Florida State passed a season-defining test with flying colors on Saturday as they ran Virginia out of Doak, but can they carry that momentum forward and make it mean something…
For 15 minutes Saturday afternoon, Florida State looked painfully familiar. The Seminoles were disjointed offensively, vulnerable defensively and seemingly headed toward another afternoon that would produce more questions about Mike Norvell, Tony White and the direction of a season already teetering dangerously close to irrelevance. Then something happened. Florida State woke up. And once it did, Virginia never stood a chance.
The Seminoles erased a 7-0 first-quarter deficit by scoring 38 unanswered points, steamrolling the Cavaliers 38-7 at Doak Campbell Stadium and improving to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in ACC play. After Virginia scored with 6:04 remaining in the opening quarter, Florida State shut the Cavaliers out for the final 51 minutes while scoring 17 points in the second quarter, 14 in the third and seven more in the fourth. For a team that has spent much of the first month searching for an identity, this was more than a win. It was the first time Florida State looked like the football team it has repeatedly claimed it could become.
And nobody embodied that transformation more than quarterback Ashton Daniels. Daniels did not carve Virginia apart through the air. He did not need to. Instead, he turned the Cavaliers’ defensive strategy against them and produced one of the most remarkable rushing performances by an FSU quarterback in recent memory. Daniels finished with 136 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 17 carries, averaging eight yards per attempt. His five rushing touchdowns are the most by a quarterback and/or player at Doak…
By Michael Hinton — Read the full story at PlantTheSpear.com