The start of the 2024 season has proven to be a real conundrum for Florida State football coach Mike Norvell.

Despite all FSU lost off last year's team, he spent an offseason hyping up the 2024 Seminoles, speaking confidently about the speed and size FSU has on offense, his confidence in DJ Uiagalelei as a bridge quarterback from Jordan Travis to the future and the numerous returning pieces on defense that he expected big things from.

Time and time again over the course of this offseason, Norvell saw a team that he didn't seem to think was going to lose too much momentum from his 2023 ACC Championship squad.

And yet, through each of FSU's first three games this season, that practice-field success hasn't translated to gamedays.

"You make it through the week (in practice) and it's pretty clean with very similar looks of what we get on game day, but in the moment we've got to be able to go out there and perform and execute," Norvell said Monday at his Cal week press conference. "It's every single person. Myself, all of our coaches, our players, we all have to get better. I can tell you that there's a lot of work that's going into that improvement, but we've got to see it show up on game day with everybody involved. I think our team, they understand the expectation of what it's supposed to look like. Obviously our coaching staff understands the standard we've got to continue to push to."

While the defense took a step forward against Memphis in at least a few areas, the offense continues to really struggle to generate much consistency of any sort.

FSU managed just 37 rushing yards in Saturday's 20-12 loss to Memphis. Through three games this season, FSU's rushing attack was expected to be amongst the best nationally but is averaging just 2.2 yards per carry. That's 130th nationally out of 134 FBS teams and nearly a full yard worse than any other Power Four team.

FSU's 4.81 yards per play also rank 118th nationally and dead last among 17 ACC teams and the Seminoles are also dead last among all P4 teams in points per game (15.3) early this season with just four total touchdowns in losses to Georgia Tech, Boston College and Memphis.

Three weeks into FSU's season, kicker Ryan Fitzgerald has nearly as many points (20) as the rest of the FSU roster combined (26).

Norvell was adamant Monday that he has liked his team's approach throughout its struggles early this season. He also doesn't believe it's a talent issue.

And yet, some disconnect between practice success and success in games has emerged, looming large over the Seminoles early this season.

"The eyes will usually lead you to what's in their heart. When you see the approach, the work, the things that they're trying to do, it's not from a lack of desire, and I don't believe it's from a lack of ability," Norvell said. "In those moments that's where we're working to fix the disconnect of execution, of obviously making the play in the moment. That's one of the things that is frustrating and it gets frustrating for players, it's frustrating for coaches, all of us, because I know what guys are capable of. If I hadn't seen it, if it wasn't something that we've been able to do, then that would be something else. But we just have to be able to go out there and cut it loose and play and trust your techniques, trust your fundamentals."

Monday wasn't the first time Norvell has talked over the last few weeks about practice success not translating onto the field. He brought it up a few times in his postgame press conference Saturday and has made a point of saying a few times that he occasionally feels that his team has been pressing early this season, trying to force success after getting off to such a wrong start.

After losing so many pieces to the NFL, it was fair to wonder what the state of the leadership would be. And maybe that's something FSU's coaching staff underestimated as it assembled this 2024 team which has hindered the Seminoles early this season.

Stepping into that role has been something veteran defensive tackle Joshua Farmer and a few others have been trying to do since the offseason began. And yet, these issues still being addressed a few weeks into the season kind of speaks to the problematic situation FSU has found itself in.

"We've got a lot of young guys compared to last year. I try to be an older guy and let them know it's ok to make a mistake as long as they're going full speed. We've got some younger guys going through that..." Farmer said Saturday when asked for advice to younger, less experienced players who may be pressing a bit. "We just try to let them know, 'Go be a playmaker. Go make a play.' "

The problem Norvell and his coaching staff face is that they saw these lack of translation issues show up against GT and BC and yet, even with a bye week before the Memphis game, whatever new tactics they tried still didn't work during that layover.

There's been no single issue contributing to FSU's struggles. The Seminoles need their younger, less-experienced players to grow through their more extensive playing time. They need more from the guys who were expected to be their star players.

There was a bit of the latter Saturday from the likes of Farmer, Patrick Payton and Malik Benson (99 receiving yards vs. Memphis). And yet, there's clearly still enough of a disconnect that FSU is in danger of finishing the month of September still in search of its first win unless things improve in a hurry.

"Whatever the issue is, whether it's a confidence issue at times, whether it's a guys just understanding issue. Sometimes you see some young players, just some of the finer details, those things will show up. It's really you are working yourself through and finding the success. That's something that we need," Norvell said. "We need best players to go be best players. Guys that have high ability and high potential need to go live up to it. Coaches need to make sure that we're putting them in the best position to be able to get out of the challenging situations or difficult experiences. We've got to help pour in to build up and try to create some of those successful moments.

"We're really kind of all in on that, but it's challenging. When you don't have success or it's not going how you want it to go, whether it's starting to try to do too much, starting to get tight in those moments, you're not playing fast and free. So we've got to get ourselves through that, obviously, offensively. I really have a lot of confidence in these guys and the guys in what they can do. I'm believing that that is ahead, and we're going to continue to work hard every day to make sure that shows up."

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