Five Florida State players Notre Dame football should watch for on Sunday
Football is back, so scouting reports are too.
For months, all Notre Dame had to worry about was itself. Figuring out who the starting quarterback would be; Jack Coan, check. Flushing out a depth chart around him; check. Honing in on 11 guys to start on the other side of the ball; check.
Now the Fighting Irish have to fixate attention on players who don't wear blue and gold. These are five Florida State players to keep an eye on when No. 9 Notre Dame takes the field at Doak Campbell Stadium to face FSU at 7:30 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Quarterback Jordan Travis
Notre Dame has seen him before. And he’s not an ordinary redshirt sophomore, either.
This is Travis’ fourth season in college football. He started his career at Louisville but only attempted 14 passes there during the 2018 season. He only attempted 11 passes during the 2019 season in his first season at Florida State.
Last season was a coming out part of sorts for Travis. His first career start came against none other than Notre Dame. He passed for 210 yards and a touchdown on 12-of-17 attempts. He ran for 96 yards and a touchdown on 19 attempts.
Travis ran for at least one touchdown in all six of his starts to finish with 10 rushing scores on the year. He racked up 837 rushing yards on 6.5 yards per carry, too. Travis only completed 52.7% of his passes. Only twice did he eclipse 200 yards through the air. He had seven touchdown passes and seven interceptions.
Travis could have progressed as a passer over the offseason, but his greatest asset has likely remained his legs. He’s going to test the Notre Dame defense with them, especially since the Irish have a relatively inexperienced linebacker corps on the edges with juniors Jack Kiser and JD Bertrand set to start at rover and will, respectively. Those two have combined for one career start.
Quarterback McKenzie Milton
If Travis isn’t moving the offense, don’t be surprised if Florida State head coach Mike Norvell goes to the transfer from UCF. And what a story that would be.
Milton has not played since suffering a gruesome leg injury in November 2018. The college football world might have forgotten how prolific a passer he was before then. Milton has 8,683 passing yards, 72 touchdowns and 22 interceptions to his name. He also went 27-6 as a starter.
Obviously, Milton did not do enough in fall camp to win the starting job. That’s enough reason to be reserved about what he can do coming back from an injury that nearly prevented him from living a normal life, let alone ever playing again.
The arm talent still has to be there, even if he has to find it through actual game reps. Notre Dame isn’t the easiest opponent to have to do that against in week one, but again — if Travis isn’t getting the job done, Norvell will have every reason to give Milton a shot.
Defensive end Keir Thomas
Here’s another guy like Milton who has been on a college football roster since the 2016 season. Thomas spent five seasons at South Carolina before deciding to spend his super senior season in Tallahassee.
He’s slated to start after recording 32 tackles, 5.5 for a loss, and 3.0 sacks in seven games last year. He has 19.5 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks in his lengthy career, one that was marred by an injury that limited him to two games in 2019.
The 6-2, 272-pound end is playing with house money as a sixth-year senior. Look for him to try to make it a long day for Notre Dame right tackle Josh Lugg, who has started eight games in the last two seasons but is finally getting his first chance to be a full-time starter as a graduate senior.
Linebacker Amari Gainer
The redshirt sophomore was all over the field last year against Notre Dame in recording 11 tackles, a forced fumble and a quarterback hurry. He ultimately led Florida State in tackles with 65 in nine games. He also had 5.0 tackles for loss.
Florida State is looking for Gainer to set an example for the rest of the defense. The Seminoles allowed 199.2 rushing yards per game last season, which ranked 97th nationally. Notre Dame running backs Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree could have a field day if FSU has not improved in that area. Gainer and company are out to show they have.
Running back Lawrance Toafili
Toafili had one of the best games of his true freshman season the week before Florida State played Notre Dame. He ran for 99 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries against Jacksonville State. Then he ran for one yards on three carries against the Irish.
He bounced back with six carries for 76 yards against Louisville, but then he went back down to one carry and a loss of a yard against Pitt. But like a lightbulb constantly flickering before finally emitting its maximum wattage around the clock, Toafili had seven carries for 117 yards and a touchdown in the last game of the season against Duke.
That’s the Toafili Norvell is looking for all season in 2021, starting Sunday against Notre Dame.
----
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• Sign up for Blue & Gold's news alerts and daily newsletter.
• Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @Rivals_Singer, @PatrickEngel_, @tbhorka and @ToddBurlage.
• Like us on Facebook.