Lessons are few so far as ’Noles hit ACC trail

TALLAHASSEE — Braced by a yellow tackle dummy and resting prominently on Florida State’s practice fields Monday afternoon was a four-foot wide, garnet-colored plank that had a blunt message painted upon it.

“You can’t live fight tough.”

Propped up near the entrance to the practice fields, the signwas the FSUcoaching staff’s reminder to its players just before training this week about how tough the road from here on will be. The days of soft living are over. The fight the rest of theway will be tough.

Fitting, considering the No. 5 Seminoles (2-0) are expected to field their most difficult test so far when they welcome Wake Forest (2-0) to town for this weekend’s ACC opener. After playing a pair of Football Championship Subdivision teams that could be considered soft — 69-3 and 55-0 blowout victories in the Seminoles’ favor certainly indicate as much — FSU’s real regular season officially begins at noon Saturday.

On the heels of such dominating performances, it can be hard for outside observers to tell if a team really is good or its opponents that bad.

Similarly, though, when it came to lessons learned about themselves from those games, the Seminoles are somewhat unsure exactly whatwas be gleaned.

“Can’t really say we learned a whole lot,” FSU quarterback EJ Manuel said, speaking specifically about the Seminoles’ offense. “We learned that we can make plays, I guess.”

Onereason for the uncertainty? FSU did little pageturning in its playbook to come up with calls against Murray State and Savannah State.

“We probably only ran like 3 percent of our playbook in those games,” Manuel

soft

and said. “That might pose a toughweek forWake Forest to prepare for all the things that we can do as an offense.”

Across the two games, Manuel only saw three quarters of action. Most other FSU starters were removed at or just after halftime of both games.

Compounding matters with respect to Wake Forest’s preparation, the Seminoles only played 36 minutes against Savannah State last Saturday. The gamewas cut short due to a pair of delays caused by poor weather. Even though second-, third- and fourthteam players would have been getting those minutes, game film of a full finish still would have shown a more expanded look at both FSU’s offense and defense.

Conversely, both ofWake Forest’s games this season came down to the final possession. Most starters haven’t missed a minute of action.

One of the things FSU coach Jimbo Fisher was able to discover about his team following the first two games was its heightened attention to pre-game detail.

“We knew how to prepare and appreciated every game, and … played well,” Fisher said. “We did the thingswewere supposed to do. Now, we’ll see if with the level of competition, as we step up, if we can continue the execution.”

In order for his team to continue its dominating, or at the very least, victorious, ways, Fisher believes very little should change.

“[We need] exactly the same preparation we had for the last week. Exactly the same intensity,” he said. “Everyone says you’re supposed to raise your game [for tougher teams]. If we did, that means we didn’t play our A-game last game and that was my challenge to them.

“But youplaythemall the sameway.”