For the first time in 22 months, the Florida State Seminoles lost a regular season game, falling 24-21 to ACC rival Georgia Tech in Week 0 of the 2024 college football season. As you might expect, ‘Noles starting quarterback DJ Uiagalelei has been bearing the brunt of fan anger – and rival mockery.
Uiagalelei, who joined Florida State as a transfer this past offseason, struggled in his first start for the team. While his final stat line of 19 of 27 for 193 yards isn’t “bad” per se, he could barely get the ball deep and didn’t have a single completion of over 21 yards. It took him a full 13 completions just to get to 100 yards on the day.
Granted, Uiagalelei didn’t get a ton of help from the rushing game, which had only one carry of longer than 10 yards all game. But as the signal caller, Uiagalelei is responsible – and people have been trolling him mercilessly since he first started struggling.
Fans on X have been ripping Uiagalelei for everything from his deep ball struggles to his recruiting rank (which at one time was higher than reigning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud).
“Dj Uiagalelei losing to unranked teams on his 3rd college while cj stroud is a top 10 qb in the nfl is wild,” one user joked, comparing Uiagalelei to Stroud from the 2020 recruiting class.
“Billy, this is DJ Uiagalelei, he’s built like a linebacker with the speed and athleticism of a Running back. He is the ultimate weapon at QB. His only defect, in 1904 the forward pass was invented,” joked another.
“I don’t get the Dj Uiagalelei hate, once he improves his run game, pass game, pass accuracy, makes the correct reads, is able to work harder, and learns how to play football, he will be one of the best in the game rn. #FSU #FSUvsGT,” a third declared.
The Seminoles head back to Florida for their home opener against Boston College on September 2. Maybe Uiagalelei will play better back in the states.
We’ll see.
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