The Florida State football team is getting a luxury not afforded to many teams across the country.

A second bye week, something the Seminoles only received because they hosted Duquesne in Week 0.

When FSU had its first bye week, it was fresh off the win over LSU in New Orleans. It allowed the Seminoles a bit of extra time to bask in the win before resetting mentally before their Friday night game at Louisville.

This time, it’s a mental reset of a different kind. FSU enters this week’s bye on a three-game losing streak where it lost three games to ranked opponents by a combined 18 points. This makes the second bye week much more ideally timed than the first as it allows head coach Mike Norvell to drill home the message of how close the Seminoles are instead of the fact that they have lost three straight games.

“It's continue to believe. Continue to work. The experiences that we have, they're all ours,” Norvell said after Saturday’s 34-28 loss to No. 4 Clemson. “Ultimately you go one of two ways with it. Either you learn from the lessons, you apply them, you continue to push and allow that experience to grow and then make the necessary corrections, so it doesn't cost you again, that it's not something that comes back (or you don’t). And it's everybody involved. It's not just players. It's coaches, all of us. We're all in this together as we're growing.”

Norvell said in the aftermath of the Clemson loss that losing all three of the games over this recent stretch was “sickening” to him. For the Seminoles to be in all three of those games and let them get away for differing reasons is no doubt a tough pill for the team and the fan base to swallow.

And yet, time and time again when adversity hit, the Seminoles’ resiliency shone through. That’s a testament to what Norvell has done, even if it hasn’t entirely carried over into the Seminoles’ record yet.

This week provides FSU with a chance to deepen its team bonds even further. It also provides a chance to work on some of the situational issues that have been the biggest reasons for the Seminoles’ current losing streak.

“Just growing tighter. Not allowing these games to pull us apart as brothers,” FSU defensive end Derrick McLendon II said of the bye week focus. “From the top down, coaches and players, we need to grow tighter, grow closer together and just execute better. I know that’s the main word I’ve been saying, but execution, execution, execution. Execution as brothers.”

Another perhaps even more significant reason for FSU’s bye week is the health of the team. Standout defensive tackle Fabien Lovett, one of the vocal leaders of the Seminoles’ defense, has missed the last five games since suffering a leg injury late in the LSU win. Leading running back Treshaun Ward didn’t play vs. Clemson after suffering an arm injury in the loss at NC State. Maybe one or both of them are able to return after the bye week when the Seminoles host Georgia Tech.

Additionally, quite a few key FSU players have been dinged up a bit, but they have been able to play through it at less than 100%. It’s a thing that happens over the course of a season, especially in the trenches, but it makes a bye week and a 14-day period between games all the more important to see if some of these Seminoles can heal up at least a bit for the final stretch.

“We need this bye week because we need to heal up,” Norvell said. “I thought Fabien tried here towards the back part of the week. He's done so much in his rehab to be able to put himself in a position. But unfortunately after yesterday he just wasn't able to go but I'm hopeful we'll have him back after this bye week. Treshaun, the same thing.

“You go through our entire team. We've had a lot of guys that have had to battle. We had a couple of them that got banged up a little bit tonight and some guys that have fought through. I've got a lot of respect for the hearts and toughness of this team. But we need this bye week and we're going to take advantage of the opportunity to get better because that's what we have to do.”

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