzie. One for the different skill sets. So, you look at the success we had in the running game with Jordan, there's a reason for that. ... And when McKenzie got in, I've seen that kid obviously beat my butt multiple times. ... For McKenzie to come in and pick up right where Jordan left off, and not miss a beat in that drive, is just phenomenal."

On who will be the starting quarterback moving forward:

"We played who we felt gave us the best chance to win, and we're going to continue to do that. And in my mind, I don't think that's changed. ... I think the key is making a team prepare for both. Regardless of how much they are used, it's the thought that both can play. That's the key. Because every coach in America is petrified of the unknown. They're not going to go into a game not prepared, right? We'll stay up to 1 a.m. making sure we have a plan for everything.

"So, just the thought process of both of those guys can play within a game, whether they both play or they don't both play, just the thought process of that can drive people crazy. ... In coaching, you live in a paranoid world. And our goal is to try to keep people as paranoid as possible."

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