It felt like a pretty good afternoon overall for the Florida State football team.
The weather turned out to be terrific. And there were enough big plays made, on both sides, to give fans some hope as we head into college football's interminable offseason.
Here are a few observations from the 30-minute scrimmage on Saturday evening at Doak Campbell Stadium.
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QB competition just beginning
Not that this is a surprise. What are the odds Mike Norvell was going to come out and say, "Yep! We've got our guy! Guess the other dude will transfer now." That was never going to happen. But what was quite encouraging Saturday was that both starting candidates played pretty darned well.
Let's start with McKenzie Milton.
The UCF transfer hasn't had a terrific spring by any means. But he looked better on Saturday than he had in any of the practices and scrimmages that were open to the media this spring. And he reminded us of how he won all those games and scored all those TDs down in Orlando.
"It shows his continued growth," Norvell said. "I thought Thursday's practice was one of the best practices he's had. And that should happen with more repetitions. He's a very seasoned player."
On three successive attempts on his first drive, Milton had a nice back-shoulder throw to Jashaun Corbin for a first down, a beautiful ball to Malik McClain down the right sideline and then a pinpoint throw to Bryan Robinson for a 16-yard TD pass.
He also had a truly great 39-yard completion to Joshua Burrell on another series, where he just dropped it straight down from the heavens between two defensive backs.
But after the spring game, Milton was not interested in accepting any praise for his progress.
"I feel like you can't base everything off one day or two days," Milton said. "When you start feeling good about yourself, you might get complacent. We made some plays out there today, the guys kind of made us look good. ...
"But there's still some things I need to clean up. It was good to finish up on a good note, but I've still got a lot of work to do."
Milton finished 6-of-11 for 96 yards and the TD. He also showed his athleticism with a 14-yard scramble.
And we can't mention athleticism without mentioning Jordan Travis, of course.
