Florida State kicked off its 2024 season in Ireland on Saturday but didn’t go as planned. The Seminoles lost to their conference rival, Georgia Tech, 24-21, which hurt their playoff chances slightly. The biggest concern in this game was quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, who had a night to forget.
Uiagalelei spent his first three seasons with one of Florida State’s biggest rivals, Clemson, before transferring last season to Oregon State, where helped lead them to an 8-5 record. Then their head coach, Jonathan Smith, left to take the Michigan State head coaching job this offseason, leading Uiagalelei to end up back in the transfer portal and headed to Tallahassee.
The 23-year-old quarterback has had his fair share of criticism throughout his college career, and on Saturday, it showed up once again.
Florida State And DJ Uiagalelei Had A Rough Day
Uiagalelei completed 19 of his 27 pass attempts for 193 yards and didn’t throw a single touchdown. The former Clemson signal-caller looked afraid to throw the ball deep, and many of his passes were safe throws that didn’t move the ball down the field.
Florida State drove down the field with 6:33 left to go in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 21. On that drive, Uiagalelei made many great throws, some of which were even on fourth down. So, not all of his day was a mess, but the other three and a half quarters didn’t go his way, and an alarming stat came out on Sunday that showed a lot of concern.
Max Chadwick from Pro Football Focus published a social media post stating,” Uiagalelei had a 71.5 PFF grade, zero big throws, and zero turnover-worthy plays.
DJ Uiagalelei yesterday:
– 71.5 PFF grade
– 0 big-time throws, 0 turnover-worthy plays
– 83.3% adjusted completion rate
– 8.2-yard average depth of target— Max Chadwick (@MaxChadwickCFB) August 25, 2024
Having zero big-time throws means he was not throwing the ball down the field and taking chances with the football, which could be a bad thing. But look at quarterbacks like Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes; they take chances with the ball, and a lot of time, it ends up great, but sometimes they do throw an interception, and you have to live with it.
This stat shows that Uiagalelei just wants to be safe with the ball, which will be okay at times and will keep Florida State in games this year, but he needs to take chances and try to hit home runs.
Unfortunately, this has been the quarterback Uiagalelei has been for the last three years, and that is why Clemson moved off him two seasons ago after he was supposed to be the next great Tiger quarterback.
