Florida State kicked off Notre Dame week on the practice field Tuesday morning. Here are the Osceola staff observations from the day's work.
- Color me impressed by the impact Patrick Payton made during Tuesday morning's practice. In the middle 11-on-11 period, Payton blew up a pair of runs in the backfield. In the final good-on-good period, he got an immediate pressure to force an errant throw on the first play and did well to surge laterally to the side of the field to make a tackle on a jet sweep on the second play. John Papuchis talked Monday about Payton putting his effort into performing as well as possible over the final three games of the season after not having as much production through the first nine games. Tuesday's practice was an encouraging start on that front.
- The defense as a whole largely won the day. The first team period saw a pair of red-zone drives that both ended in field goals after the offense failed to punch it in. The first-team offense had a third and short keeper by Brock Glenn stuff. The second-team offense saw KJ Sampson batted down the third-down pass at the line.
- The offense did have a few nice plays in team periods. In the middle period, Luke Kromenhoek found BJ Gibson open down the sideline and delivered a nice pass in stride to find him for a big gain. Kromenhoek also connected with Elijah Moore a number of times during Tuesday's practice. Moore's best play came during 7-on-7 pass skelly work and saw him reach behind him for a slightly off-target pass, reacting quickly after turning it around, snagging it and turning upfield to add more yards. Nice grab on an imperfect pass to cap off a nice day for the freshman.
- The one period where the offense strung together some success was in 1-on-1s between wide receivers and DBs. The receivers won a decent portion of the reps, highlighted by a few nice reps from Ja'Khi Douglas, a few from Moore and a really nice adjustment to a deep ball in the air by Amaree Williams to make a catch.
- Ja'Bril Rawls added another pick in 11-on-11 Tuesday (although it debatably should have been pass interference). He's had quite a few of those at practice over the last few weeks. Elsewhere in the secondary, true freshman DB Cai Bates was promoted off the scout team this week, probably at least partially because there's some doubt about Fentrell Cypress' status for this week's game.
