There wasn't a lot that went right for Florida State on the offensive side of the ball in the 24-3 loss to Virginia Tech on Monday night.
On the few occasions where things did go right, the Seminoles attempted to run the fast tempo associated with the Gulf Coast Offense.
Attempted is the key word because almost every time FSU would break a big play a Virginia Tech defensive player would be on the ground after and the Hokies' training staff would have to come out to look at them.
Whether or not the injuries were legitimate is a hot topic for debate right now.
"It happened quite a bit," FSU coach Willie Taggart said.
"It is what it is, you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got to line up and play the next play."
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Some of the injuries were very clear that something happened to the players, but on multiple occasions, a Virginia Tech defender would look over to the sideline and then go down.
The two most blatant instances happened on a 32-yard pass from quarterback Deondre Francois to Tamorrion Terry in the second quarter and the 85-yard run by Cam Akers in the fourth.
The Florida State offense was hurrying up to the line after the completion to Terry when Hokies defensive tackle Xavier Burke appeared to look over to the sideline while running down the field and then went down.
Virginia Tech defensive end Trevon Hill attempted to chase Akers down from behind on the long run and looked fine after Akers was tackled before going down on the field a few seconds later.
“That killed our tempo a lot," Francois said.
"Whatever their injuries were — if they had any injuries — just killed our drives sometimes. But that wasn’t the focal point of our offense not succeeding. It was all on us. We were killing ourselves."
Virginia Tech coach Justin Fuente defended his team during the weekly ACC teleconference on Wednesday stating that his players were not dealing well with the heat and humidity in Tallahassee.
"Going into the game, we were severely concerned about our ability to handle the humidity and the weather, just coming from our climate down there," Fuente said.
"We certainly had some issues with it throughout the game. At halftime, numerous guys were in there getting IVs and getting treatment so they could finish out the game."
It isn't a new tactic to stop up-tempo teams. North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren accused Jimbo Fisher and Florida State of faking injuries in 2014.
Taggart hasn't directly come out and said that he believes that Virginia Tech players were going down on purpose to stop play, but he did indicate that he believes that's what happened.
He also hopes there's a rule change coming soon.
"It happened too often, so it's hard not to," Taggart said during his teleconference appearance.
"It happened too often … I'm sure we will one day. Kind of like everything else, it comes when it starts happening. They'll come up with something. Until they do, I don't see why anybody wouldn't do it."
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