SB Nation - David Spurlock

The Preview: Maryland Terrapins @ Florida State Seminoles

FSUncensored — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:04:10 -0000

Time: Noon
TV: Raycom Sports - Tim Brant (pbp), Doc Walker (color) and Mike Hogewood (sidelines) will call the action. The game can also be seen on ESPN Gameplan or ESPN360.com.
Line: FSU -18.5
Forecast: Rain? No Rain? Looks like heavy rain in the afternoon but it should hold off for the first half.

The Maryland Terrapins are coming off a 36-9 home loss to Virginia Tech. They sit at 1-8 on the year against D1 teams. Their coach, Ralf Friedgen on that loss:

"I thought we improved in our offensive line play. Andrew Gonnella played probably his best game and I thought Terrell Skinner played a fantastic game. He had 13 tackles and really played well. We defended the run well, but what we didn't do was defend the big plays and the passing game. We have to make some more plays in our offense. There are some plays out there that we need to make and we didn't make them. On Monday night I showed about eight plays to the offense where we are very, very close to just sustaining the block, breaking the tackle or making the catch to make a difference."

Maryland Offense v. FSU Defense

As you can see (click to enlarge), Maryland's offense isn't very good. 83rd in the country and significantly worse than North Carolina (the next best offense FSU has played). But they are better than USF, and like USF, they are starting a young running quarterback for the first time.

And Florida State's defense...

As you can see (click to enlarge), FSU's defense is 90th in the country. Maryland put 31 points on NC State's 85th ranked defense on the road, and dropped 32 on Wake's 46th ranked unit, also on the road. But that was with their quarterback. Let's see what they are currently working with.

Here's Maryland's offensive depth chart:

WR-X 7 Adrian Cannon 6-2 204 Jr.-2V
LT 74 Bruce Campbell 6-7 310 Jr.-2V
LG 71 Paul Pinegar 6-4 290 Jr.-2V
C 72 Phil Costa 6-3 300 Sr.-2V
RG 77 Andrew Gonnella 6-6 305 So.-SQ or 78 Justin Lewis 6-4 320 Fr.-RS
RT 76 R.J. Dill 6-7 320 Fr.-RS
TE-Y 34 Devonte Campbell 6-2 250 Fr.-RS
QB 11 Jamarr Robinson 6-0 190 So.-SQ
TB 8 Davin Meggett 5-8 215 So.-1V & 23 Da'Rel Scott 5-11 200 Jr.-2V
FB 38 Cory Jackson 6-1 245 Sr.-3V
WR-Z 82 Torrey Smith 6-1 200 So.-1V
WR-F 24 Ronnie Tyler 5-11 190 So.-1V
TE-F 80 Lansford Watson 6-4 260 So.-1V

And FSU's Defensive Depth Chart:

LE 95 Kevin McNeil 6-2, 257, SR
DT 93 Everett Dawkins 6-2, 258, FR & 72 Budd Thacker 6-2, 276, SR
NT 90 Moses McCray 6-2, 298, SO & 99 Jacobbi McDaniel 6-0, 267, FR
RE 98 Markus White 6-4, 261, JR & 49 Brandon Jenkins 6-2, 240, FR
SLB 36 Dekoda Watson 6-2, 226, SR
MLB 29 Kendall Smith 6-1, 224, JR
WLB 13 Nigel Bradham 6-2, 235, SO
Backup LB 12 Nigel Carr 6-3, 230, SO
CB 15 Ochuko Jenije 5-10, 188, JR
FS 20 Jamie Robinson 6-2, 188, SR
RV 22 Korey Mangum 6-0, 202, SR & 10 Nick Moody 6-2, 228, FR
CB 21 Patrick Robinson 5-11, 194, SR
Nickel Corner: 5 Greg Reid 5-9, 175, FR

Phillip, a friend of Tomahawk Nation, will be helping us out with the Maryland team.

Jamarr Robinson is the new quarterback. He runs a 4.66 in the forty yard dash so he'll give your defense all types of problems scrambling but at this point he's just not a good passer. In six quarters he is 17-43 for 130 yards, no TD's and no pick, though he has thrown a couple balls that could have been picks and a couple that could have been TD's if the receiver makes a play. Robinson won't throw over 200 yards against FSU in all probability no matter what the circumstance. Robinson is mobile, but not so mobile he's a game changer. He can't read coverages and hes pretty inaccurate.

But in the rain with FSU's defense over-pursuing like crazy, this running back playing QB could give FSU some trouble. I'd actually rather face Turner. I talked to the Va Tech guys and they said Robinson is extremely erratic. FSU is facing a less talented B.J. Daniels. Maryland has always run some option and they rep the option in practice so I think FSU is in for a heavy does of option. It would fit this kid's skill-set well.

Tough to evaluate this running back group cause of the bad O-Line. Da'Rel Scott, a first team all ACC guy should return from injury after missing the last five games. Hes our best runner. Hes averaging over 5 yards a carry when nobody else is over 4. He was fumbling the ball before he got hurt, so that could be an issue. The backups who played the last couple weeks were banged up themselves. They are not bad players they just don't have big holes to run through. Also with Jamar Robinson playing you can crowd the box, thus the RB's only got 7 carries against VT, the QB did most of the running (25 carries for 127 yards). Without a healthy Scott this group is pretty average. If they played with a good line they would get decent yardage, but they don't and aren't good enough to make things happen on their own. Scott put up big numbers earlier in the season, but in fairness to the other rb's, Scott played against a couple weaker defenses, (James Madison and MTSU) when he put up his numbers. Our fullback, Cory Jackson, might be the best blocking fullback in the ACC, but without an O-Line that only gets you so far.

Remember Dave Megget of the Giants? That's his son. A similarly fashioned scat back. Scott is not a receiving threat but Megget has good hands. If Maryland wants to use a fullback, that's fine by me. FSU will play 8 men in the box like they did last year early on.

This wide receiver group is talented. Torrey Smith, Adrian Cannon, and Ronnie Tyler the top 3 guys are all good. If Turner is the QB this group could cause your secondary problems. This group is probably in the top third of the ACC. If we had a good O-Line or a run game to balance the pass, UMD could put up big passing numbers with these guys. Torrey Smith is a sophomore but probably has a future in the NFL. He broke the ACC KO return yards as a freshman and broke that record this year and has put up very solid receiving numbers. Smith has soft hands, good cutting ability, and low 4.4 speed. Adrian Cannon is a good possession WR. He runs around a 4.6 so not a deep threat that can stretch the field vertically, but hes got a thick body and very strong hands. Hes good after the catch, okay elusiveness and is strong and will break a lot of tackles by db's. Tyler is the slot, short at 5'9, hes an explosive athlete that is a good college receiver.

I agree with Phillip here. FSU CB Patrick Robinson, one of the best corners in the nation and a likely first round choice should be able to limit Smith. Jenijie should be okay against the other their #2. Maryland doesn't have a tight end who catches a lot of balls, so that is a plus.

I would say the worst O-Line in the ACC by quite a bit. We struggle to pass block and we struggle to run block. Its not clear which we are worst at. Occasionally they will have a good series or two, but this O-Line has yet to really put together an entire game, so FSU doesn't have much to worry about. The O-Line started out young and inexperienced and has been exacerbated by injuries. Bruce Campbell the best O-Lineman is playing pretty hurt. Due to injuries 9 different guys have gotten starts this year on the line and another has played significantly. Your D-Line will have its best game.

This is true. Maryland's offensive line is highly questionable. Campbell is actually a tremendous talent at left tackle, but as Phillip said, he's been injured. Last year Maryland was one of a few teams to not double team Everette Brown and Brown absolutely abused the Terps. They have struggled with quick rush ends so far this year and as Phillip said, FSU might have a good day. I don't think he understands just how poor FSU's defense is, however, so don't get too excited, 'Nole fans.

Maryland runs a pro-style offense. It's West coast based. They typically man block, not zone block (FSU zone blocks). If I was running Maryland's offense, I would probably use 3 wide receivers and two running backs, mixing in a lot of option looks for the young quarterback who is basically a running back under center. The rain probably plays to Maryland's advantage if they elect to run some of the zone-read plays we've come accustomed to seeing teams run against Florida State, often with great success. It's one thing to overrun a play. It's another to overrun a play in the rain and be unable to recover in time. I expect FSU to run more of the cover-2 stuff they ran against Wake Forest. This should help because it allows FSU to keep all 11 eyes on the "quarterback". It also will force the quarterback to work with his receivers. FSU did not do this well against USF, and pair dearly for it via two bombs and multiple scrambles. Playing an excess of man coverage in this game is a poor choice. Maryland has some good skill guys and if FSU lets them play street ball, this could be interesting. Against Zone, receivers must sit down in the voids, and the quarterback must recognize where these voids will be and throw the ball to the spot. I do not think Maryland's guy under center can do that consistently. FSU must make him do things at which he is not comfortable, and not allow him to hit the high-risk, high-reward stuff. A good cover-2 or cover-3 zone can help with this. In addition, FSU should refrain from excessive blitzing. If there is any offensive line that FSU's defensive line can get pressure against, it is this group. Maryland won't consistently beat a conservative FSU defense, but they could beat an aggressive FSU defense. They have a veteran center who can make the calls and FSU's schemes aren't fooling anyone. It's best to be very conservative, contain Robinson, and let him make mistakes. I worry about this because it is defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews' last game. Will the players be too hyped up to play good assignment football? I don't know.

Working off a 68 play projection (about average), I expect Maryland to put up about 5.5 yards per play. That's 375 yards. 24 points seems reasonable. I'll go with that. Can FSU top that? Continue reading to see.

Maryland Defense @ Florida State Offense

The Terps defense is not as bad as their offense.

From their media guide:

They've actually been sort of solid on defense for most of the conference season (Cal housed them 52-13), though they struggled aginst the Hokies last week. They are allowing an average of 113 rushing yards per game (second in league play). LBs Alex Wujciak and Adrian Moten have been the top playmakers on a defense which has just four starters back from last year. Wujciak, a second-team All-ACC selection last year, has a team-high 113 tackles, including 11 vs. Virginia Tech last week. Moten has 58 tackles (second on the team), including team highs in tackles-for-loss (8.5) and sacks (6.0). Freshman LB Demetrius Hartsfield, was the third-leading tackler until he broke his hand and missed two games. He was back in action last week. First-year defensive coordinator Don Brown has a veteran secondary, though there have been injuries at that position. Senior Nolan Carroll, the team’s No. 1 cornerback, was lost for the season vs. JMU with a broken tibia. Senior SS Jamari McCollough missed two games with a foot injury and played sparingly the following two weeks. Top safety reserve Kenny Tate sprained an ankle last week and will miss the rest of the season. CB Anthony Wiseman has a team-high eight PBUs and CB Cameron Chism has a team-best three interceptions. Seniors Travis Ivey, Jared Harrell and Deege Galt are veterans on the defensive line. The Terps are tied for second in the ACC in sacks (2.5 per game).

As you can see (click to enlarge), Maryland's defense is 69th. NC State is the worst defense FSU has faced this year. But Maryland is on par with BYU, and definitely worse than Wake Forest.

As for Florida State's offense? Click to go full-screen and you'll see FSU sits at 5th in the country. This is an elite unit.

Maryland has faced the #9 rated NC State attack. Without Ponder, I believe FSU's offense is probably top 25 but definitely not top 5. These ratings reflect performance to date. They can't account for the future impact of injuries. They also played Va Tech, who like NCST, also put 35+ on them. #27 rated Wake Forest put 30+ on these guys. But I don't remember any of those teams playing in a downpour.

Maryland Depth Chart

DE 57 Jared Harrell 6-5 265 Sr.-1V or 44 Derek Drummond 6-4 250 So.-1V
NT 96 A.J. Francis 6-5 315 Fr.-RS
DT 90 Travis Ivey 6-4 325 Sr.-2V
Anchor (DE) 56 Deege Galt 6-4 264 Sr.-SQ
SAM 54 Adrian Moten 6-2 230 Jr.-2V
MIKE 33 Alex Wujciak 6-3 255 Jr.-1V
WILL 42 Ben Pooler 6-3 235 So.-SQ or 59 Demetrius Hartsfield 6-2 230 Fr.-RS
CB 6 Anthony Wiseman 5-10 185 Sr.-3V (Starter lost for year)
FS 1 Terrell Skinner 6-3 214 Sr.-3V (Starter lost for year)
SS 4 Jamari McCollough 5-11 200 Sr.-1V
CB 22 Cameron Chism 6-0 185 So.-1V

FSU Depth Chart

WR 80 Jarmon Fortson 6-3, 223, SO & 9 Richard Goodman 6-0, 190, SR
LT 67 Andrew Datko 6-6, 283, SO
LG 57 Brandon Davis 6-2, 281, JR (Replacing AA Rodney Hudson)
C 60 Ryan McMahon 6-3, 282, JR
RG 79 David Spurlock 6-5, 285, SO
RT 77 Zebrie Sanders 6-5, 288, SO
TE 88 Beau Reliford 6-7, 241, SO (Starter Caz Piurowski lost for year)
QB 3 EJ Manuel 6-4, 223, FR (Starter Christian Ponder lost for year)
FB 24 Lonnie Pryor 6-1, 195, FR
TB 38 Jermaine Thomas 6-1, 190, SO & 23 Chris Thompson 5-8, 173, FR
WR 86 Rod Owens 6-0, 183, SR & 83 Bert Reed 5-11, 165, SO & Taiwan Easterling

And FSU's Injury Report:

Out
76 OT Garrett Faircloth (hip)
70 OT Antwane Greenlee (knee)
51 LB Aaron Gresham (knee) (For career)
44 LB Maurice Harris (neck; out for the season)
62 OG Rodney Hudson (knee)
97 DT Demonte McAllister (knee)
94 DT Justin Mincey (knee)
81 TE Caz Piurowski (knee; out for the season)
7 QB Christian Ponder (shoulder; out for the season)
74 OT John Prior (knee)
27 CB Xavier Rhodes (thumb)
11 LB Vince Williams (back)

Questionable
9 WR Richard Goodman (groin)
Mister Alexander is also banged up but FSU didn't list him.

Let's see what Phillip has to say about Maryland's defense.

Probably the worst in the ACC. The DT's are so-so, maybe the 7 or 8th best group in the ACC as far as DT's go. The DE's are awful. The rush end position (Harrell and Drummond) has yet to record a sack this season after 10 games. This group generates no initial pass rush. The strongside DE (Deege Galt) is a 100% effort type player and got a couple sacks by continuing to work and getting a sack after the play broke down, but this group is really awful. Our DE's are by far the worst in the ACC from what I have seen at generating pass rush. The DT's don't help with pass rush. They use a three man rotation of guys weighing 330, 325, 310 (Ivery, Kerr, Francis) so they are okay agianst the run, teams have not really gash us by running right at us, but they contribute nothing to a pass rush. Therefore you have four guys totally not capable of getting any pass rush. The D-Line is serviceable against the run, but you want to be more than serviceable when that is the strength of the unit.

I think he's pessimistic here. These guys actually do a decent job stopping the run. They are massive inside and have good but not great size on the outside. He is right though about their pass rush ability. Maryland's pass rush from the front-4 is just not there. In addition, FSU's offensive line is excellent in pass protection. I do have some concerns about Davis working together with the other guys picking up the blitz. Speaking of blitz...

LB: A solid, but not great unit. At MLB, 255 Alex Wujciak is big and strong and good in run defense. Hes not very agile or fast so you can pass on him, though he has improed his awareness there a little. Still, his pass coverage is the type thing that Jimbo will take advantage of. With Ponder you would have burned us like crazy passing over the middle with him cause Ponder is accurate. Wujciak is not fast or agile, buts aware and he took an inaccurate pass by Russell Wilson to the hosue on a 70 yard interception return the other week. Still hes probably one of the slowest MLB in the ACC if not the slowest. He leads the ACC in tackles and is fourth in the nation. Its hard to run against him cause he can off blocks well even if you get a O-Lineman to him cause of his size and strength. Running up the middle against us is maybe do-able, but with so many other weaknesses, teams don't even really bother to try. Adrian Moten one of the OLB's is very verstaile. Hes solid in pass coverage, blitzing, and against the run, but is not great at any of them. He leads the team with 6 sacks. I see him in the NFL eventually, not necessarily as a high pick, simply cause at the least he would make a good backup because hes no real weakness. Hes also a vocal leader of the D. The third LB is Demetrius Hartsfield a RS freshman. Hes got solid quickness and average straight line speed, and like a lot of freshman is inconsistent. At times he shows good instincts and an aggressive instinct that makes him effective. Other times he looks lost. As the season went on he got a little bit more consistent, his worst games as far as missed assignments were his first. FSU will be his second game back from injury after missing three games.

Moten is undersized and doesn't do a great job of getting off blocks. Otherwise, I agree with this. FSU has a very good run game that has been steadily improving since Rick Trickett took over the running back coaching duties. The backs now understand what hole to run through, an important part of being a running back.

The DB's are average to below average which is a surprise as many fans expected them to be good. We lost our top corner, Nolan Carroll, in the second game of the season. That hurt a lot. Sophomore Cameron Chism may have NFL talent but hes still learning the ropes. He's very good when the ball is in the air, has three picks, and is excellent in run help. That said he gives up some big plays and is susceptible to double moves and the like at this stage in his career (hes a true soph. who only played special teams last year). Wiseman the other corner is one of the worst starting cb's in the ACC. A three year starter who never has gotten an interception, hes a bad tackler, who is really bad when the ball is in the air. Hes is very suspectible to the long ball. Against the short ball, like slants, hes okay and will get some pass breakups, but hes such a bad tackler thats hes still not great there becaue those missed tackles turn into 40 yard players. The third and fourth corners, Richad Taylor and Trenton Hughes are about what you expect from backup corners. I think they are both slightly better than Wiseman, but there is inertia with returning starters and they are not that much better anyways. At S, we just lost Kenny Tate for the season at SS. With McCollough, who will be the strong safety agianst FSU, you got a saavy player capable in pass coverage, but not great in run help. At free safety you have Terrell Skinner, who had had a better junior year than senior year so far, except for the fact hes had his best two games of the season the past couple weeks so he may be coming on.

I have nothing to add to that. A huge thanks to Phillip for his help!

I watched a bit of Maryland this week. They blitz a lot. I feel bad for this defense. They get no pass rush, so they are forced to blitz. But their secondary has really struggled due to losing two starters and just generally not having a ton of talent. They are hurting either way.

So, how to attack Maryland's defense? We know that their front can't rush the passer but is very big. And we know that their best linebacker is a liability in coverage. They love to blitz. And we also know that they are incredibly thin on the secondary. So, how would you attack this?

I would spread them out and pass on early downs. This puts pressure on already thin secondary. It will tire out their big defensive tackles who certainly don't want to rush the passer. It will stress their excellent linebacker who is sort of a stiff. There is no reason to run right at Maryland, especially not without Rodney Hudson. FSU needs to run at the edges and attack the undersized outside linebackers or defensive backs. By throwing on 1st down, FSU can keep Maryland off balance. The bubble-screen game could play big in this contest. Anything to simplify the reads for freshman QB E.J. Manuel. Most teams don't blitz much on 1st down, making it an ideal down to throw on because of the added time in the pocket. Also, many teams are reluctant to blitz the spread because the blitz comes from a greater distance than against a traditional formation, thus taking longer to get there, being more readily identifiable, and affording the offense more time to react.

But undoubtedly Maryland will have some success with the blitz. I doubt Manuel stays clean in this game. But I do think he can hit a big play or two, interspersed with some less than desirable plays. I don't think FSU can run quite like they did against Wake Forest. FSU must pick up the blitz. And if Maryland goes a little more conservative, then Manuel needs to be in sync with the receivers.

Assuming FSU gets 68 plays, I think they can average about 6.75 per snap. That comes out to 460 yards. I like FSU to score 40 points. And to be clear, I definitely think rain is a disadvantage for the 'Noles here.

FSU 40, Maryland 24 Maryland is the worst team FSU has faced to date, and though I expect Manuel to look rough at times, I will still project the big win.

Chance of Victory: 88% (the exact percentage I predicted before the season).

Florida State Football Performance Report 11.17.09

FSUncensored — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:43:29 -0000

More photos » by Chuck Burton - AP

about 1 month ago: Florida State's Jermaine Thomas (38) runs against Wake Forest during the second half of an NCAA college football game in Winston-Salem, N.C., Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009. Florida State won, 41-28. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Browse more photos »

Let's start out with something different for a moment. My best friend is serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Xerox is sponsoring a project that will send free cards to all of the soldiers. You can fill our your own personalized message and choose from 15 cards drawn by elementary school children across the united states. Here is the link for the project: http://www.LetsSayThanks.com/Home1024.html It takes less than a minute and you'll make a soldier's day.

Now for the offense. FSU went on scoring drives of 81, 79, 68, 68, 43, and 27 yards. 4 offensive touchdowns and 2 field goals. Get some, Wake Forest! Let's break down the offensive performance. As with all photos here, click them to enlarge.

7.2 yards per play is outstanding. In a normal game where FSU gets 70 plays, that's 500+ yard pace. Excellent job EJ. And the gameplan was ridiculously simple. FSU ran some version of the Veer 9 times. Don't tell anyone, but that's basically UF's offense. When they threw the ball it was a screen or a crossing route. I counted 5 passes that traveled more than 8 yards downfield. E.J. Manuel managed the game well and did exactly what FSU asked him to do.

Inside we have more charts, recaps of the press conferences, and highlight videos!

Want to settle your QB down and let him have a nice day? Own 1st down. And that's exactly what FSU did. Of 30 1st down plays, FSU only had two for 20+ yards, but they were successful a superb 53% of the time, and were only held to 1 or fewer yards on 6 of 30 1st down plays. Of those 16 successes, 10 of them were accomplished via Jermaine Thomas. That's important because we're dealing with a young quarterback.

Mmmmm The best offense in the conference kept on hummin'. And there's no scheduling quirk here. FSU has faced 7 of the conference's best 9 defenses.

Oh, and Jeff Cameron of 1270TheTeam Sports Radio had Jimbo Fisher on with him yesterday. Have a listen.

As for individual player breakdowns, I thought the right side of the offensive line did a tremendous job. That's guard David Spurlock and Tackle Zebrie Sanders. This offensive line is already very good, but they might be incredible next year. I really think they surprise teams, and especially opposing linebackers, with their quickness. It messes up the angles opposing backers must take. Ryan McMahon was his usual solid self. He doesn't dominate but he does what we ask him to. Rodney Hudson, until he got injured (and they are expected to hold him out until the UF game with his mild knee sprain), looked good. And maybe most impressive because of his injury was Andrew Datko (separated shoulder). I thought he did a great job and a shoulder injury is not all that easy to play with.

As for the backs. Thomas ran hard and was decisive. He made the right cuts almost all of the time. Ty Jones was not impressive at all. Anyone could have run through those huge holes.

My player of the game might be Rod Owens. He blocked his butt off and also ran some great rotues for Manuel. Twice on 3rd downs, Manuel was very late making his read and Owens slowed down knowing he could get killed but wanting to give his QB an open target. A big +1 for Rod Owens! Bert Reed didn't screw around and got upfield quickly.

I like the idea of flipping the ball to Jarmon in space. It somewhat limits what coverages the opposition can play and he is an athletic freak.

Here's Jimbo's Notes from the press conference that I took down yesterday:

We had some complexity in the offense and we were fortunate to hit our plays when we called them. E.J. was doing the things that he needed to do. He executed the gameplan very well. Stayed in good down and distance, fortunate to have the plays be open (implying Wake's plan was dumb). No delay penalties. Changed protections, routes, etc.

Every play is from a family of plays so when the QB checks down they have to know what they are looking to attack. Jimbo teaches conceptually. What are we trying to attack. If we know it we can change on the fly. Harder to learn at first but better in the long run.

E.J. and Christian both understand the concepts of football and I think this is the reason they pick things up so quickly.

These are good emotions this week. They have great futures ahead of them. We do have some upper classmen who have grown up and they will go off the right way.

Never had this small of a senior class before. FSU loses only Goodman, Piurowski, and Owens, to graduation (on offense).

E.J. has a lot of instincts to play football. Jermain Thomas did a nice job to help E.J. with the pitches by being where he needed to be. Did a great job of maintaining the pitch relationship.

You have to have the dependability of a running back who adds the dimension of a consistent running back.

Tavares Pressley could see some PT this week.

Brandon Davis did a nice job coming in for Rodney

I think the whole group (WR's) played the best game they have from blocking to running routes.

Jarmon Fortson doesn't realize how much time this game really takes. I am not down on him but he can get to another level of greatness if he gets all of the details. I am really looking forward to seeing how he progresses. (Jimbo challenges Fortson every week.

Maryland blitzes like crazy and they are hard to prepare for." "They do it all." "As tough to prepare for in terms of blitzing as anyone we have played. This could be a game where we mix incompletes with big plays because of the blitz. When you blitz the YAC yards, yards after catch are there to be made then our receivers have to make plays. I thin Joe Montana did a very good job of getting his receivers the ball where each of them needed it. E.J. will understand the concepts but he will need to put in a lot of study time this week.

I told E.J. the other day that Christian had a lot of success each week because he prepared for every game the same way. E.J. has had some success now he just needs to play the game. This is bigger than anyone who has ever been involved with it. E.J. is very self motivated and I tell him that the hardest job in football is being the backup QB. He did a great job and he prepared to play and it showed. If you think I am waiting and not going to play is not the way to prepare for a game. E.J. and Christian are very similar in a lot of ways."

We are looking forward to having Chris Thompson back this week." (Thompson's grandfather passed away and they had a close relationship.)

If good enough is ever good enough then we have a problem. "Good enough is never good enough to me."

Fisher then talked about a question regarding the running game not being as good as people expected. Said a lot of that run game went from the QB's legs to the qb's arm. I think people were shocked to see that we could throw as well as we did this year. I want to see how efficient we are on each play. Pass blocking has been much better this year than we were a year ago. "I don’t care how many yards we run or throw for, I care about how efficient are we each play."

Receivers are getting into their routes better, breaking them off better, catching it better. We are making quick decisions. Everything on offense is doing better.

Jimbo smirked when told this offense is the best since 2000, then said he wasn’t aware of that. Said he is much more comfortable as a playcaller.

We are learning to play with more consistency.

We are getting better but I still think we leave a lot out there. Not just yards but more great runs, more great throws, more great catches.

When things aren't just like you coach them up these guys are making the adjustments to keep the play moving and that is a good sign.

Fisher said when he is going through grading the offense, there are consistent pluses rather than a big play then a minus.

On Mickey Andrews: I don’t know if anybody played any better defense during any time during any era of college football than during Mickey’s 20 years. Until you are a great defensive team you’re not a great team. Defense keeps you in games. FSU used to win 41-39 until Mickey got here. Nobody’s legacy is above Mickey Andrews. How would you attack a mickey andrews defense? had to be balanced, had to recruit a lot better "I mean they rattatattattd them now I tell ya. (fsu hitting weurffel)"

Then he talked for a while about how having big hands and long arms helps in play-action.

On Goodman- trying to get him back.

Owens, EJ, and Jermaine players of the game. Owens had some great blocks and showed great patience in his routes. Great feel for that.

On Greg Reid returning punts and not kicks… not sure, said Pat is good too. (It's not his call)

Can’t afford to lose Cas, Christian, Rich, Rodney, but we have to have other guys step up. give someone else the chance to be a hero. guys keep stepping up keep competing keep battling great traits for the future

We are recruiting guys to fit our mold and practicing better than before. Then (2007) they were memorizing plays now they get the concepts to what you teach which allows you to make adjustments. the older guys never got that and it was unfair to ask them to get it.

The Streak Is Over!

Our regular readers know that we had been tracking a rather embarrassing streak. Florida State's defense had allowed every opponent to post their best offensive game of the season in either Points, Total Yards, or the most important measure of performance, Yards-Per-Play. That is no longer the case. FSU held Wake Forest to only their 3rd best offensive performance of the year. Now, don't get too excited. Wake still gained 20% more than they had been averaging in conference games. Also, the streak would have come to an end thanks to UNC finally cracking the 5 yards-per-play barrier against someone (Miami, haha), and Clemson racking up an insane performance against NC State, both of which pushed FSU's defensive efforts down some.

For more on that Clemson game, which should make you feel a bit better about losing to those guys (they are a top 10 team this year, bank it), go here Clemson - NC State film review - Shakin The Southland. Also, want a fun stat? Sure you do. Miami's Jacory Harris leads the country in interceptions. And before Miami fans feed you some tired line about how their offense throws for more yards per pass and are thus more likely to throw an INT, don't believe it. Miami is 4th in conference in yards per pass, behind FSU, a team that doesn't try to go deep on every play.

Let's go comprehensive on the game:

Where did FSU succeed on defense? They used a variety of run blitzes on 1st down. Sometimes they worked and Wake was stopped for 1 or fewer yards. Other times they didn't and FSU was in the wrong gaps and hit for a big gain. Andrews talked about this some in his press conference.

I thought Kevin McNiel played better. Perhaps he is now in shape. Everette Dawkins played a very nice game from what I saw (#93).

FSU is definitely playing more zone defense now and they played it well on Saturday. Mangum is not as bad covering half a field as he is covering a whole field.

Our backers still do not read their keys and I'm not sure they know them. Chuck Amato is a horrible coach. Really puzzled as to why Wake didn't run more misdirection. I like Nigel Carr's energy. Bradham is progressing slower than I'd like but he is coming around.

Upon watching again, we did have some guys running free in the secondary who were not accounted for and that is a problem. Skinner just didn't hit them.

Andrews said it was a team game. Everyone pitched in.

Aays they won 1st down and aoccomplished the goal (didn't state the goal)

3rd and long did not win (we might have forced more, it's a step in the right direction)

How many yards did they make after contact? few longballs but lots of short plays that went long. (We played a lot of cover-2)

4th down not good, (but honestly, those are 4th and short’s, it's not a big deal)

Happy he didn’t have to face skinner again and they didn’t win 4 in a row

When they pull, it creates a new gap, you have to maintain gap integrity and re-adjust your leverage. (Mickey is right here, FSU did not go a good job of this. Said they got 100+ yards doing this).

Mickey said they are only doing the ceremony stuff because they were asked. (He is incredible humble)

When you’re a committed football coach, sometimes you have to do things you don’t wanna do, even when your priorities should be elsewhere, like if your family needs you. (Mickey clearly hinting that he was begged to come back but probably shouldn't be here). Thanks to Mickey for 25+ great years.

Greg reid has come along and been rewarded with more PT.

Mickey really looks better today, seems happy.

Highlight Videos!

Clemson's Andre Branch Should Be Suspended For Cowardly Eye-Gouge

FSUncensored — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:12:56 -0000

Update: This has been picked up by Sports Illustrated, via Andy Staples, and The Sporting News, via Chris Littman

Here's the Clemson reaction, courtesy Shakin' The Southland

With all the attention given to the Brandon Spikes eye gouge incident last week against Georgia, why has this cheap shot not received any attention? Start to watch at the 0:04 mark, Andre Branch (#40) grabs #79 (David Spurlock) by the helmet, snaps his neck back, holds his head and sticks his fingers into Spurlock's facemask, an obvious eye gouge. Then Branch gets up, talks trash to the justifiably angry Spurlock, points to the sky, and dances around. Spurlock shows a ton of restraint by not going after Branch for this classless cheap shot.

If you are at work and can't watch video clips, here is a screenshot (click to enlarge):

The ACC should take action and suspend this "athlete." Someone is going to lose their sight as a result of these cowardly and completely non-football related acts. I wonder what Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney thinks of this? I wonder what the ACC office thinks about this?

Florida State Film Review: Seminole Offense @ North Carolina Tar Heel Defense

FSUncensored — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:22:20 -0000

More photos » by Gerry Broome - AP

2 months ago: Florida State's Rod Owens, left, and Beau Reliford celebrate Owens' touchdown against North Carolina during the second half of an NCAA college football game in Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. Florida State won 30-27. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Browse more photos »

Welcome to another edition of Florida State Film Review! For the 2nd week in a row, I'm not breaking down the defense on a play-by-play basis because they are so poorly coached I cannot discern what they are attempting to do from play to play. Maybe I'll look at the defense Tuesday, but it is my honest evaluation that this defense is one of the worst in the country, even when adjusting for competition level. Instead, let's discuss one of the top offenses in the country. Today we have 7 exciting film clips and some photos as well. Continue reading and check it out!

And of course, if you enjoyed this, spread it around to your friends! We recently hit One Million visitors, and pieces like this are a reason why. Our staff puts a lot of work into these, and all 'Nole fans should see them. So spread it around.

Let's review just how impressive FSU's victory was:

Florida State traveled to face off against one of the finest defenses and worst offenses in the country. North Carolina's defense came into the game ranked 10th, their offense 99th. FSU's offense entered the game ranked 8th, their defense 101st. Florida State knew coming into the game that reaching 24 points would be a huge accomplishment against the ferocious North Carolina defense that features multiple future early NFL draft picks. It would be up to FSU's defense to make UNC's horrible offense look, well, horrible. Of course, FSU's defense allowed UNC to roll up 17 1st half points and to score another TD on their first 2nd half drive. FSU was down 24-6 to one of college football's best defenses.

And while FSU was setting up plays for the 2nd half and feeling out what could work, FSU's horrific defense let UNC's pitiful offense run up and down the field.

Let's use a quick chart to put this in perspective. Just how good was FSU's performance? To find out, you must compare it to the other teams who played the Heels:

Team v. UNC's Defense -ranked 10th	at UCONN	ECU	at Gtech	UVA	Florida State
Rank of Offense	49	62	2	56	8
Plays	61	61	77	68	65
Yards Per Play Allowed	3.2	4	5.2	3.8	6.7
Rushes	31	28	65	37	23
Yards/ Rush Allowed	3.3	2.6	5	3.7	2.3
Passing Plays	30	33	12	31	41
Yards/ Pass Play Allowed	3.1	5.3	6.9	3.8	9.2

Yards-Per-Play is used because it is the best standard measure of defense. Total yards is moronic (please don't try to argue this, just use the search feature at right). It really isn't the fault of the defense if the offense allows the opponent to get 17 possessions or take the ball in UNC's red zone three times in a contest. How many snaps did you have, what did you do with them (or allow your opponent to do with theirs). Simple enough.
Sacks have been re-allocated to Passing plays (since they are the result of a failed passing play and not a run play)
Kneel-Downs are not included as they are not a competitive play.
Carolina's defense hasn't allowed anyone to gain more than 5.2 yards per play. FSU put up 6.7 yards per play. Doesn't seem like much? Think again. Florida State gained 30% more yards per play than anyone else had on the Tar Heel's defense. And they did it in North Carolina, on a Thursday night.
1st team to crack 410 yards against UNC’s defense (438), and did it IN NORTH CAROLINA. Georgia Tech had 406, but they did it in Atlanta, and did it on 85 plays. FSU did it on 15 fewer plays. That's about 20% fewer snaps for FSU, but a lot more yards and as shown above, a lot more yards per play.
1st team to put 30 points on UNC’s defense and did it IN NORTH CAROLINA.

So yes, on a Thursday night, Florida State went into the house of one of the best defenses in the country, got down by 18 points by allowing one of the worst offenses in the nation to set season-highs. Then with UNC knowing they would have to pass, they did just that. And did it again and again and again. Florida State obliterated the even the worst numbers that Carolina's stellar defense had allowed all season. The 'Noles put up 30% more yards per play than anyone else had against the Tar Heels, and they did it in Chapel Hill, on a Thursday Night. The credit goes to Jimbo Fisher's halftime adjustments and Christian Ponder's once again excellent play.

Seminoles vs Tar Heels boxscore (Note, this isn't adjusted for sacks of kneeldowns, etc)

What did we learn?

If you don't think FSU is one of the best 5 offenses in the country, you need to wake up. Think a bit smarter and realize the opponent quality when you look at the production. FSU didn't get cupcakes this year.

No offense has scored more points against Miami than FSU.
Florida State's 54 points against BYU is 20 more than the next closest effort by any other team against the Cougars.
Fisher's offense dropped 44 on Georgia Tech; no other team has even cracked 35 on the Jackets, and the one who cracked 30 was Mississippi State who did it in garbage time (31 points).
And you saw the figures from above. FSU put up 30% more yards per play than anyone else did against UNC. And of course they set new season highs for points allowed and yards allowed by UNC.

I'll give a brief overview of the drive and include clips or pictures where relevant.

Drive #1

McMahon continues to have high snaps. 1st play of game. Also, poor pitch relationship between givens and thomas on 2nd down reverse (loss of 10). 3rd and 18 bubble is safe. possible big play and no disaster

Drive #2

Motion Jermaine Thomas out wide is good, gives ponder coverage look, goes from I-form to basically 4 wide. UNC played the spread sets very very conservatively early, counting on their front-4. They had no idea how to react to Thomas motioning wide from I-form. Nice use of pistol formation, lots of things happening. Bubble look to strong, slant weakside w/ Thomas also releasing weak. Hard to align v. pistol.

Then FSU comes out in I-formation twins, carolina has 8 in the box, clearly cover-3 as fsu motions to the weakside. This is cool:

Run-action holds the linebackers, and Zebrie Sanders and David Spurlock slip out to block for Bert reed. This is an excellent use of personnel as FSU is a great screen team due to their athletic offensive linemen. Sander's doesn't nail his block, but this is a very good play to have in the repertoire and is an appropriate counter to teams running lots of cover-3 with 8 in the box against standard personnel. This is a play that fsu can hit for long yardage on 1st downs. Also, look for the Noles to run it to Datko/Hudson's side later.

The bubble screen that reed fumbled/ didn't catch was the correct read by ponder. Owens just missed his block. That's not a call, but rather a check by ponder. against teams playing very loose cover-3 with 8 in the box against twins, fsu will need to continue to throw these. it's simply a regulator.

Bert Reed had a false start which is just not acceptable. poor concentration by the wideouts in the 1st half. (missed block by Owens, false start, etc). And the drive stalls. Pretty good drive against UNC's D.

Drive # 3

(Ponder sacked & fumbled). Arm might have been going forward. Spurlock lunged, and Zebrie got beat to the inside. More on them later. Datko also allowed pressure there. Not a good play, but remember, UNC was going to get a few of those.

Drive #4:

Zone read, very well blocked by 4 of 5, but spurlock not a great cut and his man makes a phenomenal crawling play to trip up thomas. Play had nice potential. Oh and Thomas didn't run real hard on it. Loss of 1. Here's the photo:

The man circled in yellow crawls at light-speed and makes the tackle.

Then FSU hits a 60+ yard play that is called back for an illegal block. Middle screen picture:

Just a step beyond the line. play isn't a penalty if he is 18 inches back. Negates gain of 65 yards. The rule is clear, you cannot block downfield for a pass thrown beyond the line of scrimmage.

Drive # 5:

Pistol Thomas for 4, inside zone. 5 good blocks, held the backside. drew unc offisdes. picked up 2nd and 2 with a 3 yard outside zone run to the right. good blocks, some movement. bert reed good effort on block but tough to block a big backer. Nice protection on the 13 yard slant to Fortson who did a nice job to get the YAC. Option look from off-set pistol, Ponder gets 3 but doesn't pitch the ball like he should (this might be fake option). Fortson has a bad drop on a slant. FSU has to have that. He's open, he's a big body, and he must catch the damn football. drew them offsides again, so from 3rd and 7 to 3rd and 2. Ponder hesitated and didn't hit owens on the 3rd and 2 rollout, his scramble didn't get there. punt.

Drive # 6

Pistol, Bubble. Slightly late as Ponder couldn't grip the ball. Excellent throw and catch on a tight window slant to Owens who gets 8 more yards and gets out of bounds. Fake draw fake end around and toss it to givens for 2 or 3. Good play to show it and kep them honest. Then came a beautiful play: JIMBO FISHER SMASH CLIP.

This is known as the smash. The outside receiver runs a curl and the slot receiver runs a corner route. The QB reads the defender. If the defender plays the curl, the QB throws the Corner. If the defender plays off, the QB throws the Curl. It's quite the cat and mouse game between QB and cornerback, and Ponder plays to win. Beautiful ball and great job getting the foot down by Bert Reed.

So 1st and goal. Reliford misses his block on the qb wrap. in any case, Commack lined up incorrectly, so even if FSU had scored, he would have nullified it. Lack of attention to detail. Coaches were livid. On 2nd and goal, they had the delay. Why? Apparently Bobby didn't realize last year's clock rules, thought clock stopped after a penalty. It doesn't. Assistant coaches can't call timeout, only the head coach, and he was nowhere to be seen. The FSU played it safer and got the FG before half.

At the half, I did not think FSU's offense was getting owned. They were facing a very good defense that had made a few great plays and fsu's offense was just a hair off. the unperfect cut block, a high snap, a drop, a receiver running inside instead of out, etc. There was no absurd physical domination going on. For the most part, FSU had seen a lot of formations to stop the run and the deep ball, giving FSU the short stuff to the outside, which Ponder patiently took. Also, Fisher was setting up some stuff for later.

Florida State began to pound the flats. They got into the Pistol and ran the ball with their zone blocking schemes. They made UNC make tackles in space. They did everything to negate UNC's great size. Amazingly, they repeatedly ran 5-man protections (no tight ends or backs blocking) and did very well with it. The line beautifully handled UNC's defensive line in pass protection and gave Ponder the time he needed to through all of his reads.

Drive # 7

Start out with an inside zone to the weak side. Spurlock doesn't get his cutoff. Pryor runs hard for 1 or 2. Swing to Lonnie sets up 3rd and 3. Throw was low. On 3rd and 3, Thomas can't come up with a well placed throw to the outside, though it was a tough catch. Punt coming.

Drive # 8

Came out in 4-wide gun, protection was excellent, Carolina played soft coverage, easy 7 yards to Owens on a hitch. On 2nd and 5, FSU runs their staple, the Smash, and Ponder overthrows it. It was open, Easterling ran a good route. Maybe the only blatantly bad throw Ponder made. You can see Ponder tell Easterling "My Bad." On 3rd and 5 UNC drops 8 into coverage and Ponder hits Owens on a 7 yard hitch. Good patience, good route. No pass pressure from UNC at all on the drive so far. 1-10 and FSU went high-tempo, Outside Zone run to Thomas from the Pistol. NIce blocks from Hudson and McMahon. UNC's front is very good and to get a 10 yard run there was very good. Thomas seemed to run harder after midway through the 2nd. Beautiful flare throw to Thomas for 9. No pressure from UNC, and they are clearly worried about the deep outside now. The middle of the field will be open later in the game. Foreshadowing duh duh duh. On 2nd and 1, Datko gets beat inside and Thompson can't pick up the first down from the gun. Datko's excellent in pass protection but he sometimes struggles in run blocking. On 3rd and short, FSU doesn't screw around and they quickly sneak for the first. On the 1st, FSU is in the gun and there's a lot to see here. Let's go to the tape:

UNC switched into a 3 man line with 4 linebacker types. They zone blitz at the snap, sending 5 rushers and dropping 2 people into coverage, a linebacker and a lineman. FSU's motion is like their 2-back sweep, but UNC is in full-blitz mode and they do not care. Thomas gets an incredible block, but there's one too many to the right side with the overload. FSU's line is trying to shield left but the blitz is coming from the right. Ponder eludes the guy and throws to Fortson who has done a nice job of beating his man and coming back for the ball, but he drops it. That's his 2nd crucial drop this game. Remember too that he has the sloppy screen route leading to the penalty.

So 2nd and 10. Remember when I said the middle of the field would be open later because FSU had run the smash route so well? Yeah, that's now:

Ponder identifies the cover-2, you can see the checks he makes at the line. The 3 middle defenders drop into their zones, while the two safeties each play a deep half. The linebacker does a nice job to funnel Reed to the sideline, expecting the Smash route (Reed running the corner). But this is no corner route. Reed runs the square in, and Ponder rifles it. It's not a great throw, but considering the dropsies the wideouts have had, it was nice of Reed to catch this one. The window between the linebackers is open and you can see it. Also, the protection is great. Nobody near Ponder.

On the resulting 1st down, FSU expects the safety to cheat to the inside more, because of the previous play. And he's just not cheated enough. The ball is thrown a bit high and the coverage is good. Incomplete. On 2nd down, FSU runs the givens end around action, fakes it to Thomas, looks at Givens, but it's a screen! It gets 7 or 8 yards and I like the call. Thought Hudson released a bit early and was overanxious. You know he wants that cut on that corner again. On 3rd and 3, FSU calls the QB draw. The look is crucial:

Notice how the linebackers are peeling to defend the bubble screen to either side. Ponder gets an easy 10.

On 1st and goal, Easterling can't cleanly catch the bubble but does get 1 or 2 yards. The 2nd and goal is 5 wide double slants. Good routes and a good throw for the TD, 13-24.

Drive # 9:

98 yard TD to Owens. This is a hitch-n-go set up by the hitch after hitch FSU threw earlier. It was a 6 man protection, and UNC rushed with 5. Excellent protection and a nice throw from the end zone.

Drive # 10:

Ponder starts to abuse UNC. They tried to cover Bert Reed with a backup linebacker, and that's just not possible. Perfect pass pro. Fortson gets called for a hold on a bubble to Easterling (I think Easty is on his way back, by the way). Bad luck on a middle screen to Easterling as UNC twisted into it. On a 3rd and 7, Ponder hits Owens for a 15 yard post. No idea what coverage UNC was playing. I suspect that backup linebacker blew the coverage. Here you go:

On the next play, UNC is really desperate to make something happen. They are hyper-aggressive. FSU had done a good job running from the Pistol, and Fisher made a masterful call: Pistol play-action Owens Deep Out:

Watch how hard everyone from UNC pursues what they think is a run play. Ponder had his choice of 3 open receivers. The next play is a 9 yard inside zone out of the Pistol. McMahon does an okay job to hold his line. The Thompson runs again for 9, same play, just flipped. Pretty simple stuff.

On the next play, however, McMahon gets blown away and it leads to a 6 yard loss. Drive killer? Maybe.

So on 2nd and 13, Fisher dials up a GREAT play. Throwback tight end screen. FSU executes it perfectly, but Reliford forgets one thing- to use his blockers. He cuts outside and is impatient. Look at what could happen had he been patient:

Bert made a great catch to get FSU into better field goal range, and Hopkins hits it, 23-24.

Drive # 11:

Down, 27-23, Ponder hits Fortson on a deep skinny off a beautiful double release, off play-action. Then Ponder to Fortson on the auto-rollout w/ the off-sides for 10. Then the go-ahead TD:

Initially, I thought Reliford was Ponder's 4th read. In actuality, he seems to be his 2nd read. Ponder's pump fake makes 3 people cover Fortson on the skinny post and nobody is on Reliford for the wide open wheel route. This throw is more difficult than you probably realize. Ponder throws it from the opposite hash. Even though Reliford is essentially a basketball player, even he can catch this ball. The protection was very good as well. Kudos, offensive line.

Drive: # 12 let's close out the game.

Pistol Play-action bootleg to Reed for 4. UNC expected run. Corner remembered being burned by Owens before so he peeled off deep. Reed nice job to stay inbounds. Bubble to Owens for 5.5 Ponder sneak 1st down.

I-Formation, end around action to Chris Thompson for 1. Didn't like getting into the I-formation here. Not at all. One of the lone criticisms I have. Then FSU gets back in the run and runs a great play:

This is essentially play-action QB wrap. FSU is pulling the right tackle, #77 Zebrie Sanders. Ponder fakes the lead sweep, and is going to keep the ball. Excellent job by sanders to blast #52, who was certainly in the backfield much sooner than he expected. Excellent reaction. The rest is Ponder getting 6-7 yards to build momentum before getting the 1st down, which killed more clock.

Back in the I-formation, don't like it. Thompson for 3. FSU not a good I-formation team. 2nd and 7, qb draw for 2. 3rd and 5, QB draw from 5 wide. Eh. Punt, UNC has little time and they can't throw.

Overall Review

Ponder is simply amazing. I'll have an article on him tomorrow. The only QB who is on his level right now is Jimmy Claussen. Fisher called him the best QB in the country. Jake Locker has better physical talents but a ten-cent head right now. McCoy doesn't quite have the wheels or the arm and McCoy looks to the sidelines for his checks. Ponder calls his own game and checks. Tebow might be playing himself out of the draft. Mallet has the huge arm but not the accuracy or intelligence. And Bradford has a bum wing. Sam is brittle. Fisher gives him 3 plays and he checks the offense into the most favorable before the snap. That's a huge advantage. Few teams in college can do that. Ponder showed good arm strength and seems to be all the way back from his knee injury. His throws were on the money at a ridiculous clip. He took very few risks. Nary a ball was close to being intercepted.

It was a miraculous comeback for Florida State and the star was Christian Ponder. The Junior quarterback went 33-40 for 395 yards and 3 Touchdowns with zero interceptions. He was pinpoint and could have easily thrown for 450 yards had he not been victimized by 3 drops and an offensive pass interference call. Ponder might be the best quarterback in the country. You'd be hard-pressed to find one who is playing better. Considering the opponent and situation, Ponder's performance was one for the ages. He posted a QB rating of 190 (NFL equivalent of 133). Ponder finished the game 16-16 for 236 yards.

Jermaine Thomas should probably get the ball more. He has good hands and does a nice job running, but he and all of the backs must run harder. Still, Thomas never lost yards. Chris Thompson for the most part ran hard in the 2nd half. Both backs did a nice job in their blitz pickup. I am not impressed those two or Pryor when it comes to run blocking. I pretty much hate Pryor in the fullback spot. Fisher knows more than me, by a ton, but he needs to quit using Pryor at fullback. He's just not a good player at that spot.

Receivers Rod Owens and Bert Reed has big games. Owens with his 9 catch 199 yard night. Owens was targeted 10 times. He caught 9 balls. 8 of those were successes. 7 of the successes went for a 1st down or a touchdown. His catches were meaningful. Reed was targeted 10 times. He caught 8 balls. 5 of the 8 were not what I consider a "success", but some were tough yards. 3 were very successful. He also made some very tough catches. 74 yards total. Reed also had a false start! Easterling wasn't thrown to much, but he did draw coverage and did his job. His TD catch was nice, and he didn't flinch much knowing he could get hit big. Fortson showed his flashes of brilliance but balanced those with some untimely drops. He caught 4 balls for 56 yards. 3 of the catches were very big. But he was also called for a hold, dropped 2 balls, and his imprecise route on his middle screen was inexcusable. Fortson can be a huge weapon and is the most talented offensive player outside Ponder, but he is maddeningly inconsistent.

As for the offensive line. I thought they played well. Again, consider what they were asked to do and against whom they were asked to perform. UNC's front-7 is exceptional. Anyone watching them play could see that. On 42 passing plays, FSU allowed a sack on only 2. That's a stellar 4.8% sack rate allowed. FSU trailed for 55 of the 60 minutes in this game, and UNC knew they would pass and pass. That makes the line's play all the more impressive. Oh, and FSU often left no backs or tight ends in to protect. Left Tackle Andrew Datko is always technically sound and plays a good game. His pass protection was good. I bet he graded out highly. On the inside zone play to his side, Datko does a nice job of influencing his man and then removing him. He's not impressive physically and needs to be more aggressive, but there isn't a better true sophomore I've seen. Rodney Hudson is rock solid. I love to watch him play. He'll play a perfect game before all is over. Center Ryan McMahon played a much better game than I expected. His pass protection was good. Spurlock is aggressive as always. He mixes great blocks with whiffs. I give him high marks for his work against 1st round lock Marvin Austin. Zebrie continues to improve and you should remember he is a true sophomore. I wish I could give Sanders some of Spurlock's aggressiveness. Sanders must get better at cutting the backside on the run plays.

Processing the Results: Florida State's Offense v. USF's Defense

FSUncensored — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:30:26 -0000

More photos » by Phil Coale - AP

Florida State wide receiver Rod Owens, center, fumbles the ball as he is hit by South Florida's Jerome Murphy, left, during the fourth quarter of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, in Tallahassee, Fla. South Florida defensive end Craig Marshall, right, recovered the fumble. It was one of many errors FSU committed on offense. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)

Browse more photos »

NOTE: While I know that everyone expects a huge Bowden rant, you won't get that today. I've shared my concerns for over a year now and had done so long before I was blessed with this public forum from which I can share my views. I will give a quick synopsis, however. Bowden has crippled this program for almost a decade. His selfish actions have stifled every attempt FSU has made at progress. The university has placated him at every bogus request. Bowden doesn't care about FSU, but only about himself and his family. He doesn't care about making FSU great. I'm sort of numb to it now, but those inside the program who were once staunchly silent are finally fed up and are sharing what really goes on inside the program with people they'd formerly never even consider speaking. Bowden's house of cards could finally come crashing down if some things don't change. I have no idea why this loss was the one to push folks over the top. I wish they would have seen the light much earlier and it makes me really question how much some of the big players care about Bowden more than the football program until it became a completely untenable position to hold. They can, however, still cause the change this program has required for nine years. I really wish he would let Jimbo Fisher do his job because right now Bowden is interfering with playcalling and day to day operations much more than I realized. It's safe to say that everything Bowden does is counterproductive to the short and long-term health of the football program because it is taking away a decision making opportunity from someone who is actually informed enough to make a qualified decision. Florida State cannot be above "good" because they have no leadership structure. The best coaches on the staff are consistently overruled on important decisions by the absolute worst coaches who band together against the coaches who will actually be at Florida State when Bowden leaves. Florida State has the worst current head coach in the country, and they are paying him 2.5 Million dollars. And then he had the gall to laugh off the loss in the most embarrassing post-game press conference I have ever seen. Don't expect different results unless you have a reason behind the changed expectations.

I am calling this series "Processing the Results" because results are only repeatable if the process justifies them. The defensive review will be up later tonight.

	Good Process	Poor Process
Good Result	Result Justified, good indicator of future performance.	Team was lucky , future poor process unlikely to yield similar good results.
Bad Result	Team was unlucky, future good process unlikely to yield similar bad results.	Result Justified, good indicator of future performance.

So my goal in these will be to determine whether FSU's result justified their "process" (aka how they played). Anyone can just say "14 points, great defense", or "7 points, bad offense." They might be right, but I would like to make sure they are correct.

Let's start by pointing out something. The run game was bad, but it wasn't nearly as bad as some think it was. The box score says FSU had 27 runs for 19 yards. That is just not true. FSU had 22 runs for 63 yards. the box score didn't lie, but you have to know what to look for, and the discrepancy comes from sacks. Sacks are the result of a failed pass play. They aren't a run play and shouldn't be included in run plays when judging the efficacy of a rushing attack.

In the same vien, the passing game was not 25-37 for 269 yards, 7.3 per pass play. That's an incomplete picture. They really ran 42 pass plays for 224 yards, of 5.4 yards per play.

	Traditional Box Score	Smart Box Score
Rushing Plays	27	22
Rushing Yards	19 (0.7)	63 (2.9)
Pass Pays	37	42
Passing Yards	269 (7.2)	226 (5.4)

From here on out, I won't acknowledge people who continue to reference the run game as gaining 0.7 yards per carry. It's completely disingenuous after being presented with this information. I am not going to ban those who do, but if they cite that heavily flawed measure, I will ignore their argument.

Quarterback Play

I thought Christian Ponder played very well, given the circumstances, outside of the screen game (see below). His MCL injury was worse than anyone at FSU would publicly admit. The press-releases done by FSU sports information have been easily cracked. If the star QB isn't listed, he's injured and didn't practice. It happened last year and also the year before. Ponder did not practice Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, as I suspected. I have heard various reports on Ponder already this week. Some said he looked good in practice today and his knee is getting better, but there's also a nasty rumor that he injured his other knee Saturday and is considering season ending surgery. Keep in mind that I do not believe the second rumor, but is is absolutely something to keep an eye on.

Two of the plays Ponder made that impressed me most were actually not successful. The first was the 42 yard bomb he threw to Fortson while jumping and falling out of bounds. That's NFL arm strength, something he did not show last year. Unfortunately, a phantom holding call on Datko wiped it out. The other play was the long throw to Goodman that Rich dropped. Really nice escapability and again, he made a difficult contorted throw, on the money, with a bum knee. Goodman was initially interfered with but he absolutely must make that catch. It was a blown opportunity.

I discussed the screen game below, and thought the quick and screen game was the area of the passing game in which he showed his injury the most. He was excellent on his non-screen throws, however, and part of the screen stuff is clearly not on him.

When the protection was there, he was great. The screen game was not great, and FSU didn't block the quick game worth a damn, but man oh man was the dropback game good when the protection was there. I thought he threw some great balls into tight coverage. It's an encouraging sign that Ponder doesn't have to be super mobile to be a very good QB.

I can't put the fumble on him. It was a complete blown backside protection.

USF clearly didn't respect his ability to run. On the bootleg on the goal line, he had a walk-in touchdown. Normal Ponder runs that ball in and puts FSU up 7-0. Instead, he threw it to Reliford after hesitating and it was tipped away. I also thought you could see some evidence of the injury in the play-action fakes, which weren't nearly as crisp as normal.

I know that some believe the Offensive Line is only good with a mobile quarterback. I think it can help but that it is not a necessity. I did not like some of the choices to use the Pistol, which I believe only works with the QB as a backside run threat, and Ponder just did not pull it and run, so USF didn't respect it. He was used only only two designed run plays- an option keeper and a qb draw. They were both early and I think Fisher did them to make USF think about accounting for them.

Nice job staying patient against conservative zone coverage

Finding a way to attack cover-3. I have to give FSU props for having a consistent play they can go to against cover-3. It's the all-curl from the 2WR 2TE (balanced) alignment. Teams throw a lot of 8 in the box against that, which means FSU will probably see cover-3 much of the time, and they really do a nice job throwing the all-curl. FSU ran this play 6 or 7 times and every time Ponder delivered the ball on the money, as soon as the wideout turned around, and with quality velocity.

Screen and Quick Game Ineffective

FSU threw 13 screens and netted 52 yards. That's really poor- 4 yards per screen pass (pass, not completion). On non-screen passes, FSU gained 9.1 yards per pass (not completion, per pass). Considering that FSU ran only 64 plays, those 13 screens represent almost 20% of the plays called. I'm not saying not to run them, or to run them less, because FSU is typically a great screen team, but they did not run them well last game.

The timing was really off in the screen game. The offensive line did a poor job directing the defense where to go, Ponder was not accurate on the screens (very uncharacteristic, one of the reasons we knew he was off). In particular, he struggled throwing them to his right. That's something to watch for in the coming weeks. The backs and wideouts also did a poor job of giving it away too early.

FSU also struggled in the quick game, surrendering two crushing sacks and allowing Ponder to be hit three other times. I don't get this. USF's DLine played great, but seriously, FSU has to block that better. This has me baffled. The Noles are typically a great quick pass team.

Running Backs

Ty Jones didn't run well. Against BYU he had to bounce a lot of stuff because his read dictated he do so, but this week he seems to expect to bounce to the outside even when the play didn't call for it. Jones missed holes, was only so-so in pass pro, and wasn't the runner we've seen him be. I wonder if the other run schemes are messing him up (see below)? Honestly, he has to score on the 2nd down and goal play. It's right there for him. The bottom line is that Jones is not a dancer and if he pulls a repeat of Saturday, he will be benched.

Jermaine Thomas showed his old style on the 1st quarter run from shotgun with a little over 4 minutes to go. FSU needs to run the zone plays, as I discuss below. I expect him to get a lot more touches.

I was not impressed with Chris Thompson. He missed a hole on a big 3rd and 1 and doesn't understand the scheme yet, it appears. Great kid though and a true talent. The missed 3rd down didn't matter because of a penalty, but it definitely was discussed in film session.

Tavares Pressley didn't have the ball from Ponder on the handoff. Still, I believe he's not ready. It should be Jermaine and Jones, in some order, 90% of the time.

End the Lonnie Pryor Fullback Expiriment

This isn't working. The talent must be utilized better. Don't have a fullback? Run with Two tight ends. The Dallas Cowboys are leading the league in rushing and they rarely use a fullback. Lonnie runs hard. He's a great Seminole, a great kid, and a lifelong fan. But he is a terrible blocking fullback. Putting him in the backfield with a running back allowed USF to have a numerical advantage against run plays without devoting an extra man (I know that doesn't make any sense, but just think about what I am saying for a minute, and you'll get it). Might as well just play with 10 and not 11 guys. He doesn't block anyone. I understand that he isn't ready to play tailback because he's not yet cut out to be a zone runner, but the fullback stuff needs to stop.I don't know why FSU is playing Pryor at fullback. The two-tight end alignment with no full-back is much better and I am disappointed that FSU didn't use that more. It created some spacing issues for USF that the I-formation did not.

Called a bunch of run plays, but checked out of a bunch due to the look.

Wide Receivers

Definitely not their best week. 3 fumbles. Give USF some credit for hitting and hitting. Also USF got away with a lot of downfield contact, but these guys need to just play tougher as a unit. It was a better week with only one major drop, though it was very costly.

I expect Bert Reed to steal a lot of playing time from Rod Owens after this week. Owens did not run good routes like he typically does. Bert did. Bert sat down in zone coverage, caught everything Ponder threw at him, and made plays. Owens cost the team bit with a drop and of course the crippling fumble. Bert played his best game.

Taiwan Easterling did not have a good game either and his fumble simply can't happen. I was disappointed in Easterling and Owens, typically FSU's best route runners, for their lack of focus.

Jarmon Fortson and Richard Goodman had up and down days. Fortson had two nice runs and a beautiful TD catch called back. But we must remember that while fumbles aren't random, fumble recovery/loss is random. It is random. It is random. Not a repeatable skill or result. The only thing a player can control is if he fumbles, not what happens after he fumbles, so Fortson also falls into the group of fumblers. He gets no pass from me for having it fall out of bounds, though he did have it in the correct arm. Fortson also had a major mental lapse in the 3rd quarter and Fisher tore him up on the sidelines.

Goodman dropped a crucial touchdown pass but other than that played decently. I caught him running maybe 1 or 2 lazy routes, but for the most part he was very good.

Line Thoughts

I'm disappointed in them as a group. 5 sacks isn't acceptable, and there were two other plays where Ponder did a remarkable job to escape considering his condition. This was the worst pass protection I have seen in a long time. The run game was similarly disorganized. They really seemed to lack communication.

USF did a great job defeating cut blocks. These guys were really well coached, and are very talented. I have my doubts about other parts of USF's team, but their defensive line is very good. USF's coaches got the most out of their talent. They played in control for the most part.

USF didn't stunt and twist up front a ton, but when they did, FSU's offensive linemen looked clueless. That's the first time I've seen FSU not be able to handle stunts and twists completely. Sure, they were dominated on some other plays, but watching this tape is painful. Of particular concern was the right side, where Sanderson and Spurlock didn't seem to get it at all.

I want to give a lot of credit to #90 Pierre Paul who dominated Sanderson/Sanders and played the game of his life. He's a better player than Selvie. That's one of the better defensive lines in football and they really came to play. It was their super bowl. In the same vein, I wonder if FSU's offense is hurt because the defense they face in practice is so poor. One person I talked with said some of USF's backups would start over FSU's defensive linemen, and all of the starters would start over the Noles guys. If the starting team is that bad, the backups FSU's offensive line faces in practice probably isn't giving them anything approximating a realistic look.

I also heard that Trickett told reporters he messed up and didn't have his guys properly prepared. It was refreshing to hear a coach take responsibility for his actions. He also apparently said that he would have them really ready for Boston College.

Individual Line Performances

Inconsistent holding calls. Left Tackle Datko definitely held Selvie a few times, but I think the two he was flagged for were not worthy of a flag. He didn't play his best game. Selvie clearly has motivation issues and doesn't play hard every game, but he really brought it Saturday. I wonder if it was smart to schedule a talented but erratic team with inconsistent motivational issues, which would definitely get up for a huge game against the Noles?

Left Guard Hudson had a great day. They did a decent job of keeping McClain (best DT) away from him. He did blow the cut block on the first drive on 1st down after the Piurowski 1st down catch, and had a whiff on an outside run player later on, but he was our best offensive lineman (as usual). The Chop Block between him and Datko was really ticky-tack, but if you watch, FSU actually had a really egregious chop on the same play between Sanderson and Spurlock.

Center Ryan McMahon continues to be just okay. I'm not as high on him as most. He just isn't a good player. I don't like having to scheme around the center, but most teams regard their center as their weakest link.

Right Guard David Spurlock is strong and aggressive and sometimes out of control. Flat whiffed on some 2nd level blocks and they abused him with run blitzes.

Backup Right Tackle Rhonnie Sanderson played most of the game. I liked some of what I saw against him but USF's defensive end (not the All-American) had a field day with him in pass protection. He's a valuable asset as a backup to both the guard and tackle positions and could definitely be a really nice starter if someone went down to injury, but Zebrie Sanders is the better player. Unless Sanders was injured, I am disappointed in Trickett playing Sanderson. The miscommunication between Sophomore Spurlock and Freshman Sanderson definitely caused some trouble, in particular dealing with the twists and stunts. Still, Sanders had two crucial missed blocks. The one everyone will point to is on FSU's last play of the game. He absolutely has to get his cut block on USF's #94, and he didn't do it. There's simply no excuse. He just lunged. That's a designed quick pass and FSU is trading the possibility of a long play for what should be a guaranteed 2 1/2 seconds of pocket protection. It didn't happen and Ponder never had a chance. As I said above, USF did a great job having their guys ready for the cut blocks. Maybe they practiced this all the time they were playing the cupcake teams?

Why schedule this game?

As I wrote yesterday, FSU should have never scheduled this game and Athletic Director Randy Spetman should lose his job for setting up this ridiculous schedule. He is not qualified to be an athletic director at a football school, was a lap-dog hire by President T.K. Wetherell, and shouldn't have any long-term future here. This scheduling of west-coast teams also needs to end. If a west coast team wants to play FSU, fine, have them come here and do not reciprocate with a return trip. They'll still go for it. It's unrealistic to expect a football team to be up for every game of the season. It just doesn't happen at any school. Try to tell yourself different, but you are just wrong. The solution is to play enough games for a respectable schedule (UF, Miami every year, and at least 5 other bowl teams does the trick). The three other non-conference games must be guaranteed wins, because they reduce the chance for a team to have a loss in an expected letdown game. Scheduling games where FSU has to get up to win that they don't have to play should never be done. BYU should not have been done and USF definitely shouldn't have been done. Do what other schools do, play one solid out of conference game (UF, done), and then schedule to put yourself in the most advantageous position to win the ACC. It's foolishness. Again, I'd like anyone to show me how Randy Spetman is qualified to be AD. Dave Hart is light years better and is about to be handed the keys to Alabama. I'm really not happy that T.K. went on a wild goose chase to remove Hart and exposed an academic scandal that happens everywhere but would never be reported because no school (outside of FSU) would be dumb enough to report themselves or uncover the extra help.

USF did a great job bringing the run blitzes, particularly in short yardage. I think they picked up on a tendency of Jimbo that I might have missed: not much play-action on short yardage downs. Granted, I like running in short yardage, and hate when teams get cute, but play-action needs to happen once in a while (not against USF necessarily, but in previous games to at least show it). The bootleg would work very well there, though with Ponder's mobility, FSU probably didn't want to risk it.

Please stick with the zone blocking.

I don't know if this is all correct, but some things are bothering me here. I don't fully understand the blocking scheme now. Last year, FSU did a great job as a zone running scheme. It's Rick Trickett's forte. I wrote about this in the off-season. It's what the personnel is built to do. But right now I am not seeing it enough. It's not that enough run plays aren't being called. I'm told that they are in fact, but that Ponder checked out of them against certain looks, as he is supposed to do. No, I think the problem is that FSU isn't running a high enough percentage of their run plays as zone runs. FSU has great zone personnel and needs to do a better job staying comitted to it. I am seeing way too much non-zone stuff right now for my taste. Too many pulling guards (which USF exploited to perfection, by the way, sending run fit blitzes and some twists at really opportune times, shutting down FSU in short yardage almost completely). I particularly don't like the the off-tackle stuff with the pulling guard. It's not that it is a bad play. It's that it takes away the opportunity to run a better play (either inside or outside zone). And of course, if FSU is running that in a game, they are having to use practice time on it, which isn't what I think they should be doing. It means the backs get less opportunities to run in the zone scheme. I noted above that Ty Jones played a bad game, and I have to wonder if they are putting too much on his plate, or any of the backs. Stick with the inside and outside zone plays. Running the toss play once in a while (stuffed every time this year, as FSU doesn't run it very well) is okay, but the primary runs need to be inside and outside zone. I wonder if Fisher is trying to get away from this and get back to more of what he did at LSU. His schemes are solid, but sticking with the zone runs and ditching the other stuff is the right call here in my opinion due to personnel and proven success (last year, best rushing attack in the ACC). Or could it be that Coach Bowden is calling for these out of sequence plays?? (wink). Any time FSU runs a non inside-outside zone play, and run some other inside run play, is a lost opportunity to run the best play.

This was a particular problem down on the goal line sequence. I was totally fine with the first play. Ponder needs to just run the ball in. He walks in on the bootleg with Hudson out there blocking. Instead he was tentative and threw a pass that was batted away. But the 2nd and 4th down plays really annoyed me. Stop all the pulling guard nonsense and stick with what you do well. Instead, FSU pulls guards on both plays and doesn't score. Also, on the 2nd play, Lonnie Pryor shows why he isn't a fullback. I absolutely hated the fullback dive call and think it could have been Bowden interfering with Fisher again.

On FSU's 4th drive of the game (towards end of 2nd quarter), they ran the nice lead zone sweep from two-back shotgun, for 15 and 6 yards, both on 1st down.

I happen to think Fisher is an excellent coach, but I think he will make a much better head coach than an offensive coordinator. Everyone I know who has spoken to or worked with Tight Ends Coach James Coley has been blown away by his football acumen. He'll be the offensive coordinator under Jimbo when Fisher takes the head coaching position, and I think he'll be an upgrade over Fisher, who I think is very good. I just wish he would streamline the run game a bit, though i have my suspicions that coach Bowden is meddling here and demanding some of the toss plays and pulling guard plays. Information from those dissatisfied within the program is starting to flood out. There's no longer a trickle. People are angry that Coach Bowden is tarnishing their future and they are fed up. I expect more and more dirt to come out on Bowden in the coming weeks.

Unacceptable Risk Evaluation (much too conservative)

Finally, FSU needed to go for the 4th and 1 from the 43. Punting, no matter the resulting defensive series, is the incorrect move and I know that some inside the program are extremely unhappy with the call. That's a call made by the head man that directly hurts FSU's chances of winning. Going for it on 4th and goal from the 2 is also the right call, because of the expected points gained from the resulting poor field position for the offense (didn't happen, defense allowed 99 yard drive). On the 4th and 1 from the 43 FSU must trust the common sense approach and go.

Overall

Overall, I would give the offensive process about a C-, which is unacceptable, but the point total doesn't totally reflect how FSU's offense played. FSU's offensive players are generally well coached. They are put in position to make plays. While I've seen Fisher call a much better game, I am told that Bowden had his fingerprints all over this one, and some people with tickets right behind the bench say the offensive staff was visibly upset several times aftet Bowden tried to meddle in the offense. It's not acceptable for someone who is not involved in gameplanning or actual coaching to make the important decisions and then interject himself into playcalling. Between Bowden and the fumbles, there was no shot for any sort of rhythm. 7 points is not acceptable. I think Fisher is a very good OC. He's not the flat out best, but FSU needs to live with very good for another year as Fisher has the qualities of a great head coach in my opinion and he brings in great assistants.

Florida State's Offensive Line Powers Upset of #7 BYU Cougars

FSUncensored — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:09:18 -0000

Florida State's Offensive Line Coach Rick Trickett is considered one of the finest coaches in the country at any position.

View full size photo »

Going into their game against the 7th ranked BYU cougars, Florida State had many doubters. Most national pundits predicted that FSU would lose by a minimum of two touchdowns. Outside of the Nole's questionable defense, they also faced doubts about their offensive line. Thought of as the best in the ACC and one of the best in the country headed into the season, the Noles OLine didn't dominate Miami in the run game, though they did pass protect very well, allowing only 2 sacks on 43 pass plays. Against Jacksonville State, they struggled, like the rest of the Nole team did off of only two days of practice and the Miami loss still lingering. Writers wondered where the Seminole's vaunted run game had gone? Coming into BYU, few thought the Noles would remedy their run game problems, particularly because the Cougar defense had been so dominant, or so they seemed.

Last week I broke down the BYU-Oklahoma film and thought that it wasn't that BYU's defense was so amazing, but that Oklahoma beat themselves with repeated dumb penalties and a silly gameplan. Check the link, I called it. People often underestimate the importance of offensive line play and thus fail to account for it when evaluating a team. But offensive line play can make an average running back look like a world-beater, or make a talented quarterback look below average. OU's offensive line was the country's finest last year, but this year, replacing 4 starters, and having to move a tight end to center after an injury, they cost Oklahoma the game against BYU with 10 offensive penalties including 5+ false starts. I profiled it in that article, but if FSU was to beat BYU, they would have to avoid 3rd and long situations and silly offensive penalties, because BYU plays great team defense but they struggle when having to defend both the run and the pass because of their lack of athleticism.

But FSU Offensive Coordinator/ Head Coach in Waiting Jimbo Fisher said that he was was not worried about the run game or the offensive line. Florida State's legendary Offensive Line Coach Rick Trickett guaranteed that his unit would get things worked out. He unilaterally denied all interview requests for his linemen, stating that they were going to "stop talking and start blocking."

Florida State's offensive line could not have performed better. Their play was the antithesis of Oklahoma's offensive line. Not only did the Nole's offensive front not lose the game for Florida State, they absolutely won it. While OU committed 10 offensive penalties, the Noles had only 1 enforced against their starters (FSU pulled their first team offense once the score got to 54-21. At the time they were pulled, FSU starters were gaining 7.2 yards per snap of the football). BYU was shellshocked. "We didn't think they would be so physical," said BYU Coach Bronco Mendenhall. It started from the opening play. FSU would not punt until the end of the 3rd quarter, with the game already well in hand. The Noles marched for touchdown drives of 60, 70, 80, 82, and 86 yards the first three quarters. FSU dominated BYU. Everyone wants to assume that FSU's speed made the difference, but the Nole's offensive line was much, much stronger than BYU's defensive front. BYU's linebackers could not get off the blocks of FSU's offensive line. Florida State's likely All-America guard Rodney Hudson took home ACC offensive lineman of the week honors.

After the jump, see just how dominant they were.

The Noles run game was excellent. The offensive line did not allow a tackle for loss (though one did come on a reverse where an FSU wideout made an ill-advised juke by the sideline.) It started on 1st down. The Noles had 21 1st down runs. The results were as follows: 12, 12, 9, 9 (touchdown), 6, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 (touchdown). Florida State did not have any runs stopped for no gain or loss. Zero. They also dominated short yardage. On 2nd and 3 or less, FSU ran every time and picked up the first down, every time: Down-Distance (Gained) 2-2 (6), 2-1 (4), 2-2 (4), 2-1 (4). Third down was the same story, 3-1 (6), 3-1 (4), 3-1 (2). The announcers were stunned, calling the offensive line "velcro" because BYU's defensive linemen and linebackers could not shed the blocks. Want another crazy nugget? BYU's leading tacklers were their cornerbacks, who had 10 and 11 respectively. BYU's cornerbacks had more tackles than the defensive line and linebackers combined, mostly because Florida State's line denied them any penetration and consistently put them on their backs.

"We showed great efficiency on a down to down basis. Constantly stayed ahead of the sticks. Were always in manageable downs, we executed with great consistency, we were very physical up front, were very multiple, distributed the ball a bunch (8 different Seminoles carried the ball), we won 1st down consistently," said Florida State Offensive Coordinator and Head Coach in Waiting Jimbo Fisher, who coached the Noles to the ACC's top offense last season and won the ACC Offensive Coordinator of the Year award. Florida State held the ball for 40 minutes, compared to just 20 for BYU.

It wasn't just the run game. Christian Ponder was an incredible 21-26 passing for 195 yards, 2 TD's and no interceptions. His quarterback rating was a preposterous 170. But the credit also needs to go to the offensive line. Ponder was not sacked. He was hurried only twice, and was hit only three times. Florida State had an incredible 30 1st downs. They started out a perfect 10-for-10 on third downs, and the starters were 11-of-13 overall. Ponder had time to go through all of his reads. When BYU blitzed, FSU picked it up and FSU isolated the single coverage. When BYU played a conservative zone, Ponder sat back and read all five players in the pattern.

Perhaps the best way to judge their performance is to ask BYU's coach, Bronco Mendenhall:

"I thought they played hard, I thought they played physical and I thought they sustained it from beginning to end. I was very impressed with their preparation. A frustrating loss for our football program. Our inability to make critical stops on third down, due to the way Florida State was playing. They won the physical matchup in terms of being able to run the football, and run it effectively from the beginning of the night through the end of the night. I thought those factors were the biggest difference in the game -- prohibiting our offfense from having enough snaps and being on the field frequently enough to give us the balance we were hopeful for. Florida State played more physical tonight. I think they played with more hunger, meaning more desire. Many plays were stopped at the point of attack, but I think hey continued to play longer and harder than we played.

I was impressed through the week with their line's athleticism. I was impressed today that they were more physical than I anticipated. They were very athletic in the first two football games in terms of getting downfield on their screen passes, and cutting. Their size is more like defensive linemen, as you watch them. So they are very athletic. I didn't think they would be able to move us off the line of scrimmage. And not only did they do that, they did it consistently, beginning to end. And that was the biggest surprise to me of the game. And I have to give them credit."

[On the difference between FSU and BYU's front, and why Bronco expected to have success against FSU]: "Because I believe Oklahoma's offensive line was a very good front, and I think that we were capable of more. Yet, they, from beginning to end, ran the football and it wasn't a lot of elaborate schemes. It was basically zone blocking which was their men against our men."

[On Halftime Adjustments]: "Really, when it comes down to the adjustments made -- and this will sound maybe less than what you hoped to hear, it really comes down to gap integrity, and each player doing exactly what they are supposed to do. And when you run zone schemes, someone is losing at the point of attack, or someone is getting cut off, and losing their gap. And that is where seams develop."

"Basically, man for man, Florida State's run offense was better than our run defense this evening. And when you start taking chances and bringing pressure -- and we brought more today than probably in any of the previous two games, maybe all of last year, in trying to help them make plays, but even then Florida State handled that well. Everything we had planned and prepared, we used. And none of which was very effective. Our zone pressures weren't working in terms of getting to the quarterback. We had some man pressures that also weren't effective. And base zone and even dropping eight [wasn't effective]. So execution ultimately was their execution was better than ours."

While All-America Candidate Left Guard Rodney Hudson took home ACC Offensive Lineman of the week honors, other starters played at an extremely high level as well. Left Tackle Andrew Datko is following up his Freshman All-America campaign with a great outing, dominating the Mountain West Conferences's All-Time Sack Leader Jan Jorgensen. Center Ryan McMahon improved his performance immensely from the Miami game and importantly, kept the line abreast of the various blitzes BYU was running from their uncommon 3-4 alignment. Right Guard David Spurlock and Right Tackle Zebrie Sanders both played extremely physical and did a great job maintaining their blocks, allowing the runner to find the hole.

It seems obvious now that the running game wasn't dominant against Miami because Miami schemed to take away the run and allow the pass, if Ponder could throw it, because FSU couldn't throw well last season, and because Miami has an excellent defensive tackle tandem which played well against Rodney Hudson while Hudson had an injured foot. But Ponder showed FSU can and will throw the ball, and now that teams have to respect both the run and the pass, they are in a bind. Florida State is averaging more than 450 yards against ranked teams. No school is averaging more (minimum 2 games). Starting last season when they were the youngest offensive line in the country with three true freshmen and two sophomores as part of FSU's Undercover Youth Movement, this unit has steadily improved. If a team is going to stop FSU's run game, they better have an elite level front-7, of which are only found at Clemson, UNC, and UF, on FSU's schedule, or they are just going to have to gamble and risk being shredded by the pass. With no Seniors and everyone expected to return in 2010, this offensive line has a serious chance to be the clear cut top unit in the country next season. The offense could follow a similar path. While It's not yet the best in the country, it should be the ACC's best again this season and has a real chance to be the best in the country in 2010.

Florida State Prepares for Miami and Releases Depth Chart -Fixed and Updated!

FSUncensored — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:55:50 -0000

First up, I did Bud Elliott Tomahawk Nation Fox Sports Radio the other day. [That's an audio link, and it is safe for work]. It went pretty well, though I meant to say Christian Ponder averaged 4 first downs per game, not 4 total first downs gained on the year, obviously.

The good news coming out of Saturday's scrimmage is that there are no new injuries. DT's Budd Thacker (toe) and Kendrick Stewart (knee) were held out for precautionary reasons, as was freshman DE/DT DeMonte McAlllister. I expect Stewart to play against Miami and Thacker should be back in time, but that is not a definite.

Mickey Andrews indicated that backup Free Safety Terrance Parks will be out for at least two more weeks with a lingering hamstring injury. Jamey Robinson really needs to stay healthy.

Oh, and the big news was that the coaches finally released a depth chart (practices are closed, so nobody could officially know what was going on, though there are obviously leaks). Inside, we discuss the depth chart

This is not final and will almost certainly change.

First up, is the Seminoles top rated ACC offense of a year ago:

Z WR – Richard Goodman, Sr., 6-0/215
Jarmon Fortson, Soph., 6-3/228

LT – Andrew Datko, Soph., 6-6/291
Rhonne Sanderson, Fr., 6-4/288

LG – Rodney Hudson, Jr., 6-2/292
Blake Snider, Fr., 6-4/282

C – Ryan McMahon, Jr., 6-3/286
A.J. Ganguzza, Soph., 6-3/268

RG – David Spurlock, Soph., 6-5/288
Brandon Davis, Jr., 6-2/281

RT – Zebrie Sanders, Soph., 6-5/290
Garrett Faircloth, Fr., 6-6/288

TE – Caz Piurowski, Sr., 6-7/262
Beau Reliford, Soph., 6-7/241

QB – Christian Ponder, Jr., 6-3/222
E.J. Manuel, Fr., 6-4/223

FB – Ja’Baris Little, Soph., 6-4/226
Daniel Gard, Jr., 5-10/212

TB – Jermaine Thomas, Soph., 6-1/195
Ty Jones, Soph., 5-11/208
or Chris Thompson, Fr., 5-8/173

X WR – Rod Owens, Sr., 6-0/183
Bert Reed, Soph., 5-11/165

Incorrect player weights. For instance, we know Ponder is 222 and Caz is 260, and Fortson is probably closer to 230 than 223. Datko is 290, not 283. So yeah, these are the weights from the Spring. Nice of FSU to update them for us (sarcasm). I updated them were applicable.
You'll note that FSU lists a fullback. I find that curious and continue to believe that they will use that "fullback" as an H-back.
Seniors at wideout. Goodman and Owens have set the tone witht he most consistent camp, running the correct routes, catching balls, etc, so they will start. This coaching staff (unlike the defense) will start the best player regardless of senority, so I trust them.
Tavares Pressley isn't healthy, and as we told you time and again, don't expect performance out of a runner coming off that type of injury in his first season back.
Chris Thompson was so electric in his performance during camp before busting his ankle that he is tied for 2nd on the DC. Pryor should redshirt but will likely get some garbage minutes. All of the backs need to fix their pass protection issues.
The loser of the Spurlock/ Davis battle will be the backup at both guard positions.
Sanderson is the real backup at both tackle positions.

Jimbo Fisher notes that his offense only has three scholarship seniors, starting or otherwise. (and all three are easily replaced after this season). If the offense was the conference's best last year, what can we expect this year and in 2010? We've been pointing out thr youth of this team for month, but when Fisher says it, it resonates with you so we link it.

What might we do with our H-Back? Michigan is doing this:

To counter that "scrape" technique (see article below defense depth chart)

The Wolverines have practiced with a tight end (typically Kevin Koger or Martell Webb) lined up in the backfield as an H-back to the playside. When the team runs the zone-read play, the H-back pulls across, but doesn't block the crashing defensive end. He'll take the linebacker scraping over the top, or if there isn't a defender assigned to the QB keep, he'll work upfield to the next defender.

I imagine this scheme only works really well when the defense is trying to run this scrape technique, and will primarily be used only when the offensive coaching staff expects it from the defense. H/t- Tim

Ponder says he is getting better protection this year, and that's allowed him to post a perfect QB rating:

Ponder appears to be displaying that ability in preseason practice. In FSU's first two full scrimmages, working against the second-team defense, he passed for a combined 520 yards on 27-of-36 passing. He threw seven touchdown passes with no interceptions.

``Obviously, it all starts with them,'' Ponder said of the offensive linemen. ``If they didn't give me time, those deep balls wouldn't be completed. They're doing a good job.''When he drops back from center, the junior quarterback said he no longer feels the need to peek over his shoulder to see if he is the target of an approaching pass-rusher. He simply makes his reads, plants his feet, steps forward in the pocket and delivers his throws.

``That blind side is hard to deal with,'' Ponder said. ``When you have a left tackle and a left guard like Rodney and Datko, it makes things a lot better. It gives me more comfort in setting my feet, and that's something I struggled with last year. Now I can sit in the pocket and stay comfortable. I'm not running a lot like I did last year. I'm staying in there.''

Ponder Speaks:

-not looking to run as much as he did last year. He’d like to protect his body. But, he said, if he has to run he will run. He is looking to stay in the pocket longer.

-Ponder isn’t a yeller – "I don’t feel like I have to raise my voice," he says – but says he has gotten on some of his teammates this preseason. That’s a sign of him developing as a leader.

He's very confident against Miami.

Carter on Fisher on FSU

-though Ponder is likely to spend more time in the pocket, Fisher says he doesn’t want to eliminate Ponder’s ability to run.

-the pass blocking has come a good ways, Fisher said, but it also helps that receivers are doing a better job running the correct routes.

-It’s "wait and see" to see if E.J. Manuel will be used in some sort of creative way, or if he’ll be a more traditional back-up. They have a package in place for Manuel, but Fisher said he’s going to wait and see how things go in practice this week.

-going back to the Miami game last year, Fisher said that game helped show him that Ponder is a winner. Remember that fourth-quarter scramble for a first down? Ponder can process information and he’s conscientious, Fisher said. He cares.

DEFENSE

If you're in the "the defense will be fine crowd", I suggest you take another look.

LE – Craig Yarborough, Sr., 6-2/236
Toshmon Stevens, Fr., 6-5/228

DT – Moses McCray, Soph., 6-2/291
Everett Dawkins, So, 6-2/262

NT – Kendrick Stewart, Sr., 6-2/278
Jacobbi McDaniel, Fr., 6-0/288

RE – Markus White, Jr., 6-4/261
Brandon Jenkins, Fr., 6-2/240

SLB – Dekoda Watson, Sr., 6-2/228
Nigel Carr, Soph., 6-3/230

MLB – Kendall Smith, Jr., 6-1/224
Nigel Carr, Soph., 6-3/230*

WLB – Nigel Bradham, Soph., 6-2/235
Maurice Harris, Soph., 6-0/212

CB – Ochuko Jenije, Jr., 5-10/188
Dionte Allen, Soph., 5-11/172

CB – Patrick Robinson, Sr., 5-11/194
A.J. Alexander, Fr., 5-11/180

FS – Jamie Robinson, Sr., 6-2/188
Justin Bright, Fr., 6-0/180
or Chad Colley, Soph., 5-11/166

RV – Korey Mangum, Sr., 6-0/202
Nick Moody, Fr., 6-2/228

The starters are okay for the most part, but the backups are terrible, and this defense could easily be crippled by a single injury to a defensive lineman or a linebacker. There are many problems with this defense, including hiring cronies instead of the best possible coaches, lack of recruiting and a recruiting plan in 2006 and 2007, an outdated scheme, stressing aggression over discipline, blaming the players instead of the coaches, and the battle between Andrews in the program (should be in youth movement but he's trying to win now, because it is his last season before he goes to raise his son's kids, etc).
Jodey Allen is a horrible defensive ends coach. He can't hold Jim Gladden's jock. For him to be giving snaps to Yarborough, even for motivational purposes, is inexcuseable. Allen never played or coached defensive ends before being gifted the job by Bowden. It has not worked out well as they continue to be incredibly undersized and undisciplined.
The Yarborough pick is annoying. I was asked about starting a walk-on defensive end a few days ago, this was my response:
Senior walkon. This Senority above all other stuff at the expense of talent angers me. Jody Allen is a terrible coach who will not be around much longer. Seriously the worst coach, but not the lightning rod Amato is. Oh and he coordinates our putrid coverage units as well. Prepare for a year of bad defense. I won’t sugarcoat it. Bad coaching from coaches who no longer have or never had the ability or the drive. I expect to be a bottom half defense in the ACC and outside the top 40 for the first time in my lifetime. Prepare for the worst Mickey Andrews Defense ever. It could happen. They will blame it on injury but their poor player evaluation and recruiting have created a situation where any injury is crippling. The key to a great defense is quality depth, and FSU doesn't have any depth, much less quality depth. I'm not hoping for good, I am hoping to skirt disaster.
Yes, I understand that this could be motivational in order to light a fire under Senior Kevin McNiel, who showed up to camp out of shape. I buy it to an extent, but not fully, because Yarborough has been getting significant reps in practice. If he plays, FSU is in trouble, because they will once against get run over as teams realize the 'Noles are entirely too small.
The depth along the defensive line is inexcuseable. This is a result of injuries, but moreso, poor recruiting by the lame duck defensive staff. They slacked in 2006 and 2007 and as a result, they have crippled this team's depth. FSU is now depending on a freshman and sophomore defensive tackle tandem to start and play well. While talented, it's likely they will get worked in some games.
I replaced Recardo Wright with Nigel Carr. No way would Recardo Wright get into the game over him as the backup middle linebacker.
Don't worry about Jenijie. He played well last year. Greg Reid will start at Nickel corner (effectively, is FSU's 3rd corner). If Jenijie or Robinson go down, Reid slides in.
I do worry about Mangum at rover, a lot. The problem here, however, is that nobody even came close to outplaying him. You can't start a freshman over a senior when the freshman hasn't given you any readon to do so, right? Mostly because of injuries and inexperience, guys like Harley and Moody never put it all together this fall camp. Mangum isn't big, but he has good tackling technique and could be serviceable, though he will not be Myron Rolle.
The entire secondary will receive a lot of blame for things that aren't their fault this year as Andrews' silly outdated scheme continues to put way too much pressure on them.

Mickey Andrews says his defense is young: In this article, Andrews tells Steve Ellis that 13 of the top 22 will be freshmen or sophomores. However, when you count it up, it looks like 12. In any case, his defense was very veteran last season and didn't live up to expectations. Andrews is no longer a good teacher and seeing as this will be his last year, it will be very interesting to see if he can field a competent defense with this group. The blame for the youthful nature of the defense falls on Andrews' 2006 and 2007 recruiting failures, because he is the defensive coordinator.

Here is a good article on defending the zone read- something Mickey Andrews and his staff have not been able to deal with at all (7 yards per play allowed).

Mickey's press-conference wrap up

-Team is super young and fast but not strong or disciplined. Fastest ever. Super fast.

-Andrews said the problems in covering the tight ends in recent years – Miami took advantage of this last season – was a lack of discipline.

-Greg Reid will start in the Seminoles’ nickel package. FSU has four freshmen, Reid included, who could see time in the secondary. Reid is probably the furthest along, Andrews said. Andrews: "Greg knows how to finish plays."

I am impressed by the progress of the young guys, but they have to progress because there are no upperclassmen.

SPECIALISTS
PK – Dustin Hopkins, Fr., 6-2/174
James Esco, Soph., 6-3/207

KO – Dustin Hopkins, Fr., 6-2/174

P – Shaun Powell, Soph., 6-5/217
Kevin Campbell, Jr., 6-0/190

DS – Zack Aronson, Sr., 6-2/218
Chris Revell, Fr., 6-0/207

HO – Shaun Powell, Soph., 6-5/217

PR – Bert Reed, Soph., 5-11/165
or Greg Reid, Fr., 5-9/175

KR – Patrick Robinson, Sr., 5-11/194
Taiwan Easterling, Soph., 5-11/187

It's absolutely ridiculous for Patrick Robinson, the top cornerback in the nation, the best football player on the team, and the most important player on defense, to be risking injury by returning kicks. Again, Jodey Allen should not have a job in major college football, and definitely not with the 'Noles.
The punt return unit could be particularly nasty.
The total lack of depth at linebacker will hur the 'Noles coverage units, which were alreay awful last year (68th nationally!). Thanks again, defensive coaches.

Odds and Ends

Another article on why going for 4th down makes so much more sense than punting.

Florida State ended last year with the 2nd-most offensive momentum in the country. That's a good sign, and really, really shows you how good BC and UF were on defense. Everyone played terribly against those two.

Florida State Coaches Continue to Push the Seminole Offense

FSUncensored — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:52:56 -0000

More photos » by Phil Coale - AP

Florida State University assistant head football coach Jimbo Fisher continues to push his offense towards perfection. Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)

Browse more photos »

We haven't done a practice update piece in a while, so I figured with 12 days until the battle with the scUMbags from Miami, we should update. Now, we don't watch practice, so all of our information is second hand, and no, we won't reveal all of our sources.

Make sure to check our FrankDNole's excellent series on the Miam-FSU rivalry.

Reading the Andrew Carter and Steve Ellis stories, and talking with others, it seems the coaches went out of their way to call out the offense after yesterday's practice. I'm not buying it. The offense has routinely worked the defense, both in practice, situational, and scrimmage settings. Let's take a look at what they told Carter:

-On offense, lining properly is still a concern for the coaching staff. There have apparently been a number of issues with personnel being in the right spots at the right time. A little disconcerting, given the start of the season is less than two weeks away. Andrew Carter- Orlando Sentinel

And Ellis' article talks about the offense not lining up correctly. FSU can't practice more than the NCAA mandate, but they damn sure can tell their kids to study their film and playbooks more. There's also some give and take here. You can't have all positive press or all negative press. Coaches are master motivators (or they try to be) and when you have one unit that is more talented, better coached, and just all around better, you have to find a way to keep them motivated. If it's not showing them how a defense beat them in practice (which isn't happening often), it's through use of the media. On the same token, coaches know what the defense is doing, but they are smart to alternate positive and negative press.

I have no concerns about lining up correctly. FSU is pretty much done with serious contact in practice and they have plenty of time to work on the finer points of alignment. This is something you know if you played football. In fact, I find it encouraging that the coaches are harping on alignment for the offense. It tells me there aren't serious other concerns. Sure, each unit has some question marks, but they aren't glaring. On the other hand, espousing concerns about the defense to the media might not do much to help them. They see in the film room how the offense is routinely ripping off 25yard+ plays.

But Fisher knows this offense has a lot of potential and once they reach a certain plateau, he has to point out the new goal and push them toward that new height. Part of that is mastering the expanded playbook, but a lof of this are these young players not realizing how good they can really be.

-Talked with offensive line coach Rick Trickett briefly after practice and he said the right side of his line is still undecided. There are some good position battles going on there for first-team spots. Zebrie Sanders is likely to win the job at right tackle, but he is getting challenged by Rhonne Sanderson. At right guard, Brandon Davis is challenging incumbent David Spurlock, Trickett said. Andrew Carter- Orlando Sentinel

Ditto Trickett. This David Spurlock v. Brandon Davis battle is real. Davis made good progress over the summer. When I first heard about that, I dismissed it, but Spurlock did have his arm surgery and Davis probably passed him for a time this summer. While I do think Spurlock has the higher ceiling, this is about who starts for the Miami game and for that game, ceiling be damned. Play the best current player (the same applies to the Greg Reid debate). I believe this Andrew Datko stuff to be just a motivational ploy. Rhonne Sanderson has a chance to be a good college player, but unless Datko has an injury I am not aware of, Datko will start at Left Tackle.

I wanted to comment on another excellent Andrew Carter article. Read it. We've been pretty steadfast in our contention that last year's passing game problems were mostly on the offensive line's inability to pass protect, and not Christian Ponder. While some will argue that it's easier to throw in a non-contact jersey in practice, I'll argue the opposite- if the QB is at all touched, the play is dead. How often is a QB brushed in the pocket in a real game before making a great play by stepping up and firing? Particularly a mobile QB like ponder. As AC says, the pass protection has improved, Ponder has time to throw, and the offense is making big big plays. Our 1st team passing game numbers have been insane, something along the lines of 70% completions, almost 18 yards per completion, and a near perfect QB rating, with no interceptions.

And Carter rightfully hypes the wide receivers, because they have had a lot of poor press over the past year. The most encouraging thing for me is the emergence (re-emergence?) of slot wideout (the Y) Rod Owens, who now gives another option than Taiwan Easterling, and Senior Richard Goodman, who has big play potential and has the demeanor of a grown man.

As for the defense, it is more talented this year than last, but I still have my concerns. They were destroyed in the 1st scrimmage, and in the 2nd scrimmage, the headlines read that they improved, but my take on them is that they did well on the goal line (4 plays out of 60), and they crowded the box to stop the run game, which they did, but they gave up 3 or 4 scoring strikes of 35+ yards! Stopping the run is obviously essential, and FSU's offense should again be the best in the ACC so their competition is pretty good here, but overall I think the secondary will take an inordinate amount of blame for some failures that are a result of being put in a poor situation. What situation? The defensive line and linebackers can't stop the run without significant help from the safeties, and when safeties are playing run only, the cornerbacks are hung out to dry. Failure by cornerbacks in this situation against modern passing games should be expected, unless the offense is vastly inferior to the defense. But there is some encouraging news here as well, as the defensive tackle play is better this year than last, some crucial defensive backs are now back from injury, and most teams don't have a run game like FSU. I'm just saying to temper your enthusiasm and read the reports for what they say and what they don't say. I don't buy that the defense played well because they had a few tackles for loss as a result of blitzing their head off and a few sacks (which could be touching the QB with one hand due to the non-contact jersey), when then a few paragraphs later that the offense averaged 10 yards per play and the defense had zero interceptions. Temper the enthusiasm on the defense, but also realize that Mickey's defense is built to play with a lead! That's a flawed design, but our offense just might be good enough to give the defense a big lead in a few games this year.

With summer camp drawing to an end, it's been a great off-season. Only one off-season arrest, on a bogus charge which was later dropped. Only two injuries to key players (DT and possible starter Justin Mincey who will miss at least a month, and backup RT Antwane Greenlee whose knee injury information is yet to be released). Player participation and attendance in voluntary activities is at an all-time high (so I'm told, I am not there to mark who is showing up).

At this point, I feel great going into the Miami game. People overrated FSU last year entering the season, but they might be underrating the 'Noles this year. Miami is going to be without DE Adequle Ojomo. They will have DE Eric Moncur, but he hasn't practiced in almost two weeks and could be rusty coming off this complex groin injury.

Other opponent news: NC State lost their #2 Tight End Mario Carter. Big deal? Think again, they were going to use him a lot and this definitely helps FSU.

Progression, Continuation, or Regression? Noles Offensive Line

FrankDNole — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:58:02 -0000

Everyone can breathe a big sigh of relief now. This is the last part of this series, and I will soon be out of your hair forever. However, I will follow this up with a short recap with the final #'s for each unit, so that you all can share a good laugh over your projections come January.

So far we have analyzed, discussed, and you have voted on whether the Defensive Line, the Receivers/Tight End, the Secondary, the Offensive Backfield, the Linebackers, and the Special Teams, will be better, the same, or worse than last years equivalent unit. Today we will take a look at the Offensive Line, to determine if this unit has progressed, expected to continue at the same level, or regressed, in comparison to last years O-Line.

THE OFFENSIVE LINE

Trench warfare isn't pretty, but it often decides which team wins on Saturday's because a stout line protects it's quarterback, and opens up running lanes for the tailbacks.

You will hear many coaches say that if you win the battle in the trenches (both offensive and defensive), you will win on the scoreboard, and more specifically, if you want an indication of how well a team is going to do, watch how the offensive line performs. The Noles lost plenty of those trench battles last season, especially in the passing game.

With that said, the offensive line is the unit that takes the longest to get used to playing with each other. Think about it: It is the only unit where a player is shoulder to shoulder with another player, and a lot of a player's success depends on what and how the player next to him is doing. A team that can keep their offensive line together and keep them healthy over the course of a season, is the team that is going to have the most success. Usually, these are the teams that turn out better than people expected at the start of the season. Sound familiar? It should, and this is a reason to be cautiously optimistic about this teams potential this year.

On the other hand, when you see a team having trouble staying healthy on the offensive line, those are usually the teams that are going to have some problems. As players get hurt and have to sit out games, the chemistry, communication, instincts, and the skills of their replacements aren't familiar to the rest of the line, and usually results in less likelyhood of running and passing the ball effectively.

if you are a regular TN reader, you are probably familiar with this topic from such recent stories as Will the Florida State Offensive Line Pass Protect in 2009? and, Understanding Zone Blocking and Florida State's Offensive Line, and, Florida State Seminoles Left Tackle Andrew Datko to face an NFL schedule.

The Noles 2009 offensive line, while the youngest line in the FBS in 2008, could be one of the best in the country in 2009. For the first time since 2004, the Seminoles will return all five starters on the offensive line from the previous season. That year the Seminoles averaged 162 yards per game on the ground. Three of the five projected starters on the line were named a freshman All-American (Andrew Datko, Rodney Hudson and Ryan McMahon). Despite starting three true freshmen, the Seminoles had their best year running the football since 2000 as far as NCAA rankings go. Rodney Hudson enters on the watch list for the 2009 Lombardi Award. He is one of only two ACC players on the watch list.

One of the major areas of concern for Rick Trickett's unit this year will be to improve in the pass blocking where last years unit gave up 26 sacks for 187 yards.

2008 LEFT TACKLE=Zebrie Sanders started the first game before being replaced by Andrew Datko who then started the remaining 12 games.

2009 PROJECTED LEFT TACKLE=Andrew Datko followed by Rhonne Sanderson and Garrett Faircloth.

2008 LEFT GUARD=Rodney Hudson started every game.

2009 PROJECTED LEFT GUARD=Rodney Hudson followed by Rhonne Sanderson and Blake Snider.

2008 CENTER=Ryan McMahon started every game.

2009 PROJECTED CENTER=Ryan McMahon followed by A.J. Ganguzza.

2008 RIGHT GUARD=David Spurlock started the first game before being replaced by Will Furlong who then started the next 5 games, then Spurlock reclaimed the job finishing the season.

2009 PROJECTED RIGHT GUARD=David Spurlock (assuming his shoulder injury is OK) followed by Brandon Davis and Will Furlong.

2008 RIGHT TACKLE=Antwane Greenlee started the first 3 games, then was replaced by Zebrie Sanders who then started every remaining game.

2009 PROJECTED RIGHT TACKLE=Zebrie Sanders followed by Antwane Greenlee.

OTHERS ON THE ROSTER WHO MAY CONTRIBUTE=Jacob Stanley and in the incoming class John Prior, Bryan Stork, and Henry Orelus. Aubrey Phillips is no longer on the team and Evan Bellamy is out for the season with blood clot issues.

While this is the depth chart we expected prior to the start of practice, on the second day of practice Trickett decided to shake things up a little on the right side of the line.

RG David Spurlock and RT Zebrie Sanders started the majority of last season, but Brandon Davis and Antwane Greenlee have moved onto the first team at those two positions, respectively. Trickett made the changes, he said after practice on Saturday, because Davis and Greenlee earned the promotions during spring practice.

"I thought at the end of spring practice I thought they out-worked the other guys," Trickett said. "Now, summer work [has] all been pretty much the same. But I usually start them out where they ended up spring practice. I don’t judge anything on the weight room and stuff like that."

Spurlock and Sanders, of course, are now working to earn their positions back.

"I thought Zebrie’s had two real good days, he’s shown that he wants to get it back and Brandon, he’s fighting to keep it," Trickett said. "And you can tell Spurlock’s got a little rust on him."

Courtesy of Andrew Carter's Chopping Block

More recently, it appears that these 2 position battles will come down to the following.

The position: Right guard
The battle: David Spurlock vs. Brandon Davis
The skinny: Spurlock, a sophomore, is the incumbent and he started eight games here a season ago. But Davis, a redshirt junior, moved ahead of Spurlock during the spring and has remained on the first string. Offensive line coach Rick Trickett admits he tried to run Davis off but Davis wouldn’t let him. Trickett says Spurlock is rusty but that he’s at his best when motivated, which he should be given his demotion.

The position: Right tackle
The battle: Zebrie Sanders vs. Antwane Greenlee
The skinny: Like Spurlock, Sanders is a sophomore who started at his position the majority of last season. But in similar fashion, he lost his spot to Greenlee in the spring. Greenlee started the first three games a season ago, and he has impressed Trickett with his tenacity. Trickett said he was impressed by Sanders’ efforts early on in preseason practice. This position might not be decided until kick off of the Miami game.

Courtesy of Andrew Carter's Chopping Block

Regardless of how these two position battles shake out once the pads are on and the hitting starts,

MY BOTTOM LINE FOR THE OFFENSIVE LINE=PROGRESSION

What is your bottom line? Please vote now.

THE VOTING COULD GET VERY VERY UGLY!

Poll

2009 FSU OFFENSIVE LINE-PROGRESSION, CONTINUATION, OR REGRESSION? Please read the story before voting. Poll closes Friday August 14, at 11:55 PM.

PROGRESSION

304 votes

CONTINUATION

7 votes

REGRESSION

9 votes

320 votes | Poll has closed

Will the Florida State Offensive Line Pass Protect in 2009?

FSUncensored — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:57:35 -0000

There's a secret in coaching circles that most 'Nole fans don't know about and those who do know don't want the rest of the college football world to know: FSU's offensive line was very good last year- for being the youngest line in the nation. It's that qualifier that should dig at FSU's starting five. It's like saying "that's a nice jumpshot- for a girl." The truth of the matter is that without the qualifier, the statement that "Florida State's offensive line was very good in 2008" is false. All told, if you evaluated their performance without knowing how young they were, you'd be hard pressed to come up with anything more than average. There's a big difference between wildly exceeding expectations and being elite on a national or conference scale. When FSU needed their offensive line to dig in and provide protection in 2008, in passing situations like 2nd & 8+ or 3rd & 5+, the line failed miserably. They simply could not pass protect. Sure, they made big strides in other areas, and looked much better than some of the garbage produced by Jimmy Heggins and Mark McHale in the early and middle parts of this decade, but 'Nole fans eager to have a decent offensive line jumped all over the idea that their boys up front were now elite. They have not yet earned the pre-season accolades being strewn upon them by the media. Not with last year's performance. This year the challenge is to become elite- not just elite considering their youth.

This piece uses advanced measures. You may be familiar with how some of baseball's advanced and highly-specialized, opponent-normalized measures are taking over the way the sports world operates. Baseball is being dominated by all kinds of super metrics, and football is swiftly moving in that direction as progressive athletic departments and professional teams move to hire the advanced minds to give their team the edge in self-scouting and talent evaluation. They seek to improve their performance through a better understanding of the macro and micro elements of the their approach. Here's a look at FSU's 2007 and 2008 offense through the lense of the best available measures.

Measure	2007	2008
Fremeau Efficiency Index: Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (Drive Based)	82nd	15th
Vartisy Numbers Offensive Rating (Play-By-Play Based)	71st	33rd
Varsity Numbers Rushing Rating	89th	15th
Varsity Numbers Passing Rating	47th	57th

Fremeau Link | Varsity Numbers Link A big thank you to Brian Fremeau and Bill Connelly. Without their work, none of this would have been possible.

Everyone knows that Florida State made an improbable leap with their running attack last year, improving from the 89th rated rushing attack in 2007 to the 15th rated rushing attack in 2008. (Rating based off Varsity Numbers S&P close measure, which is adjusted for opponent and removes garbage time possessions). They did this despite having the youngest offensive line in the nation with three true freshmen and two sophomores. The end result was the top offense in the ACC, earning Jimbo Fisher the ACC Offensive Coordinator of the Year Award. All was not perfect, however, as the passing attack went from being rated 47th to 57th nationally (Rating based off Varsity Numbers S&P close measure, which is adjusted for opponent and removes garbage time possessions).

We've already spoken about the running game at length here, here, and here. Today we'll talk about the passing game, and specifically the much-heralded offensive line.

By almost any measure, be it the very basic total yards, or the hyper-advanced Varsity Numbers Close S&P+ measure, FSU's passing offense took a step back in 2008. But the step back was not nearly as large as some of the unrefined numbers indicate. In terms of yards per game, FSU fell from 47th in 2007 to 82nd in 2008. That's quite the drop, but the smarter measures suggest the drop was really only about ten spots, not 35, as the 'Noles saw their passing game fall from 47th to 57th nationally. Why is this so?

To better understand just how far the passing game fell (not as far as you might think), it is important to understand the components of the super advanced passing metric. Close S&P+ is comprised of Success Rate, and Points Per Play (a measure of explosiveness), in situations where the game is not wildly out of hand, and then normalized for opponent quality.

Measure	2007	2008
Passing S&P (combination of the two)	47th	57th
Success Rate +	62nd	28th
Points Per Play +	48th	73rd

To understand what this means please follow (and read) this link follow link. It's detailed but you will learn a lot. If you do not read it, this will not make much sense.

Success Rate

This one immediately jumps out at me. Back in early 2008, I argued against Drew Weatherford and stated that he was selfish for taking a 6 yard gain on 3rd and 11 in order to not throw an interception. It helped his numbers, but not the team, as the punt team was called upon a record number of times. In 2008, Christian Ponder was almost the exact opposite, as he tried to throw for the first down a bunch. Throwing for 7 yards on 3rd and 10 is a great example of how regular statistics can be misleading. Everything about that play looks good for the quarterback, but it doesn't help the team much. When FSU needed a conversion, they typically got it in 2008 where they did not in 2007. The jump from 62nd to 28th is excellent and FSU would do well to maintain that 28th Success Rate position in 2009.

Points Per Play (explosiveness)

While the Success Rate was better in 2008 than in 2007, the 'Noles Points Per Play was not. Think of Points Per Play as Slugging Percentage (and Success Rate as On-Base-Percentage). FSU's 2008 offense lacked the big plays of the 2007 year, and the difference was noticeable, as FSU fell from 48th to 73rd in PPP+ (explosiveness). Why was this? Did FSU simply trade big play potential for more consistency? Sort of. It's not that simple.

To understand the results we have to examine the process. Last summer FSU knew that it had a very difficult situation at offensive line, as they suffered transfers, injuries, and had their most promising offensive tackle flunk out of school. The offensive line was the youngest in the nation. FSU decided that their makeup could do well in most games as a quick, double-teaming run blocking unit and a passable quick game protection unit. They didn't come out and say so, but the makeup of the offensive line (very small and young) wasn't going to be conducive to pass protection. That runs counter-intuitive to what many often think of when they conjure up images of a young line- as young lines typically do okay in pass protection but lack the tenacity and push needed to dominate in the run game. Typically, young offensive linemen are soft, but they do have bulk and it is that bulk which is needed to sustain the initial jolt delivered by the pass rusher. If a pass rusher knows he will have success witl the bull rush (straight ahead), he will not attempt other moves. FSU's line was different because it had the quickness to attain angles to block for the run, but the young guys were simply too small to effectively pass protect. The Problem was physical maturity. Kid's seemed for the most part to be assignment smart but lacked the bulk and strength to compete play to play. They couldn't withstand a bull rush and as a result, had to keep tighter than ideal splits in an attempt to force the pass-rushers outside. Think of FSU's 2008 pass protection as a high school basketball pack-it-in defense. It worked sometimes, but ACC edge rushers (more 1st round draft picks on defense than any other conference over the last 5 years) could beat the freshmen tackles to the outside. Additionally, Ryan McMahon struggled with injury and the sophomore center was routinely driven back. The pocket rarely existed for Christian Ponder.

Here's an important quote about pass protection:

Pass protection usually begins with the understanding that if the defense rushes five or six guys, you can pick them up, but your blockers will have to be able to block at least one defender one-on-one. No pass protection scheme can count on double teaming all possible rushers. If you can't handle Lawrence Taylor man-for-man, then a five man rush becomes like a seven or eight man blitz, but also with sound coverage behind it.

And trusting your protection as a quarterback really begins with an expectation of protection. Quarterbacks are told not to pay attention to the rush. You have to feel the rush but not look at it. That whole concept is built upon the assumption that most plays will be blocked successfully and to adapt to protection breakdowns. With FSU in 2008, no QB could reasonably have an expectation of protection, because it was not there. The Offensive Line's pass protection was nonexistent in summer practice, Fall Camp, and by most defenses. Sure, they did okay on some of the shorter passes and the screens- plays that didn't require them to have the initial bulk to sustain a rusher's jolt, but the dropback pass protection was just not there.

Aside from the offensive line's makeup, there are yet other reasons for the contrast in the run and the pass game. For a long, long time, FSU was pass first, second, and last. Heck, Bobby Bowden even wrote essays by the name of "The Pass First Offense". Forever and ever, teams geared up to stop FSU by stopping the pass. And going into last year, teams did not fear FSU's run game, nor their quarterback. No, they were scared of FSU's wideouts, however, in a big way. Greg Carr and Preston Parker, along with newcomer Corey Surrency (who teams regarded as a Carr clone) scared opposing defenses. Teams absolutely played to stop the deep ball. They kept their safeties back. Wayyy back. They did not stack the box. Defenses allowed the 'Noles to throw short passes and run the ball but they declared, via their pre-snap alignment, time and again, that they would not allow the deep ball. While Surrency and Carr had disappointing years, the very threat of the deep ball to them made playing back an easy choice for defenses. No team really challenged FSU's wideouts with single coverage- except for Virginia Tech- against whom Carr caught two crucial bombs.

And even after FSU began to run the football really well (Colorado and Miami), teams did not respect FSU's run game. The 'Noles were putting up top 20 rushing performances, and yet their past reputation of rushing ineptitude still carried the day. Most of the time, Fisher did a good job of running the ball against these looks. Occasionally, he tried to force pass plays against teams when the defensive formation dictated that a run be called- most notably Clemson.

But teams did make some adjustments to what FSU was doing. Teams saw Wake Forest shut FSU down with their excellent front 7 and not involve their safeties. Opponents continued to try to emulate that game plan. It didn't work against the run for the most part, as FSU started to gash opponents, but it did work against the pass. NC State, Georgia Tech, Boston College, and UF all did a great job generating pressure without bringing any blitz. They kept everyone else back in coverage. Unfortunately for the 'Noles, the youngest offensive line in the country could not protect against a simple 4-man rush. Typically when a team faces pressure, there are easier throws available because the defense is sacrificing a coverage player and rushing him, but the 'Noles faced great coverage and enormous pressure because opposing defenses were able to generate that pressure without sacrificing that coverage player to the rush. The other part of this was the complete lack of respect for the FSU play-action game, which is of course based off the threat of the run.

Here's a more detailed look:

Performance- Varsity Numbers 2007/2008	'07 Rank	'08 Rank
Passing Close S&P + (combo if Success Rate and Points Per Play)	47th	57th
Success Rate +	62nd	28th
Points Per Play+ (PPP+)	48th	73rd
Non-Passing Downs (1-10, 2-7 or less, 3rd and 4 or less) S&P+	47th	53rd
Non-Passing Downs (1-10, 2-7 or less, 3rd and 4 or less) Success rate +	37th	56th
Non-Passing Downs (1-10, 2-7 or less, 3rd and 4 or less) Points Per Play +	86th	47th
Passing Downs (2nd & 8+, 3rd & 5+) S&P+	53rd	27th
Passing Downs (2nd & 8+, 3rd & 5+) Success Rate +	96th	69th
Passing Downs (2nd & 8+, 3rd & 5+) Points Per Play +	82nd	57th

Okay, so you're probably trying to make sense of this, as you should. How could FSU's passing attack be rated lower in 2008 than in 2007, yet be slightly better on passing downs? The key is in the measurement. The performance on Non-Passing and Passing downs measures all plays run on those downs- not just passes. And if there was one thing Florida State did very well in 2008 it was run in passing situations.

Here's a look at every successful play (see definition of success rate linked above) the 'Noles fan on passing downs during the 2008 season. See if you can sense a pattern.

Against Wake Forest, FSU succeeded on 8 of 32 plays on Passing Downs (2nd & 8+, 3rd & 5+). FSU ran the ball 11 times in those situations, and had success on 4 of them (36% success rate). FSU ran 21 pass plays in passing situations, and was successful on only 4 of them (19% success rate). While neither are good, the Wake game was a microcosm of the stark differences had on the ground and in the air. Here are the runs:
Wake Forest: 2-10, run for 8
Wake Forest: 2-10, run for 11
Wake Forest: 2-10, run for 9
Wake Forest: 3-8, run for 18
FSU ran 21 pass plays in passing situations (2nd & 8+, 3rd & 5+), and was successful on only 4 of them (19% success rate). This should be the worst passing game in Fisher's history. Here are the passes:
Wake Forest: 3-5, pass for 8
Wake Forest: 3-8, pass for 16
Wake Forest: 3-5, pass for 21
Wake Forest: 3-10, pass for 10
Against Colorado, the 'Noles had a success rate of 35% on passing downs (6-20)
The 'Noles were successul running the ball 3 of 8 times on passing downs. (38%)
Colorado: 2-15, run for 60
Colorado: 2-7, run for 12
Colorado: 2-10, run for 7
The 'Noles were successful throwing the ball on 4 of 12 passing downs (33%)
Colorado: 2-8, pass for 6
Colorado: 2-10, pass for 15
Colorado: 3-8, pass for 17
Colorado: 3-7, pass for 24
Against Miami, the 'Noles faced 28 Passing downs, and were successful on 14 of them, for a great 50% success rate.
The 'Noles ran 15 times on passing downs, and had success on 8 of them! That's 63% successful running in long situations.
Miami: 2-10, run for 30
Miami: 2-10, run for 7
Miami: 2-15, run for 11
Miami: 2-7, run for 6
Miami: 2-11, run for 9
Miami: 3-20, run for 20
Miami: 3-8, run for 12
Miami: 3-11, run for 13
That's pretty remarkable. One of the best performances running in long situations I have ever seen. They were 6/13 on passes in those situations (46%)
Miami: 2-12, pass for 11
Miami: 2-10, pass for 9
Miami: 2-10, pass for 19
Miami: 2-10, pass for 17
Miami: 3-7, pass for 13
Miami: 3-14, pass for 27
Against North Carolina State's porous defense, the 'Noles faced 29 Passing Downs, and had success on 41% of them (12/29).
The 'Noles ran 17 times on passing downs against the Pack, finding success an impressive 7 times (41%)
NCST: 2-8, run for 27
NCST: 2-7, run for 8
NCST: 2-10, run for 11
NCST: 2-7, run for 12
NCST: 2-8, run for 16
NCST: 3-14, run for 15
NCST: 3-8, run for 8
Of the 'Noles 7 successful passing down situation runs, 4 gained a first down by exactly 1 or 0 yards. Talk about knowing where the marker is!
The 'Noles threw 12 times on passing downs, and had success 5 times (42%). You may find it odd that the 'Noles ran a lot more than they threw on passing downs, but consider that NCST's defensive line was abusing FSU's offensive line early in the game to the tune of 5 holding penalties and three sacks.
NCST: 2-14, pass for 13
NCST: 2-16, pass for 17
NCST: 2-10, pass for 17
NCST: 3-21, pass for 30
NCST; 3-17, pass for 23
The Wolfpack really hates playing the run apparently, but they were damn good rushing the passer.
Against VTech the 'Nole offense struggled on most every down. They faced 25 passing downs and had success on only 5 of them, for a horrid success rate of 20%.
VTech was very draw-conscious. FSU ran 10 times in passing situations, finding success only 1 time.
VTECH: 2-10, run for 8.
Because VTech was more focused on the run, FSU's success rate in the passing game was higher (27% on 4 of 15, compared to the 10% above)
VTECH: 2-8, pass for 13
VTECH: 2-15, pass for 13
VTECH: 3-20, pass for 39
VTECH: 3-10, pass for 21
Obviously, VTech's defense was top 10 nationally and Miami's and NCST's weren't in the top half, but this game showed FSU making a good late adjustment (discussed below).
Against Georgia Tech, the 'Noles did an excellent job staying out of Passing Downs, because they did well on first downs. The 'Noles faced only 17 Passing downs, and found success on 10 of them, which is an excellent 59%
The 'Noles ran 4 times in passing situations and absolutely dominated tech doing so, finding success on 3 of the four:
GTECH: 2-15, rush for 39
GTECH: 2-12, rush for 11
GTECH: 2-10, rush for 10
In a departure from the previous games, FSU threw 3X more passes than runs on passing downs (13), successfully doing so on 7 of them (54%)
GTECH: 2-15, pass for 14
GTECH: 2-8, pass for 20
GTECH: 2-17, pass for 13
GTECH: 2-10, pass for 9
GTECH: 3-7, pass for 12
GTECH: 3-8, pass for 10
GTECH: 4-6, pass for 9
The Clemson game is where we really start to see Ponder's injury impact the playcalling. While FSU was a great run team on passing downs earlier in the year, they tailed off considerably at mid-season. That's probably because Fisher didn't want to further injure Ponder. The 'Noles were 6/18 on passing downs (33%). Let's see how that happened:
The 'Noles had 8 runs on passing downs, and were successful on 4 of them, an excellent 50% rate. Interestingly, only one of them was Ponder.
CU: 2-13, run for 21
CU: 2-10, run for 11
CU: 2-10, run for 8
CU: 2-7, run for 27
I was really quite irritated with Jimbo's playcalling in this game. He was trying to force the passing game despite the huge pass protection issues FSU had (linemen pulled in the first quarter for massive blown assignments and poor play). FSU passed 10 times on passing downs, and were only successful 2 times, for a pitiful 20% success rate. Clemson was an extremely good team against the pass and while I've often praised Fisher, he was way too stubborn in this game. If FSU stuck with the run game (and the Clemson's alignment and ability to generate pass pressure with minimal rushers dictates that they should have), the 'Noles could have scored 60. Here are the two successful passes in passing situations:
CU: 3-7, pass for 14
CU: 3-13, pass for 14
Clemson's defense is extremely good and should content for the top spot in the nation in 2009. FSU must be patient and willing to run the ball against Clemson until Clemson shows that they are concerned with FSU's run game.
The Boston College game really showed just how good the Eagles defense was (2nd nationally). While most teams paid dearly for ignoring FSU's run game, BC was able to stop it with minimal personnel and still devote full attention to the 'Noles run game. The results were disasterous, as they would be for any offense in that situation (and most were against BC, as only two teams had more yards per play against BC). Florida State was just 5/21 in passing situations, which probably says as much about Boston College's defense (stacked with NFL starters) as it does FSU'S offense. Still, 24% succcess in passing situations will not get the job done. Let's look at the breakdown:
FSU only ran 4 times in passing situations, but were successful twice (50%, duh).
BC: 2-10, rush for 11
BC: 2-8, rush for 7
This really begs the question, why not run more in these situations? Clearly the 'Noles were quite good at doing so. The answer was Ponder, of course, as he was injured and the backups were not a reasonable alternative for a variety of personal and football reasons. Where earlier in the year the 'Noles would mix their runs and passes in passing situations, they did not do so starting with the GTech game- probably because of the QB injury.
In the passing department, the 'Noles were terrible here, successfully throwing in passing situations only 3 of 17 times! That 's 18%! I am yelling! Let's take a look at the three successful throws:
BC: 2-9, pass for 30
BC: 2-10, pass for 14
BC: 3-5, pass for 14
Again, BC had three top 40 NFL draft pick types- including two top 10 types, and they absolutely manhandled the 'Noles offensive line- even making Rodney Hudson looking terrible. It didn't help that Andrew Datko and Ryan McMahon were injured. Simply put- BC, like Clemson (passing plays only) and Wake, and UF, had an all-decade quality front-7 and rushed few men yet generated a lot of pressure while playing 7 or 8 men in coverage. FSU simply could not block them.
Against Maryland, the 'Noles did a great job on first down and avoided having a lot of passing downs, facing only 16, and converting 5, for a 31% success rate. That's not good, but given the context of the overall game it wasn't a big deal because there just weren't many of the situations.
The 'Noles ran 6 times on passing downs and were successful three times, again posting a decent running success rate of 33%. Ponder took off only three times and had the two successful runs. Go figure.
MD: 2-10, run for 8
MD: 2-10, run for 12
In the passing department, FSU, threw the ball 10 times, and was successful three times.
MD: 2-10, pass for 7
MD: 3-7, pass for 7
Md: 3-11, pass for 18
Maryland's pass rush was not very impressive and it's worth noting that FSU completed a lot of short stuff that just missed counting as a "success."
And against UF, nothing went right. FSU faced 27 Passing Downs, and found success on only 5 (19%). UF had the best defense in the nation and they are in line to have the best defense of all time this season. They shut down everyone in scary fashion.
FSU ran 8 times on passing downs, doing to successfully only twice. That's 25%.
UF: 2-10, run for 8
UF 2-7, run for 9
In the passing game, our offensive line couldn't handle the Gator rush, and they were able to generate a lot of pressure with minimal rushers. I've said this a lot now throughout this piece, but FSU's run blocking was at a level many would call "good", but their pass blocking was in the bottom 30 of all teams Nationally. FSU threw 19 passes on Passing downs, and was successful on only 3. 3 of 19 is 16% and that is bad.
UF: 2-10, pass for 8
UF: 2-9, pass for 12
UF: 3-14, pass for 19
In the Bowl game, FSU got back on track somewhat. The 'Noles faced 23 passing downs, and ran successful plays on 10 of them. That's not too bad- a 43% clip.
The 'Noles ran 6 times on Passing Downs, and were successful on 3, for a success rate of 50%. That's pretty consistent with the 'Noles performance all season when running in passing downs. Here were the plays:
UW: 2-13, run for 11
UW: 2-10, run for 8
UW: 3-5, run for 5
FSU threw 17 passes in passing situations, and had success on 7 of those tries. Let's have a look:
UW: 2-7, pass for 10
UW: 2-10, pass for 9
UW: 2-8, pass for 20
UW: 2-8, pass for 29
UW: 2-15, pass for 12
UW: 3-19, pass for 20
UW: 3-9, pass for 18

I know some of you like things in chart form. Let's do that.

Game	Success Rate on Passing Downs	Rushing Success on Passing Downs	Passing Success on Passing Downs
Wake	8/ 32 (25%)	4/ 11 (36%)	4/ 21 (19%)
Colorado	6/ 20 (35%)	3/ 8 (35%)	4/ 12 (33%)
Miami	14/ 28 (50%)	8/ 15 (63%)	6/ 13 (46%)
NC State	12/ 29 (41%)	7/ 17 (41%)	5/ 12 (42%)
V Tech	5/ 25 (20%)	1/ 10 (10%)	4/ 15 (27%)
G Tech	10/ 17 (59%)	3/ 4 (75%)	7/ 13 (54%)
Clemson	6/ 18 (33%)	4/ 8 (50%)	2/ 10 (20%)
BC	5/ 21 (24%)	2/ 4 (50%)	3/ 17 (18%)
Maryland	5/ 16 (31%)	2/ 6 (33%)	3/ 10 (30%)
Florida	5/ 27 (19%)	2/ 8 (25%)	3/ 19 (16%)
Wisconsin	10/ 23 (43%)	3/ 6 (50%)	7/ 17 (41%)
Totals	86/ 256 (34%)	39/ 97 (40%)	47/ 159 (30%)

And there we have it. The success on passing downs was undeniably buyoed by the ability ot Ponder, Smith, and Thomas to run in situations where the defense was expecting the pass.

Author Nole44 had an excellent comment I wanted to highlight:

1. FSU was 25% more likely to succeed running the ball on passing downs than throwing the ball on passing downs (40% success rate v. 30%). This makes me think we didn't run the ball enough on passing downs.

2. Based on my own recollection, a decent amount of the successful pass plays in passing situations came from bubble screens and similar quick hit passes (which were not featured in 2007). These operated almost like a run in my opinion, keeping the linebackers from cheating up too much and giving our lineman space to run out into the second level after hitting their double team. This bubble screen inflation, for lack of a better term, only underscores how incapable the offensive line was of creating and holding a pocket.

I touched on this above, but he's right. The dropback passing game was even worse when you consider that FSU threw a ton of screens (not dropback passes) and often had success with them.

Though I probably didn't need to list out all of those passes, I think you can see the point. FSU rarely had a completed pass go further than the 1st down marker. That's where the PPP+ (explosiveness) statistic comes in. FSU's passing game was not explosive because the line could not pass protect long enough for the players to run down the field. Almost all of the big pass plays came on screens (which don't require good protection) and jump balls (which don't require good protection). It's okay to have a low completion- high yards per catch passing game, but FSU's yards per catch were not even remotely high enough to make up for all of the blown protections.

The other obvious takeaway is that the success on passing downs came disproportionately from the run game, which isn't a bad thing, but it could be quite misleading to see the success on passing downs. One would think that the 'Noles passing game on 3rd downs was quite good, but we now see that it was the run game and particularly Ponder's legs in the passing situations that propped up the performance. There's a reason the passing numbers got worse and the overall offensive performance on passing downs improved: line play. The line was super quick and could adeptly lock onto smaller defenders when running the ball on passing downs. As discussed above, they still lacked the physical maturity to pass protect. Luckily, there are other ways to demonstarte this:

Bill Connelley discusses these here and here. It's a great measurement which separates offensive line play from the other players in the best available way. No measure is perfect, but it does do a nice job of comparing year to year performance. It doesn't disproportionately reward draw plays, as most of a draw play after the first few yatds is a back making people miss- even though FSU's offensive line is probably the best in the nation at downfield blocking, due to their athleticism. Here you go:

Performance	'07 Ranking	'08 Ranking
Close Line Yards +	85th	52nd
Passing Downs Line Yards +	56th	112th
Non-Passing Downs Line Yards +	91st	36th

Contrast much? Remember our discussion above on FSU switching to an ultra-light and young offensive line which was atypical of a young line which would be big and uncoordinated. This 112th ranking might surprise some of you who are constantly inundated with the Seminole media's praise of the offensive line. We're guilty here as well, as we too often said the offensive line was playing great instead of saying they were playing great considering they are the youngest group in college football. It's like saying she's not a bad ballplayer-- for a girl. The 2007 offensive line was decent in pass protection and abysmal in the run game. The 2008 offensive line was very good in the run game and terrible in pass protection. The tables turned.

I also found this article interesting, http ://www .footballoutsiders .com/walkthrough /2009/walkthrough -i-am-gm, I pulled some pointers on dealing with young quarterbacks. It doesn't discuss dealing with a young offensive line specifically, but some of this should apply to our discussion.

Run the football. It seems simple enough, but some teams forget that the newbie probably isn't ready to pass 45 times per game. Run more often on first-and-10 and second-and-long. Don't be afraid to run or throw a short pass on third-and-long; sometimes it's better to give the defense a chance to go to work than to put too much pressure on the first time QB.

As you can see from the numbers above and the numbers last season, FSU did a great job with this. They limited risk through the run game in an attempt to keep the pressure off the passing game- a passing game they knew was likely to perform poorly at times due to the choices they made in dealing with a pretty unfortunate situation at offensive line.

Increase your protection: Rookie quarterbacks, even great ones, aren't going to read a defense and expertly find the fifth option on a pass. Given the choice between more reads and more blockers, choose extra blockers. Use six and seven man protection schemes often (keeping in backs and tight ends).

Rolling the pocket and using additional blockers limits the offense, but when a rookie is calling the signals, it's better to be limited and well-executed than complicated and confusing.

A friend of ours, Oline0175 (highly respected high school offensive coordinator), had this to say about how FSU did with this idea: Thats definitely how I'd classify our passing game. FSU tried to keep it simple. They limited the scheme for the sake of the QB and WR's, but thats more because they couldn't count on the protection to be there for down the field stuff and the WR's to run the correct routes. Ponder also struggled at times to know where to go with the ball though, particularly in post-snap reads.

Run some low-risk junk. QB runs, direct snaps, unbalanced lines, etc.

This is obvious, FSU ran their QB more than they had in 15 years.

Limit the decisions. Handoffs, option, play-action, screens, pre-snap reads to constraint plays, and rollouts. Get the ball in the hands of the playmakers without having to make difficult downfield throws or complex reads.

This of course depends on experience and time. Balanced teams will usually be more simple. All pass teams will be more pass difficult (Texas Tech) and run teams will be more run difficult(Georgia Tech). I prefer a balanced offense with an even mix of running schemes and pass schemes. Your pass schemes will need to be less intensive so the players can learn and get the necessary reps to be successful. Theres a reason option teams run option. The goal of an OC always should be to get the ball into the playmakers hands but sometimes you have to be creative. You need to move him around, just like UF did with Percy

Mix easy-to-read passes with a good running game, extra protection, and a dash of trickery, and you have an offense that a (good) rookie can succeed in throughout the season. It's that simple- provided you're not also dealing with a terrible pass blocking offensive line. Then it's not that simple.

And there's also Coach Saban on young QB's.

Q. From a defensive point of view, when you're facing a quarterback that doesn't have much experience, how do you try to take advantage of that? At the same time with an inexperienced quarterback this year, how do you try to guide him through games until he gets that experience?

COACH SABAN: Well, you know, I think that everyone develops at a little different pace and rate, depending on their ability to learn the knowledge and experience, how they learn from their lessons. And I think specifically in our case Greg McElroy learns very quickly and has had some experience. But I also understand that until he makes plays in the game, he's not gonna fully have, you know, the trust and respect of all of his teammates, even though they really, really like him and they really like him as a leader.

I think the biggest mistake you can make in development of any new player, young player, inexperienced player, is give him too many things to do, and increase the multiples of the kind of mental errors that they can make.

I think that it depends, from a defensive perspective, who the guy is that you're trying to defend. If he's a smart guy, if you try to pressure him, you may enhance his chances of making plays because he understands it, he sees it, and his reads actually become a little easier.

If you try to play all coverage against him and don't pressure him and he's a good runner, he may hurt you with his feet.

So I think to really answer that question effectively, you'd have to know the specifics of who you were trying to defend.

We ask our own coach about this. Oline0175 pays his bills by coaching offensive football and he recently won a state championship.

"I think we ask every player to do the same thing whether they are a freshmen or a senior. It's holding them to a higher standard. But the case here was different; Jimbo is building for the long haul. He wanted the class of 2008 to be the class that changes things for this program, so alot of them were asked to play as freshmen and we took our lumps while they learned on the job. In the future, freshmen won't be asked to play as big of roles so they can learn at their own pace and do what they can successfully if they play. Also every player learns at a different speed. We'll have some kids come through here or pick up on things quickly but struggle getting acclimated to the speed of the game and we'll have some who just can't pick the game up and play fast enough that it doesn't matter,

You'll notice that he discussed bringing pressure or not bringing pressure. What he didn't discuss is being able to get pressure without bringing extra rushers. He didn't discuss it because it is a huge luxury for a defense, and one that they normall do not expect to have, but that teams did have against FSU in 2008.

The Look Ahead

There is much reason for optimism. The 'Noles return their entire starting offensive line in LT Andrew Datko, LG Rodney Hudson, C Ryan McMahon (who should havea healthy foot), RG David Spurlock, and RT Zebrie Sanders. The line bulked up more than 10lbs per man while actually losing body fat. Their play in the spring was much improved and they have been the most impressive group in the summer workouts. There will be much more on this in the preview, but the future for this offensive line looks very bright.

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