Following a thrilling 45-34 Florida State victory over Ole Miss, the Seminoles will now turn its attention to Charleston Southern who is coming off of a 57-7 victory of its own.
Charleston Southern (1-1) is an FCS team, but they will bring in a very talented squad with them to Tallahassee. The Buccaneers sole loss came at the hands of North Dakota State 24-17, North Dakota State won the FCS championship last season.
The Buccaneers will come into town facing some misfortune, as 14 of their players are suspend for one game for violating NCAA rules.
Southern brings in an up-tempo triple option offense. Mike Holloway and Alan Barnwell have rushed for over 100 yards this season, running back Ben Robinson who is from Tallahassee is also a weapon that could be used in the triple option.
From Ole Miss who would not run the ball, to Southern who will not throw the ball, FSU’s job will be to stop another one dimensional offense.
Florida State will go into this game just trying to avoid injuries and clean up play before traveling to Louisville next weekend. The offensive line was a mess against Louisville, head coach Jimbo Fisher will look for that to be cleaned up along with getting Heisman hopeful Dalvin Cook rolling and his confidence up.
Quarterback Deondre Francois will face yet another good defense, Ole Miss brought a very good D-Line into the season opener, the Buccaneers’ will bring in a more complete defense. Safety Corbin Jackson has almost 20 tackles in two games, D.J Curl and Mike Taylor both share the team lead in sacks with 1.5.
The triple option can be tricky, Southern will keep things interesting early, but Florida State’s talent level along with Southern dealing with multiple suspensions will ultimately be too much for Southern to overcome.
Prediction: Florida State will win it 51-10. Fisher will be looking for certain things in the first half from his starters like better blocking and timely passing from Francois. Cook will need to go out and make some sharp cuts and hopefully break a long run off to make Fisher happy enough to sit him to rest for conference play.
