FSU's Norvell 'blunt' with team after practice falls short of standard

It was evident from the start of Tuesday's practice that Mike Norvell was not thrilled with what he was seeing.

The Florida State head football coach was imploring the Seminoles -- in a not-so-nice tone at times -- to pick up the pace and pick up the urgency in what they were doing.

It didn't seem to help much. At least nowhere close to his liking.

After what he termed as seven good practices (including Saturday's scrimmage) to start the spring, Norvell was obviously displeased with how his team looked on Tuesday afternoon.

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"Today was a day we've got to be better," Norvell said. "I'm just being blunt about it. I thought there were some good flash moments, just not the consistency of what I want to see.

"Today was not to the standard, start to finish, that I want to see. And so I challenged the guys. We've got an opportunity to respond to that. It's something we have to respond to."

After his opening statement, Norvell was asked if a practice performance like this is "common" after a spirited scrimmage.

He didn't hesitate with his answer.

"That's the message to the team," Norvell said. "There's plenty of common things that can go on. But is that what you desire to be? Do you want to be like most programs? Do you want to be like human nature desires you to do? And that's to be comfortable, to just go through it?

"I don't want that. I'm not into that. I want a different standard of how we need to operate and what we need to. And we have to make the choice to get that done."

Norvell reiterated that there were some positive moments in Tuesday's practice. But there was a lot of negatives as well. Especially from the offense.

In the Seminoles' most recent practice that was open to the media, last Thursday, the quarterbacks and receivers had a field day inside the indoor practice facility, routinely hooking up for big plays against the FSU defense.

That was not the case at all on Tuesday.

The quarterbacks and receivers connected very sporadically in the team drill portions of the practice.

Jordan Travis and Tate Rodemaker didn't make any critical mistakes -- the only interception on the day was in one-on-one drills by freshman cornerback Azareye'h Thomas on a fade route -- but there were no big plays either.

Travis, in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11, combined to go 12-of-18 during the drills. But he didn't have a single pass that went over 20 yards. Seven of the completions went for less than 10.

It was mostly check-downs and screen passes. Hardly anything of note was completed to a receiver.

And backup Tate Rodemaker had a very similar afternoon. He was 13-of-21 and didn't have a completion over 20 yards either.

If defensive coordinator Adam Fuller challenged anything with his secondary after Thursday's practice and Saturday's scrimmage, it certainly seemed to answer the call on Tuesday.

Either way, Norvell wasn't happy with what he saw. And he expects much better two days from now when the Seminoles hit the practice field again.

"We'll go in and watch film ... and it's probably going to look pretty good," he said. "But I was there. And it's like what I said: What is the standard of operation and just the sense of urgency and intensity? All that matters.

"We're trying to bring game-type intensity to to every practice and every rep, so that we can push ourselves and continue to improve and take it to another level."

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