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Key storylines for Notre Dame football vs. Florida State

Season openers, especially on the road, will always carry a level of uncertainty and concern. Below are key storylines for when the Fighting Irish face Florida State in Tallahassee on Sunday night.

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Shakin’ Off The Rust

Working through the COVID chaos of 2020, Notre Dame and all of college football played inside empty or sparsely filled stadiums.

The Irish opened last season with a 27-13 win over Duke in an echo-chamber better known as Notre Dame Stadium.

That cozy backdrop will not be in place Sunday when the Irish visit Tallahassee, Fla., to play Florida State (Sunday, 7:30 p.m. EST, ABC) inside a sold-out 80,000-seat Doak Campbell Stadium.

Irish head coach Brian Kelly explained how this season’s opener provides a similar feel to 2019 when Notre Dame opened at Louisville.

Managing heavy roster churn after 2018, Kelly’s Irish started the Louisville game poorly on offense, tackled terribly on defense and fell behind 14-7 in the first quarter.

The Irish regrouped and emphatically answered with a 28-3 scoring blitz for a 35-17 win, providing a solid response, indeed. But Kelly said Monday he’s not interested in a repeat performance on Sunday.

Kelly explained how he and his staff emphasized to their players that Sunday’s raucous prime-time atmosphere and pre-game flair at FSU will far outdo that of Louisville.

“We spent a few team meetings already showing them the entrance [at FSU], the tight locker room and how difficult it is in that environment so they can prepare themselves,” said Kelly, while also referencing the value of having veteran leaders who played at Louisville, at Georgia and at Michigan in 2019.

Because of the pandemic, Notre Dame has not played in a true hostile road environment similar to this since the 45-14 drubbing at Michigan in 2019.

The Great Unknown

A season after FSU fielded the youngest team in college football during a 3-6 finish in 2020 — freshmen and sophomores made up about 75 percent of its roster — Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell wanted to get old quickly and welcomed in 13 transfers with a combined 309 games of collegiate experience just last season, with most expected to start and/or play Sunday.

For their careers, the 13 FSU transfers have combined for 1,677 rushing yards, 25 rushing touchdowns, 630 completions, 8,683 passing yards, 72 passing touchdowns, 102 receptions, 1,106 receiving yards, nine receiving touchdowns, 590 tackles, 61.0 tackles for loss and 35.0 sacks.

With myriad new faces in new places for FSU, individual scouting reports for this game were devalued, leading Kelly and his staff to study 2020 coaching tendencies and last year’s matchup more than Seminole personnel.

“Last year, boy, they threw everything at us,” said Kelly, who beat FSU 42-26 last season in game three. “They were three-down, they were four-down, a little bit of everything. I think going into this year, you have a better sense of how they’re going to line up in terms of what their defensive structure is.”

Schematics aside, Kelly singled out two talented defensive end transfers in Jermaine Johnson and Keir Thomas as Seminoles of concern.

Johnson played two seasons at Georgia where he recorded 36 tackles, seven tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks. Thomas made more than 30 starts at South Carolina and had 18.5 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks during his career there.

Adding to the intrigue and uncertainty, FSU has yet to announce its starting quarterback for Sunday.

Something’s Gotta Give

One of the first orders of business for Norvell when he took over as the FSU head coach before last season was to improve offensive line play and the run game.

His team took an impressive first step in 2020 by adding 60 rushing yards per game from 2019.

Last season, FSU averaged 199.9 rushing yards, the program’s highest mark since 2016, and 5.1 yards per carry, the most since 2015.

The Seminoles — who return their entire starting offensive line — ranked fourth in the ACC in rushing yards per carry last season, which was 23rd nationally, and finished fifth in the league in rushing yards per game.

Complicating matters for Notre Dame here is the season-ending ankle injury and subsequent surgery for projected starting junior linebacker Marist Liufau.

Liufau became one of the top performers during camp and had been a promising Irish breakout player candidate in 2021.

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