FSU adjusted reasonably well at the half, but they also had a lot more room to adjust. Despite their vast advantage in talent, they were getting their heads kicked in. Fisher and his staff looked completely unprepared at times, like Mike Tyson against Buster Douglas. The main positive switch that I saw was going to more of a short passing game rather than trying to beat the blitz with the deep ball. That helped Winston out, even though his footwork continued to be awful and his accuracy scattershot. The defense also adjusted to some of what Auburn was doing, but it's telling that Auburn adjusted right back and was moving the ball basically at will in the fourth quarter against the best defense in college football.
It was telling to me that as they were going into halftime Jimbo Fisher's message was basically that he thought FSU was fine and needed to calm down. Malzahn on the other hand told you exactly what he was going to do -- "wear them down." And that's exactly what they did. They knew FSU did have the stamina to go four quarters. They hadn't had to all year.
I'll put it this way. If you had switched the quarterbacks of the two teams I still would have listed FSU as a solid favorite. Winston is a good player but I said before the game I thought he's become somewhat overrated and quarterback led teams in these scenarios often underperform because the quarterbacks aren't quite ready for prime time (Vince Young being a notable exception). But if you had switched the coaches, then I doubt Auburn gets within 30 points of FSU. That's what we're talking about here.
