Ousmane Kromah was the engine for Florida State’s offense, and now the Seminoles may have to finish the season without him.
Katiatou Fofana Kromah, his mother, wrote on Facebook that “the bones connecting the foot and ankle are dislocated and fractured” and said Ousmane will need surgery after the injury he suffered in Florida State’s 43-35 double-overtime loss at Miami. Norvell said, “I love the kid,” adding, “To see somebody that’s hurting the way that he was hurting, he’s such a competitor.”
Florida State did not issue a medical update on Sunday. The Seminoles are now 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the ACC as they head into a bye week before hosting Clemson on Oct. 31.
The loss to Miami also left FSU facing a much thinner backfield. Kromah leads the team with 609 rushing yards, and Samuel Singleton Jr. has already been ruled out indefinitely after getting hurt at Alabama on Sept.
- Against Miami, Tre Wisner stepped into a bigger role and made the most of it, finishing with nine carries for 63 yards and four receptions for 56 yards, both season highs.
He also turned a screen pass into a 28-yard touchdown.
Wisner is now positioned to become the lead back, and that role is hardly new territory for him. He was a 1,000-yard rusher at Texas in 2024. Freshman Amari Thomas, who had three carries for 11 yards against Miami, is also expected to see more work.
That places even more importance on Ashton Daniels’ running ability. Daniels has repeatedly shown he can hurt defenses on designed runs, and that mattered again at FSU after doing it at Stanford and Auburn.
In the win over Virginia, he set an FSU record with 17 carries for 136 yards and five touchdowns. He has the size at 225 pounds and the durability to absorb more of the workload, with 79 carries in seven games.
How Norvell uses Daniels and Wisner together during the bye will be one of the bigger questions facing the staff.
There’s also the broader issue of what the Seminoles have done against stronger competition. FSU is 0-3 against ranked teams, though the three defeats came with some fight: road losses to Alabama and Miami, plus a three-point loss to SMU. Miami was favored by 23 points, so the result wasn’t a surprise, but the Seminoles still have to start turning close efforts into wins and find more consistency.
The schedule does leave a path forward. Rivalry games with Clemson and Florida are still ahead, and November also brings Boston College, Pittsburgh and North Carolina State.
But the road has been brutal. Florida State has now lost 12 straight true road games, and it will have to go on the road again for Boston College and Pitt.
Saturday’s ending, meanwhile, left plenty of confusion. Norvell and Daniels both believed the Hail Mary to Duce Robinson in the second overtime was a touchdown, not an interception by Miami’s Bryce Fitzgerald.
Norvell said, “If it’s a tie,” and “it goes to the receiver. I guess they had a different angle.”
Daniels kept insisting he thought Robinson had scored and at one point said, “We don’t understand it.”
That play will be examined, along with a holding call on left tackle Xavier Chaplin that erased a touchdown on FSU’s first Hail Mary attempt. A request for clarification from the ACC office was not provided Sunday.
Even in defeat, Florida State found a few defensive positives. Miami quarterback Darian Mensah had not thrown an interception in five games, and the Hurricanes had scored 45, 33 and 41 points in their three Power Four wins. FSU kept Miami to 28 points in regulation, forced a pair of fourth-down stops and got an end-zone interception from Ashlynd Barker in the third quarter.
Still, the defense couldn’t close the door late. Miami scored on two fourth-quarter drives and then matched FSU stop for stop by finishing both overtime periods without allowing a stop.
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