Florida State ramped up the game-prep work for its season-opening game Wednesday.

After first introducing some scout-team stuff to prepare for Duquesne at the end of Tuesday morning’s practice, the Seminoles did far more of this Wednesday morning. The team held two lengthy periods of scout-team work, working on what they could see against the FCS Dukes come Aug. 27.

“This was our first game-week Tuesday. We wanted to introduce that,” FSU coach Mike Norvell said. “We still got good crossover, speed on speed, but really starting to introduce more Duquesne game plan, thought process. Trying to show guys how to practice, what that’s going to look like…

“I was really pleased with the guys we have on those (scout team) squads.”

This larger amount of scout-team work didn’t stop it from being a physical practice as the team wore full pads for the second straight day.

After Tuesday wasn’t Johnny Wilson’s best practice with a few drops, he bounced back in a major way Wednesday. In 1-on-1 goal-line drills against members of the FSU secondary, he caught four touchdowns in as many reps.

He had one catch where he laid out in the back of the end zone to make a diving catch and another where he juked Jarrian Jones and created tons of space for a wide-open catch. Sandwiched between those two were plays where he got loose and made smooth touchdown catches in stride in the corner of the end zone.

After Jordan Travis talked Tuesday about how he’s able to use Wilson’s size when targeting him, that was on full display in 7-on-7 work Wednesday. Travis threw one pass especially high during this period, having to do so to get it over the outstretched arms of leaping safety Jarques McClellion. While it may have been too high for every other receiver, Wilson’s size allowed him to reach up and snag it for an impressive catch.

Mycah Pittman also had an impressive catch on the day, extending his full reach to grab a hard and leading pass on the slant route he was running in 11-on-11. Travis had another strong back-shoulder throw to Malik McClain to start this period.

The middle 11-on-11, good-on-good period of Wednesday’s practice was held outside and largely focused on run plays. Each of the running backs made plays in this period, but Lawrance Toafili especially stood out. This coming just a day after Norvell called Toafili FSU’s most improved player.

Overall, the offense moved the ball well on the day, but there were a few snap issues which hindered the unit on occasion.

In the trenches, freshman offensive tackle Julian Armella had an impressive 1-on-1 rep against linebacker Brendan Gant, taking him to the ground in a legal manner. Defensively, redshirt freshman defensive tackle Joshua Farmer had an impressive rep where he blew past D’Mitri Emmanuel.

Defensive end Derrick McLendon also had a strong 1-on-1 rep where he got past Bless Harris while rushing from the edge.

In the secondary, Greedy Vance jumped a route but dropped the interception early in the day and Kevin Knowles had an impressive pick in 1-on-1s, jumping the route easily to create what would have been a touchdown in a game setting.

Norvell said that Thursday’s practice will be a bit shorter and padless with a special teams emphasis. After that, Friday’s practice will be what would normally be a Wednesday game-week practice and FSU will hold a simulated game Saturday as part of its final preseason practice.

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