Florida State’s handling of Ashlynd Barker has become a problem bigger than one injured safety.
The Seminoles are 2-2 after beating Central Arkansas in Tallahassee in Week 4, but the win didn’t do much to clean up the questions hanging over Mike Norvell’s team. It also came with another reminder that Florida State has not had enough answers on the back end, especially as injuries pile up and the staff has passed on chances to get younger players on the field.
Barker has been at the center of that issue. The starting safety wore a cast against SMU, Alabama, and Central Arkansas, and now safeties coach Evan Cooper has confirmed what the cast was hiding: Barker has a broken bone in his forearm.
That changes the conversation. What might have looked like toughness now reads more like a warning sign.
Florida State has already had to deal with early injuries in the secondary, with starters like Ja'Bril Rawls and Barker not at full strength. Cooper said he would have preferred to rest Barker more, but other injuries in the room pushed him back into action.
That’s where the bigger concern starts to show itself. The problem isn’t just that injuries exist.
It’s that the Seminoles do not seem to have enough game-ready depth to absorb them.
Barker has 19 total tackles, a pass defense, and an interception this season. He was also one of the highest-rated safeties by Pro Football Focus in the FBS through two games. But his play has dropped off over the last two games, and Florida State is now asking an injured player to carry a load that may no longer be worth the risk.
With Jordan Crutchfield and KJ Kirland available now, there does not appear to be a strong reason to keep pushing Barker through this injury. If a player dealing with a broken bone is still one of the better options, that says plenty about where the depth chart stands.
This situation points back to preparation, and ultimately to the top. Florida State did not recruit enough depth in the secondary, and it also did not have a real plan for when injuries hit. That leaves the Seminoles stuck with choices they should not be making this early in the season.
It also puts Cooper and Norvell in a dangerous spot. If Barker takes another hit and the injury gets worse, the decision to keep him on the field will look even worse in hindsight.
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Florida State got the win over Central Arkansas in Week 4, but the conversation afterward had less to do with the scoreboard than the way the defense looked doing it. The Seminoles have been near the bottom nationally in several categories, and Mike Norvell and defensive coordinator Tony White both spent part of their press conference working through what has gone wrong, from basic execution to players not being in the right spots.
White said the unit is only about 60% of the way to where it needs to be, which is not the kind of number a team wants to be hearing this deep into the season. The bigger concern is that the issues are not limited to one area, with Florida State still struggling to stop the run and communicate cleanly on defense, leaving plenty of room for both coaching and personnel questions as the schedule moves on. [Read more 🡒]