How much blame does he deserve? Evaluation of Florida State Seminoles QB DJ Uiagalelei against Georgia Tech
A great story from the opening game of Week 0 in Dublin between No. 10 State of Florida And Georgia Tech Institute was the laborious play of DJ Uiagalelei. Given the Seminoles’ current situation, Rece Davis wonders if they should give him the ball entirely at this point.
Davis discussed this thought with Pete Thamel on Monday’s College GameDay Podcast. He believes FSU needs to do whatever it takes to give DJU more security at quarterback.
“Maybe they need to loosen DJ up a little, you know?” Davis said. “I mean, if he’s going to be your man, maybe you trust him.”
“That’s something — and this is not Mike Norvell specific. This is coaches. Coaches tend to think a lot about what could go wrong — how can I make him comfortable, take care of him? Sometimes the best way to make a quarterback especially, and players, athletes in general, comfortable is to act like you believe in them, by saying, ‘Go get it, boy,'” Davis said. “You know, go get it, cowboy. Let it rip.”
In Uiagalelei’s debut as a ‘Nole, he totaled 193 yards (19-27 (70.4%) with no scores or interceptions. That was a good 10.2 yards per completion, but little of that came from the few shots they took as an offense.
For that, Thamel gave credit to the Yellow Jackets’ defense, noting that all of Uiagalelei’s shots were difficult because of the way the opponent played them, which brought out some of the weaker qualities in Uiagalelei’s game.
“Georgia Tech completely overran their offensive line at the line of scrimmage. That put a lot of pressure on DJ,” Thamel said. “After the game, I talked to some coaches and they did a really good job of that – and when they said that, it clicked. Even the short throws were difficult for DJ. All the short throws went to the side of the field. They moved the perimeter and made the so-called ‘easy release throws’ five-yard throws that had to travel 25 yards.”
“DJ is not the most accurate quarterback. We’ve seen that over time. He’s not an elite runner either, right? He looked like a lukewarm runner the other day,” Thamel continued. “(Tyler Santucci) did what good defensive coaches do. They put him in positions he wasn’t comfortable in. They weren’t able to take what they were given because of it.”
With Florida State now 0-1 and Uiagalelei playing in his final season, Davis believes they need to do everything possible to finally realize his previously touted potential, and that could be one of her and his top priorities the next time they take the field in Week 1.
“You know, maybe this is something they’ll look at from now on,” Davis said.
