Florida State is heading into its Week 0 opener with a front five built almost entirely from newcomers, and that makes the offensive line one of the most intriguing pieces of the Seminoles’ reset.
When FSU lines up Saturday night against New Mexico State, the spotlight will be on a team that has more than 60 new players, a quarterback in Ashton Daniels who is starting at his third school, and a defense with a lighter front that will be asked to handle the run. But the line up front may be the biggest swing factor of all. Can a group stitched together through the portal protect Daniels and open space for FSU’s tailbacks?
Second-year offensive line coach Herb Hand says the answer starts with reps, not theory.
“The cohesion is so important,” second-year FSU offensive line coach Herb Hand said. “The only way you can have it is by repping together.
You can watch all the film you want, you can talk about it all you want. But until you go out and experience it together, the best learning is experiential learning.”
Florida State’s current group brings a lot of game mileage, just not much of it together. Nate Pabst arrives with 38 starts at Bowling Green, Xavier Chaplin with 37 starts between Va.
Tech and Auburn, Bradyn Welch-Joiner with 17 starts between Auburn and Purdue, and Paul Bowling with 17 starts at Troy. That adds up to 109 FBS starts.
Chimdia Nwaiwu also comes in with 13 starts at FCS program Stephen F. Austin.
FSU has not released a depth chart before the opener, but the likely starters are Chaplin, Joiner, Pabst and Nwaiwu. André Otto, one of the few holdovers from last year’s line, is also in the mix at left guard, Hand said. Backups such as second-year center Chavez Thompson of Cocoa give the staff confidence in the depth, and several of those players could see more snaps late in the guarantee game.
Pabst said Hand described the transfer group as an “independent contractor” during camp, a nod to the fact that each player arrived with his own background and habits. The communication, Pabst said, got better as the group kept stacking reps in spring practice and preseason camp.
Hand, who previously worked with Gus Malzahn at UCF, had the benefit of a full offseason with some of the reserve linemen. He also leaned on Otto, who he calls a “standard bearer” for how he wants the program to operate.
“The guys have come in, and they’ve meshed really really well,” Otto said. “They understand the standard.
They know what to do and what we expect out of them. I’m here to uphold the standard and they’re doing a really good job of following it.”
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