SB Nation - Antone Smith

Florida State's New Practice Methods Evidence of Changing Culture as the 'Nole's Offense Goes Deep

FSUncensored — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:56:04 -0000

More photos » by Steve Cannon - AP

Senior Cornerback (rated the #1 overall by CBS Sports) Patrick Robinson, left, and Senior Safety Jamie Robinson pose for a photo during the Florida State football media day on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)

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The Seminoles didn't go full pads Wednesday morning, but the practice was still a hit.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - After some deliberation the Florida State football coaching staff opted to delay the first day of practice in full pads until Thursday, which is also the first, two-session practice of the offseason.

If the Seminoles were disappointed about the delay, it did not show during Wednesday's morning session.

"We really tested them today," FSU coach Bobby Bowden said after the 2 1/2-hour workout on the Al Dunlap Practice Fields. "It was their third day in a row with no break - no day off - and they survived it pretty good."

Better still, the Seminoles appeared energized after a somewhat lethargic effort a day earlier.

"We improved today as a football team," offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher said. "Our attitude and effort was very good. Our work ethic and approach was good."

That's a big improvement from Tuesday when Jimbo Fisher could be heard yelling at Jarmon Fortson from the parking garage. The 'Noles got back to the intensity they had in the first three days. It seems that the new coaching staff will not accept anything less- from the players or the stubborn defensive staff.

And there's little doubt the team is getting ample work. By splitting the offense - and in some instances the defense - into two groups, the coaching staff is exposing more players to more repetitions, which is critical to development. Bowden signed off on the change in practice structure and likes what he's seen thus far with the new system, even though it's difficult to keep up with both groups simultaneously working on separate fields.

"From up high (in the tower) I can see both of them," Bowden said. "It's a lot more reps, which is really taxing on them. From what we've done in the past, this doubles it."

Double the work also means double the opportunity and both the offense and defense capitalized at various times.

You need to listen to this radio clip. It's from 1270 The Team's Jeff Cameron Show. Jeff played college football and he is one of the guys who really understands X's and O's. He also understands organizational structure, and was one of the first to predict the debacle that was the nepositm era under Bobby Bowden (Jeff Bowden's tenure here).

The clip is here. I have taken some quotes and will go through them:

Also, Jimbo Fisher is now running practices and the old guard coaching staff has relinquished some control. Fisher has seized the control, and the practices are very different from 2007 and even 2008. If you are someone who hasn't been out there in a while, say since 2004 or 2005, it is night and day. You wouldn't recognize practice now. Jimbo Fisher has won that war. No longer are practices run by Mickey Andrews. No longer will the practices feature guys standing around waiting their turn. Maximum effort is not asked but rather demanded. All three fields are utilized simultaneously. Field Goals are contested in practice to simulate actual game-like conditions. The kickers made every one of their kicks and they run to each spot to simulate getting off a last second field goal with no time remaining. Guys are getting three times as many reps. The players are absolutely dead after practice, both mentally and physically. Everyone is in motion. It is efficiency personified. The coaching staff is demanding consistent focus and immediacy from each player. It is the most encouraging thing I have seen from the program in a long time [Jeff has been around for over a decade]. This pace is frantic. FSU had 5 minutes to run 30 plays. They did it in 4. There is no wasted time or motion. This is evidence of the culture change FSU fans have longed for. Fisher and the new coaches who will be here when the program returns to greatness in 2010 or 2011. Backups are involved and held accountable. They are not learning by watching. Fisher said that every practice must be controlled chaos and every snap must be in preparation of a national championship. FSU is reaping the benefits of the improved strength and conditioning program. Under the old guard, this team was out of shape and weak and could not handle a practice structure like this. Kid's don't know it, but they desire discipline. But they have to believe in the messenger. They have to believe their sacrifices are worth it.

Fisher has showed the old coaches why their methods were obsolete. Before Fisher and Coley got here, FSU was quickly falling behind the process, and the sad part was that Bowden and the older coaches were so complacent that they didn't even realize the things they were missing. It has not been easy for Jimbo, but he will soon have Bowden and Andrews out of the program. He's already phasing out their influence and asserting his own. Bowden and Andrews' futures aren't at FSU. Kids can sense that. They know these two have a year left. What Jeff alludes to with the "belief" comment is absolutely correct. The kids don't trust those coaches because they can tell they are not fully invested in the program in the way that Fisher and Coley and others are. Other changes to expect when Fisher takes over include not having a vacation interfere with the ideal date to hold a recruiting camp.

Jamie Robinson looks very natural, instinctive, and very fast.

Very happy about Jamie Robinson.

Jermaine Thomas had a really long run for a touchdown. He was untouched. He hit the edge on the toss sweep and was gone. Play was well blocked and Thomas appears to be a special playmaker.

Starting last year, we were telling people Thomas was better than Antone Smith and has a chance to be special.

Make sure to listen to the clip. Jeff runs a great show.

More Inside!

Cornerbacks Patrick Robinson and Xavier Rhodes had pass break-ups of balls intended for wideouts Richard Goodman and Rodney Smith in a two-defender, skeleton session. Cornerback Dionte Allen, working opposite A.J. Alexander with the second-team defense, had a break-up and an interception in pass skeleton. "By schedule, it's time for him to step up," Bowden said, when asked the progress of Allen, a redshirt sophomore who saw little action due to injury last season.

The progress of Allen and Alexander is very encouraging. Rhodes is extremely physical for a freshman corner. Robinson is the #1 rated corner by CBS Sports' draft site.

Quarterbacks Christain Ponder and EJ Manuel were on target much of the practice, which included small group work, a down-and-distance period, plus 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 work.

Ponder completed 3 of 4 attempts during a third-down conversion drill, including a 9-yard strike to tight end Caz Piurowski, who made a leaping grab. Ponder zipped a sideline pass to Bert Reed for a 12-yard gain, then connected with Rod Owens for 10 yards and another first down.

Allen prevented Ponder from a perfect period, riding wideout Avis Commack out of bounds on a well-contested pass.

Manuel, after going 5 for 7 during 7-on-7, wasn't quite as sharp during the third-down drill. Linebacker Nigel Bradham and safety Justin Bright sandwiched a pair of pass break-ups around Manuel's sideline dart to Josh Gehres for a 30-yard gain.

It is amazing what good pass protection can do for a passing attack. Andrew Carter has more:

-Good day for the offense today. Lots of long passes. Both Christian Ponder and E.J. Manuel looked impressive today, and each completed their share of deep balls. I wasn't in the group that interviewed defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews after practice, but those that were said he was a bit upset. To put it lightly. Orlando Sentinel.

Jarmon Fortson, Beau Reliford, and Chris Thompson all had good days today. Fortson did not get chewed out apparently, which is a plus. His athleticism is off the charts.

The productive day by the secondary was no small coincidence.

"After watching film on practice (Tuesday) night ... one of the things that kept popping up was we really weren't flying to the ball," senior free safety Jamie Robinson said. "We really weren't as active as we should be. We came out and wanted to focus on that.

"Whenever you've got guys flying to the ball you know good things are going to happen."

For the second consecutive day Robinson came through with an interception near the end of practice, which hardly went unnoticed.

"Jamie had another interception and that's a good sign," Bowden said. "We haven't had much of that back there. We need takeaways."

On a third-down play with Ponder looking to go deep, Robinson hawked down the ball.

"They were going deep and Korey (Mangum) was protecting the post and I just broke down on it," Robinson said, adding that the pass was intended for Taiwan Easterling. "The ball came in there and I just went down and got it."

The secondary will be fine. It is the front 7 that must step up and provide pressure. FSU always puts a tremendous amount of pressure on their defensive backs- probably too much. Robinson has had 4 picks so far in 5 days and is continuing his impressive spring.

"Jacobbi McDaniel has extremely rare physical maturity for a freshman. I am typically very reluctant to forecast anything from a freshman interior defensive lineman, but McDaniel will see the field and see it often."

Some have even told me that McDaniel is the 'Nole's best defensive lineman.

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Progression, Continuation, or Regression? Noles Offensive Backfield

FrankDNole — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:13:48 -0000

Every day while catching up on my daily Nole must reads, I very often wonder to myself, "Are my 2009 Noles going to be better than last year’s team?"

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

First the obvious. Florida State’s offense will only go as far as it’s backfield takes them because everything rest on that units shoulders. Speaking of the offense, here are some tidbits you may find interesting, uplifting, and/or depressing.

A) With eight starters returning, the offense returns the most starters since the 2004 season when nine returned. That was the last season the Seminoles won 10 games.

2) Players responsible for 71% of Florida State’s points in 2008 will not be back in 2009. That is the lowest number of returning points in the conference.

D) The ACC’s top two scorers in 2008 were both Seminoles, Antone Smithe and Graham Gano, and neither is back this season.

5) The Seminoles finished the year ranked first in scoring offense and second in total offense and rushing offense in the ACC.

L) FSU’s rushing offense improved from 91st in the nation in 2007 to 33rd last season. That was the ninth best improvement of any BSC school.

Here are some of my biggest question regarding the backfield as we get ready to start the 2-a-days this Friday.

Will Christian Ponder throw crisp and accurate spirals, proving he's gotten better this year with the experience he gained by starting every game last year?

Will he follow up with a more consistent performance?

Or will he be hearing the crowd chanting "EJ, EJ", which will surely come if he fails to deliver?

Will Jermaine Thomas be able to maintain the incredible 7.0 yard average from last year as the feature back, and stay healthy while taking the pounding that comes with being a feature back?

Will he put together a breakout season where he establishes himself as one of the ACC’s elite workhorse backs?

Or will Jimbo Fisher decide to make the tailback position a position by committee, and split playing time between Thomas, Ty Jones, and Tavares Pressley?

Before we get into the specifics of the positions in the backfield unit, if you haven’t already read these two very interesting perspectives by missourinole, I encourage you to do so. In both of his stories, What So Great About Ponder? and Jermaine Thomas: The Next Warrick Dunn? he presents some very good analytical comparisons with past FSU greats, and you the TN members told him how you felt. Some of the issues addressed in his stories might seem redundant here today, but the performance of these two positions will dictate what kind of season we will have, and how we will be talking about it come January.

QUARTERBACKS, TAILBACKS & FULLBACKS

2008 QUARTERBACK=Christian Ponder started all 13 games. His stats for last year were: EFF=115.0, PA=318, PC=177, YDS=2006, PCT=.557, TD=14, INT=13, LNG=54, AVG/GM=154.3, RA=119, YDS=597, LOSS=174, NET=423, AVG=3.6, TD=4, LNG=45, AVG/GM=32.5 (Total Offense=423R + 2006P = 2429 or 186.8 AVG/GM).

Ponder was backed up by D’Vontrey Richardson and Drew Weatherford who are both gone.

Christian Ponder had one of the best seasons in school history for a quarterback when it came to the ground game. The sophomore rushed for 423 yards finishing with the fourth-highest single season rushing total by a QB in school history. However in recent history since 1950, only Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward rushed for more yards in one season than Ponder did in 2008 and he is just the fourth FSU QB to ever score a rushing touchdown in four consecutive games. Ponder completed passes to seven or more receivers in seven of 13 games in 2008, and he hit eight or more receivers with a pass four times.

2009 PROJECTED QUARTERBACK=Christian Ponder. Redshirt freshman E.J. Manuel will back up Ponder but has not thrown a pass in a collegiate game up to this point. Even though Manuel did not see any action in 2008, he was instrumental to the team’s success earning scout team MVP for the offense.

2008 TAILBACK=Antone Smith started all 13 games. His stats for last year were: RA=177, YDS=868, LOSS=76, NET=792, AVG=4.5, TD=15, LNG=60, AVG/GM=60.9

Replacing Antone Smith’s 177 carries and 15 rushing touchdown’s is the top priority for the Seminoles this season. If you remove quarterbacks from the equation, Smith’s 117 carries accounted for almost 55% of all the running plays by the Seminoles in 2008.

2009 PROJECTED TAILBACK=Jermaine Thomas is the projected starter with Ty Jones and Tavares Pressley expected to give him breathers.

Jermaine Thomas had a breakout season as a true freshman averaging 7.0 yards per carry on 69 attempts. Thomas finished behind only Sean Jackson and Warrick Dunn in Seminole history for yards per carry by a true freshman. He also had the sixth-best true freshman season in school history for rushing yards. One of Thomas’ greatest strengths in 2008 was his ability to make positive yards on almost every touch. The freshman lost only 10 yards rushing all year.

Carlton "Ty" Jones, a true freshman running back showed flashes of brilliance throughout the 2008 season but was slowed by an ankle injury most of the year. He showed what he was capable of in the Champs Sports Bowl when he rushed four times for 55 yards including a TD. His average of almost 14 yards per carry was more than six times better than any other FSU running back in that game. That final game of the 2008 season illustrated just how good he can be in a backfield with fellow freshman standout Jermaine Thomas. He also had a career high run of 30 yards in the first game of his collegiate career against Western Carolina.

Tavares Pressley was redshirted in 2008 after suffering an ACL injury in his left knee, but most recent reports indicate he will be ready to go this season. After a few days of practice, we should have a better idea of his prognosis.

2008 FULLBACK=Marcus Sims started 4 games and Sederick Holloway started 2. Sims has transferred and apparently Holloway is no longer on the team.

2009 PROJECTED FULLBACK=NONE. Apparently we will not be using a true fullback this year. Matt Dunham has rejoined the team but is expected to be used more in a H-Back role, similar to a smaller pass catching tight end.

OTHERS WHO CONTRIBUTED IN THE 2008 BACKFIELD AND ARE NOW GONE=D’Vo Richardson (RA=35, YDS=288, LOSS=34, NET=254, AVG=7.3, TD=3, LNG=55, AVG/GM=25.4, PASS EFF=121.27, PA=44, PC=23, YDS=315, PCT=.523, TD=3, INT=3, LNG=39, AVG/GM=31.5).

Drew Weatherford and Preston Parker also contributed and are also gone.

OTHERS WHO MAY CONTRIBUTE IN 2009=Lonnie Pryor (RB), Chris Thompson (RB), Corey Eddinger (QB), Will Secord (QB)

So there you have it. Considering this will be Ponder's second season running the Seminole's offense, it's likely we could see improvements made considering he'll have a better understanding of Jimbo Fisher’s offense, and his available weaponry. Manuel should also be better considering he too has had a full season in this offense under his belt.

The running game should have a much improved offensive line, so maybe that will improve their deceiving production of 4.8 yards per carry in 2008. I say deceiving because many of the long runs which inflated this average, were runs by the QB’s, which hopefully will not come down to that again this year.

Again, a lot rests on this groups shoulders. If the Seminoles receive favorable answers to those questions I posed above, Florida State will win the ACC’s Atlantic Division, will be playing in the ACC Championship Game come December while continuing the nations longest streak of Bowl appearances with 28 consecutive bowls, in what hopefully will be the Orange Bowl, at least.

MY BOTTOM LINE FOR THE OFFENSIVE BACKFIELD=PROGRESSION

What is your bottom line? Please vote now.

Poll

2009 FSU OFFENSIVE BACKFIELD-PROGRESSION, CONTINUATION, OR REGRESSION? Please read the story before voting. Poll closes Thursday August 6 at 11:55 PM.

PROGRESSION

189 votes

CONTINUATION

3 votes

REGRESSION

4 votes

196 votes | Poll has closed

Game Log Positional Breakdown: RBs. A Database of Running Stats and Analysis.

SWFLNole. — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:53:56 -0000

It is no secret that Florida State plans to run the ball a lot this year. The offensive line under Rick Trickett is much better at run blocking than pass blocking. Also, keeping the other team off the field will help our questionable defense. Many Seminole fans are very excited about the RBs at Florida State. Although Antone Smith averaged a decent 4.5 YPC, many noticed that he was tackled easily, and that Jermaine Thomas hit holes harder. In one of the more popular Fanposts in a while MissouriNole pondered statistically if Thomas is the next Warrick Dunn.

Recently I read this fantastic article from Smartfootball, which opened my mind a little to evaluating the RB position. It is an excellent piece.

Keep reading because behind the jump you get to see how I went through every game log last year to break down our backfield...

So that article by Chris over at Smartfootball shows that regardless of YPC the median yards gained by a back are usually about the same (Note: Median numbers are often more reliable because it helps to eliminate the effect of outliers). While that is true in the homogenous NFL, the difference between RBs in college football is often greater. However the fact is still true, the medians will almost always be very close. This leads to two conclusions about the evaluation of RBs. (1) That players who can create homerun carries for large chunks of yards are much more valuable than those that cannot; and (2) that evaluating only on yards gained and yards lost is a little misleading because yards lost may not be as important as some researchers have led on. I personally do not know the perfect way to evaluate these players, but I believe that if you can get ALL of the statistics that matter, the picture becomes a little clearer.

For this article I am going to list all of the statistics for the 3 primary RBs who played last year, and try to draw some inferences about what this means for our team this year. I went through all of the Division 1A game logs from last season (because as much as I appreciate the fun of beating Chattanooga, the stats don't really tell us anything because of the poor competition level) to find this info.

One statistic some of you may not be fully comfortable with at this point is Success Rate. The fine people over at Football Outsiders developed it to measure success of plays for RBs. Obviously, if it is 3rd and 1 and you get 2 yards, it is much more valuable than if you get 2 yards on 1st and 10. Success Rate is the amount of "hits" a back gets out of their total carries. A "hit" is earned by gaining 50% of yards needed on 1st down, 70% of yards needed on 2nd down, or 100% or yards needed on 3rd or 4th down. Let's get going, shall we?

Antone Smith:

-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-2,-2,-2,-2,-3,-3,-3,-3,-3,-3,-3,-4,-5,-5-6,-7,-9,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,

2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,

5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,9,9.10,10,10,

10,11,11,11,12,12,13,15,18,19,20,20,26,27,39,41,60

Carries	Success Rate (%)
155 Carries	1st Down 32.3%
Median Carry: 2 Yards	2nd Down: 41.5%
Average Carry: 3.3 Yards	3rd/ 4th Down: 75%
16.8% Negative Carries	Total: 38.7%
599 Yards Gaines
84 Yards Lost

Jermaine Thomas:

-3,-1,-1,-1,-1,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,6,7,7,7,8,8,10,10,

11,11,12,12,12,13,21,22,30,62--10.6% negative runs

Carries	Success Rate (%)
47 Carries	1st Down 38.4%
Median Carry: 4 Yards	2nd Down: 66.6%%
Average Carry: 6.6 Yards	3rd/ 4th Down: 100%
10.6 % Negative Carries	Total: 55.3%
320 Yards Ganed
7 Yards Lost

Marcus Sims:

-2,-1,0,0,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,4,5,5,6,7,15--8.6% negative runs

Carries	Success Rate (%)
23 Carries	1st Down 33.3%
Median Carry: 2 Yards	2nd Down: 44.4%%
Average Carry: 2.8 Yards	3rd/ 4th Down: 60%
8.6 % Negative Carries	Total: 43.4%
67 Yards Ganed
3 Yards Lost

Ok so first things first, the sample for Marcus Sims is obviously very small, so they should be taken with a caveat. However they do show you some things about how he was deployed, and how well he ran the ball when he was. He very rarely lost yards.However the good late down success rate can be deceiving, because he was put into the game in manageble situations. You can see by his median run, average, and carry log that he wasn't extremely effective. The 2nd and short, and occasional break for a gassed starter, role can be filled well by Tavares Pressley.

When talking about the starters the first thing that pops out to me is that Antone Smith's average drops from a decent 4.5 YPC on the season to a paltry 3.3 against D1 opponents. Also Antone was rarely putting his team into great situations, because he has a median run of just 2 yards and 26 negative plays for 84 yards.

The opposite is true of Jermaine Thomas. Thomas' average stays at a healthy 6.6 YPC against the better teams (7.0 on the season). Beyond that, and we have talked about it before, is the fact that Thomas doesn't go backward. The result is that Jermaine sports a very nice 4 yard median run, double that of Antone Smith.

One thing becomes strikingly clear. Jermaine Thomas is in almost every single way possible superior to Antone Smith. Our coaches were playing them backwards last year. From the starting RB position a team should be able to rely upon that person to put the team in positive situations on first and second down more often than not. Jermaine does this. A change of pace back should offer something different than the starter, such as being a homerun threat. Smith absolutely was that with 7 runs over 20 yards, 5 for touchdowns. Antone's numbers here do get a little undersold because of the homerun ability, but is anyone here sold that for 4-5 touches a game Chris Thompson can't offer the same type of big play ability? I went into this article hoping to do two things.The first is provide Nole fans with a one stop shop for running stats from last year, so they have a comparison model. The other was to find out more about our backfield, an exploratory study of the game logs if you will. What I came away with was a fundamental belief that our running game is going to be even better than I thought it was going to be yesterday.

Additional support for the Thomas being better than Smith crowd comes from the true experts. Bill Connelly, of RockMNation.com (Missouri CBS Sports and SBNation site) and Varsity Numbers (footballoutsiders.com) recently introduced Points Over Expected (POE). This is arguably the best and most advanced measure of a runningback, independent of his offensive line, available to the college fan. Please visit that link and be blown away.

I asked Bill to provide me with the numbers for FSU's backs. He gladly obliged.

	EqPts	Expected EqPts	PPP+ (Explosiveness)	POE
Smith	66.4	55.6	119.3	+ 10.8 (45th Nationally)
Thomas	30.1	23.4	120.90	+6.8 (72nd Nationally)

So there's your answer. Smith was better. So was Thomas. Actually, I'd give the edge to Thomas with the better PPP+, but Smith had almost 3x more carries. Maybe Thomas' production would have gone down with a lot more carries, but he did have the edge.

I'll add that Thomas got a large number of carries against good defenses and didn't simply beat up on bad teams like some backups do.

Finally, because Ty Jones (or C.Jones on the game logs to confuse me) will be a big factor in our running game as well I will post his stats, however, they have almost no statistical significance at all because of the small sample size. They are pretty to look at though, and dream.

Ty Jones: -1,1,1,2,5,5,14,15,31 --11.1% negative plays

Carries	Success Rate (%)
9 Carries
Median Carry: 5 Yards
Average Carry: 8.1 Yards
11.1 % Negative Carries	Total: 55%
73 Yards Ganed
1 Yards Lost

Understanding Zone Blocking and Florida State's Offensive Line

FSUncensored — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:25:19 -0000

Today I will try to teach you something about offensive line play. Specifically, I will discuss Florida State's offensive line. In this article, I'll cover the questions "why zone blocking?", "what is zone blocking?", and "what type of players do we need to run a zone system?" In future editions, I'll cover specific plays and the passing game.

First, you may have heard that Florida State is primarily a zone blocking team. This is a departure from the days of Mark Richt and those who preceded him, who favored "man blocking" schemes.

Zone Blocking developed as a response to the increasingly athletic defensive linemen seen over the past 20 years. These defensive linemen would kill plays before they even began by achieving penetration in the backfield. The more traditional style, "man blocking", required players to block a specific player, often one of those elite defensive linemen (think FSU beating on Kansas in the Meadowlands in the '93 Championship year). It was very difficult for teams to find five offensive linemen who could man up and block their specified player, particularly when that assignment was shifting before the snap and running in all different crazy directions after the snap. To do so would require exceptionally strong, smart, and athletic offensive linemen, and those type players do not come around too often. As a counter, coaches began to devise ways for their players to deal with these freak defensive linemen. Instead of blocking each lineman one on one, what if the entire offensive line blocked the defensive line, functioning as a unit? Instead of each lineman having to adjust to the pre-snap movements, stinting, and post-snap twisting and stunting, the offensive line adjusted as a unit? What if linemen worked as a unit instead of chasing around these freaks that teams were now employing at defensive tackle? Welcome to zone blocking; the thinking man's way to block. Again, the entire goal is to eliminate penetration.

Before I get into the mechanics of zone blocking, I want to establish a few philosophical goals. Think of these goals as Florida State's end, and zone blocking as the means the 'Noles will use to reach that end.

According to the father of zone running, Alex Gibbs, the man who designed the Denver Broncos running game with Terrell Davis (orchestrating one of the biggest super bowl upsets in the modern era), the entire key to the running game is to stay positive:

WE WANT NO NEGATIVES! We look at pass as yes/ no, big/ little, big plays and zero plays (w/ negatives). Out of a certain number of passes, we expect a certain number of failures. That is the nature of the passing game.
But the run game the exact opposite. We want NO negatives. We do not want to run plays that are big/ little, even at the expense of big plays, we do not want it. We want the system where even the "bad" play gains something. The entire objective is to stay out of 3rd and long. We throw out the run plays with which we cannot consistently avoid negatives.

Screw averages. We want medians. The back might average 7 yards per carry, but how often did he get stuffed and put us in 3rd and 10, causing a turnover.

And we do this by eliminating penetration and running a limited number of plays to perfection.

Gibbs was way ahead of his time. NFL and college teams are now spending a lot of money to reach the same conclusion that Gibbs reached: it's not what you average, it's what you consistently gain. It is better to have a back average 4 yards per carry with minimal carries going for 0 or negative yards, than it is to have a back average 6 yards per carry but attain that average on a mix of long and bust runs. This concept of staying out of unfavorable down and distance (2nd and 8+, 3rd and 5+, etc) is known as "leverage". No matter the talent of the team, we now know that disaster is hugely correlated with poor leverage situations for the offense (high leverage situations for the defense). By avoiding those situations, the offense can play with favorable leverage, and in turn, the frustrated and tired defense will begin to take unnecessary risks, allowing big plays. I am not saying that big plays are not important, but rather that they will come if you build the proper foundation for them. The big plays are a combination of execution and alignment, NOT design. All of Florida State's base running plays are designed to go the distance if the defense gives a favorable alignment and the execution is good. FSU does not run big/little running plays (outside of some situational stuff). Bill Connelly has done some of the best publicly available work in the field for the college game, and I suggest you peruse his work here. What causes offenses to fall into unfavorable leverage downs? Penetration, of course! And what do we want? No Negatives.

I know that you grew up on yards per carry, but I am here to tell you that it is time to change. Know why Emmit Smith was more effective than Barry Sanders? Consistency. Barry often had the better yards per carry, but Emmit never lost yards and never put his team in a bad situation.

Florida State runs as a team. The running game is not solely a function of the running back and the offensive line, bur rather every player has a crucial role in the successful execution of the rushing attack. Running is a mentality. The offensive line coach must be able to get on the wide receivers and their coach. The head coach must allow the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator to get the wide receivers blocking. The wide receivers coach must be on the same page, and the ultimate effect is that the receivers must be a desirous participant in the run game. The quarterback is also a huge part of the scheme, carrying out fakes which allow designated defenders to stay unblocked but at the same time out of the play.

I believe there are three important principles of zone running. First, deny penetration. Second, re-establish the line of scrimmage. Third, render the playside linebacker ineffective. The ultimate goal is to stretch the defense laterally, providing secure creases for the runner.

What is zone blocking ("ZB")?

It's actually exactly what it sounds like. Offensive linemen are looking to block zones instead of assigned men. Each lineman, either by himself or in conjunction with an adjacent linemate must account for and block a designated space. This is different from man blocking, in which each lineman must block a specified man. Zone blocking is very socialist. It it a team concept, not a collective individual concept. With zone blocking, the lineman will advance to their designated area, and block any player in that area in an attempt to "win" the zone. If the zone is initially empty, they will continue through their zone, possibly help out an adjacent lineman, or proceed to the 2nd level, (LB's and defensive backs). You may find it useful to think of this in basketball terms, with zone and man defense. The concept is for two adjacent linemen to come off in unison and attack a defensive lineman to the play side. Unlike man blocking, where each player has an assigned man to block; zone blocking creates an initial double-team with two players blocking a single defensive lineman. This allows the offensive linemen to be very aggressive because they know they have help from their linemate.. It is this initial team that creates movement at the point of attack, and from which the runner will make his read and find the developing hole..

This is an image from an old Bob Davie article that no longer exists on ESPN.

The "W, M, and S" are the Weakside, Middle, and Strongside linebackers. They are aligned in a traditional "under" front, which is similar to what Florida State runs. You can see the backside guard and tackle double team the defensive tackle, while the playside guard and tackle double team the playside (right) defensive and. It's almost impossible for those double teamed players to achieve meaningful penetration.

A double team, however, takes two players, and eventually, one of the offensive linemen will disengage (after the other double team partner has secured the doubled defender) to attack the linebacker. Teamwork, experience, and trust are key here. Again, back to the diagram:

Davie has two good examples of this teamwork, which I have condensed into a single diagram.

This seems simple enough, but being able to gauge when your doubling partner is in position to gain sole control of the target defender is not easy.

The zone scheme is designed to create organized chaos at the LOS. The location of the running lanes are impossible for the D to predict from play to play. This variability strains the flexibility of every defensive system, making the location of run fits more difficult to predict and preparation more complex. It challenges the mental discipline of the defense, which is particularly difficult for college defenses, who often depend on athletic talent alone. It increases the likelihood of an error leading to a large gain. Fear of such errors can make the defense less aggressive and give the initiative to the O-line; or can make the defense too aggressive, allowing better cut back lanes for the diligent runner. Just as QBs who are able to run through progressions are more successful in today's game than QBs who run a set play, the zone system gives a quality runner, the man with the best view of the action, decision making power to choose from multiple options dictated by his reads. From PatsFans.

This youtube video is a pretty good explanation of some of these principles:

Zone blocking takes a specific type of offensive lineman

Ideally, you want a lineman who is 6'6 320lbs, stronger, faster, and smarter than anyone else. Unfortunately, reality takes over, and we realize that there are probably only 7 or 8 men in the world who fit that bill and most of them play on Sundays. (Bill Parcells calls this the planet theory). From the remaining group of lineman, each probably have a few good traits and a few less desirable attributes. The key with any system is determining which attributes are critical and which are not, and then focusing on exploiting a market inefficiency, if any.

What do we look for in an offensive lineman? Let's take this from a speech by Alex Gibbs (legendary Zone Blocking coach of the Denver Broncos and one of the closest guys I've seen to Florida State line coach Rick Trickett in terms of technique and demeanor).: (roughly transcribed from a video someone sent me)

Above all, we want guys who want play so bad they could die. We want guys who can run, who are athletic, who have "recoverability", but who maybe lacks bulk and strength. Maybe doesn't know what his body is about yet. We want guys who are going to take advantage of that redshirt year.

TACKLES: Tall, length, maybe no basic strength, but he can run, and we're willing to let him add that power. 6'5 1/2" is usually the max we want.

GUARDS & CENTERS: height and length doesn't mean ****. Marginal height, but plays with great leverage. "LOW WAISTED" (long torso short legs), with leverage under our bodies. Healthier by not being heavy. RARE for them to play early. Nobody over 6'3". My center must be football brilliant.

Very intelligent on the inside. The "test score limit would SCARE YOU." We make calls from the inside out (centers call guards, guards tell tackles what to do, tackles tell tight ends what to do. Thus, there's a chain of decreasing responsibility)

No introverts for any position (communication. Low power-distance culture guys between each other and the coach).

All of them must have the ability to step laterally while keeping their shoulders square to the line of scrimmage (or risk allowing penetration).

Injury history is very important. don't want guys who miss games, because of the importance of continuity. 4 of the 5 usually get offseason surgery. NO EGO. INSIDE 3 must be brilliant. huge amount of time is spent on these guys making decisions. Guards must be able to decipher intricate details from the opponent's stance.

But, there is a minimum threshold of strength that a guy must have. Cannot have guys who get driven back.

Now, FSU played the youngest line in football last year, and that was effective thanks to Rick Trickett, the best offensive line coach in college football. Our offensive line scheme is not designed for young kids, in fact, it's the opposite. It's an absolute testament to Trickett's coaching job that FSU's line did what they did last year. In a normal recruiting year in which FSU will not count on freshmen to play the offensive line, we are looking for smart athletes. Not big hulking slobs, but athletes. If you'd balk at a recruit playing third base or left field for your company softball team, he's not the type we want. And he needs to be smart; possessing both football intelligence and book smarts. He must understand not only his assignment, but also the defense's alignment and tendencies. That player must be able to correctly give and receive adjustments at the line. Also important is his commitment to the system. Even if his block makes little sense individually, he must be willing to do it because he understands it is but one piece in the puzzle that is the running game. Strength bulk do not matter in a recruit, because we feel we can add that, and when we do, we want that kid to retain his athleticism (quickness and agility).

Here is a Venn Diagram to illustrate the point.

Again, last year Florida State was woefully undersized:

This man is not a tight end!

That's Andrew Datko, freshman All-American Offensive Tackle. He was 6'5 1/2", 270lbs soaking wet. Now ideally we do not want to play a 270lb tackle, but last year did not leave FSU with an alternative. We want him to play at about 290lbs. Datko fit the bill, however, because he worked very hard, played through injury (separated shoulder), executed his assignment even when it seemed pointless, outquicked a lot of defensive ends, and played with great technique.

I'd be remiss if I didn't add this excerpt from Gibbs:

Your group and your chemistry is more important then your plays. The ability to get the guys to function as a unit is paramount and is often not achieved. [Trickett is great at this.] I don't get Christmas cards, but I do get handshakes and head nods. Been to a lot of topless bars with my guys guys. I did whatever it took to get these guys comfortable with each other and with me. My guys talk all the time. They are closer with the guy next to them than they are with their wives.

Experience is absolutely crucial. Even int he NFL, I'll take our draft picks and put them on our scout team for two years before they can play for us, and these are guys we drafted because we think they fit our system!

We also look for a specific type of running back.

The zone scheme can be frustrating for a running back at first because he was usually the best guy in high school, never had to know what to read or look for, and just typically did whatever he wanted. The zone scheme is very professional in that it asks the player to perform a specific task and be part of a greater plan. The runner must understand the system. He must be focused on his point of attack read and then his secondary read. This can often be very boring for him. As we've seen countless times, however, that player will reap the benefits of a well run zone system and he will get his yards. The runner must stick with the system, trust the system, and not deviate from the system. When the light comes on, bam!, he will reach a point where his eye's light up and he understands that the defense's pre-snap alignment is primed to get absolutely shredded.

Backs in zone schemes need to be "One Cut Runners", or "1C" runners. For more on this, let's turn to Denver:

A "1C" is a runner (he can be either powerful or fast) who starts to run in one direction, and when he sees a hole open up in the defense he cuts back to that opening and runs in a straight line. This goes against the instincts of most players.
Some RBs "juke", which means they fake side to side movements, and use agility to gain yards. Other players commit right away and dedicate themselves to a play or a direction. [Neither of these are desirable in this system. Antone Smith dedicated himself to a direction way too early.]

But 1Cs must have patience and vision. They must be able to run towards the direction of the play, have the vision to not commit until the see an opening, and the discipline to make "one cut" towards the hole and to stick with it. They must also have the confidence to pick a hole, since the coordinator doesn't pick it for him, but rather it is based off a read or series of reads.

Another key for a 1C is the ability to keep one's legs moving during a tackle. This is because most RBs like to spin or juke (or use other methods), but a 1C usually faces tackles in confined spaces where other methods don't work (confined because the second level is full of OLs, not just LBs). This is another reason why Antone did not run well in our system; he went down when his legs got tangled. Here again, the 1C does what does not come naturally to most RBs.

In addition to the above, we require a runner with Precision (in their cuts), Patience, Vision, and Determination

The runner must be decisive and confident, both in himself and his system. He has to trust the system. Occasionally, there will be a huge hole opening up where the play is absolutely not designed to go. The player must be disciplined enough not to fall for the trap. Sometimes it might work, other times it might not, but cutting to a hole that is not based on the runner's read is a recipe for bad habits and negative plays (see above). Deviating from the system turns the running game into big/little, which we cannot tolerate. Again, our running game is all about having no negatives, even at the expense of bigger plays. As discussed above, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that avoiding unfavorable leverage situations is more beneficial to an offense than turning a 5 yard run into a 10 yard run, for example. (see above). This type of deviation can cause the system to lose structural integrity. Our runners get one precise cut, and they must make the best of it. There is a minimum level of discipline we require in our runners. Some lesser runners have it and some supremely talented runners do not. There are both philosophical and schematic reasons for this, and they play off each other.

We cannot have an indecisive runner, either in choosing the hole or IN the hole. By that, I mean that the determination of the running path must be made before the runner hits the hole. Some backs do very well cutting inside holes, but our system kills players who depend on moving laterally within the hole. There can be no decision making in the hole. We are not looking for a runner who wants to make everyone miss. That is a recipe for disaster in this system (and for fumbling). Improvisation, at least in the formative stages of the play, is not tolerated.

Coachability is a major factor as well. One of the reasons you saw Denver and New England run this system so well without highly touted runners (at the time), was that their runners did not have the luxury to do it their own way. 5th or 6th round picks in the NFL must listen to everything a coach says and do everything right, absorbing all of the finer teaching points. If they do not, they will be cut. Star runners, however, can afford not to listen because they know they are under a huge contract and will not be cut. You'll recall that the Broncos traded Clinton Portis away for Champ Bailey, in large part because they valued a corner over a runner, but also because they knew they could find another runner to function within their machine. Applying this to college, we find that things get easier. While a runner may be very highly recruited, there is no general manager pressuring the coach to play the highly recruited runner over a lesser recruited runner. The only emphasis is on playing the runner who can best excel in the system. In this way, it can force a star player to be more of a team player. This is very important when you consider that this system, at least to the level FSU executes it, will be very new to almost all new college runners.

The runner needs to be able to understand what is being asked of him. For instance, he may be asked to plant and explode to a hole that will not open for another step or two. You may think this does not mesh with the patience requirement, but it does. This is not a loaf scheme, we want the runner to spend the minimum amount of time in the backfield as possible, without running outside the constraints of the play. We want the runner hiting the hole as soon as possible- but not too early. Do not confuse this with guessing. Ideally, we want him bursting through it right as it opens up. We need him to see things based off the system, not through sight! We want him to burst through the hole just as it opens up, and by judging his point of attack double team block, studying the system, and having good patience and a decisive cut, he can do just that.

Speed is not overly important in this system, but momentum quickness matter. If the runner is small, he needs to be fast. If he is a power runner, he can be slower. In both situations, the runner needs to be able to clear the arm tackles in the hole without dancing, be that by running by them quickly, or running through them. In either case, the runner's legs cannot stop at contact. It is important to remember that because the runner initially runs parallel to the line of scrimmage as he reads his blocks and determines the hole, he is not able to build his momentum/ speed over a long stretch. Our runners must reach their top speed (whatever that level is) quickly. Obviously, making a decisive cut helps the player to gain momentum and build speed.

Some highly recruited runners do not fit Florida State's system, and that is okay. This isn't about finding all the best pieces. It is about finding the best pieces to fit what Florida State does.

2008

In reviewing last year's runners, it's easy to see that Antone Smith did not take well to our system, and freshman Jermaine Thomas did. Let's review their numbers:

Name	No	Gain	Loss	Net	AVG
Smith,Antone	177	868	76	792	4.5
Thomas,Jermaine	69	492	10	482	7.0
Jones,Carlton	11	106	7	99	9.0
Sims,Marcus	23	68	4	64	2.8

The average are not what I want to focus on. Instead, let's look at the average yards lost per carry. First, with Antone Smith:

Many don't think Antone was very good. He was never great, but he was decent. Smith struggled to learn the Seminoles zone run scheme. Smith did not have the patience or understanding needed for our scheme. He consistently ran into the backs of his blockers, and did not hit the hole as it opened. Further, he was not able to keep his legs moving through the hole, often being tripped up. Let's look at a chart for Antone

Game (ACC Only)	Rushes	Yds
Wake Forest	8	24
at Miami (Fla.)	27	92
at North Carolina St.	20	89
Virginia Tech	9	57
at Georgia Tech	9	35
Clemson	8	57
Boston College	10	19
at Maryland	13	45
Totals	104	418

That's about 4 yards per carry in ACC play. There's a hidden advantage to losing Smith, however, and that is variance. Smith was a big/ little back. He had 104 carries in ACC play on which he gained 481 yards and lost 63 yards. That's a pretty high loss number for having only 104 carries. Smith gained 5.23 yards per carry and lost .61 yards per carry. That's probably a new stat to you. I like to use it to look at how often a back puts his team in a negative leverage down after he has a run (like 2nd and 9, for instance). Modern football scholars almost universally agree that the median carry is a much better measure of running back value than yards per carry. Part of this it is very much attributable to an offensive line that exceeded expectations, but was far from great. Smith was frustrating in that never seemed smooth in his approach and often struggled to find the hole in the zone scheme.

Jermaine Thomas, on the other hand, was everything that Antone was not, albeit in a reduced role. Antone was faster and stronger than Jermaine, but Thomas was better. Smith was more experienced than Jermaine, but Thomas took to the scheme quicker. He was just a better fit for our scheme.

via cache.daylife.com

Jermaine Thomas was made to be a running back in the zone scheme. Thomas understands the need to make one cut and get up the field. He is more quick than fast and hits his top speed within a step or two of committing to the hole. At 6-1, 190lbs, his upright style is a thing of beauty to watch. Let's watch Thomas key on the doubleteam block and cut off the play.

I will discuss the design of these plays in a later piece.

Personally, his running style reminds me of Ricky Watters. Both Thomas and Watters played a fair amount of wide receiver in their prep days and both have a very upright gait. Here's Watters:

Longtime Tomahawk Nation contributor Fsued compared him to:

Jeff Cheaney. Both seem real wiry and don’t look very strong, but seem to have a knack for contorting to shed tackles.

Last season, Thomas went for 279 yards on just 31 carries in ACC plays, which is an amazing 9 yards per carry, but the key was his ability to be a NO NEGATIVES PLAYER. Unlike Antone, Thomas was not big/little. In 69 carries, Thomas only lost 10 yards total. That's a paltry 0.14 yards lost per carry. Compare that to Antone's 0.62! Thomas did not put Florida State in bad situations. I think Thomas will have a great year in 2009.

If you have any questions, do not to hesitate to ask.

In parts two, three, four, and five, I will review the "inside zone", "outside zone/ stretch", the "zone read", and some various pass plays and protections.

Oh, and if you enjoyed this story and learned something, send it around on the FSU fan e-mail lists.

Until next time...

GO NOLES!!

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Friday Notes: Lions Sign Keary Colbert, Two More Rookie Free Agents

Sean Yuille — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:51:30 -0000

After working out wide receiver Keary Colbert on Wednesday, the Lions signed him on Thursday. Colbert played for the Lions toward the end of last season once the IR started to fill up.
The Lions also signed running back Antone Smith of Florida State and center Dan Gerberry of Ball State. Both players attended last weekend's rookie minicamp as tryouts.
Ernie Sims apparently feels much more comfortable in the Lions' new defense.
New Lions offensive lineman Kirk Barton recently had an interesting experience at a Britney Spears concert. He also is staying in a hotel for 56 nights on the Lions' tab. Barton thinks the Lions are "head and shoulders" above other NFL teams he's played for when it comes to ownership and food.
Grady Jackson was excused from the OTA earlier this week for "personal reasons," and we now know exactly why he was gone. His brother, a football player hoping to make it in the NFL, allegedly shot and killed his girlfriend and then shot himself. His brother survived the shooting and was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge. What is so odd about this story is that Jackson's brother survived a shooting back in 2002. In that case he was an innocent victim, and the shooting put his football career on hold. Only now did he work his way back to the point where he had a shot at getting a tryout with an NFL team, and now he has thrown it all away.
As most of you heard yesterday, ESPN officially hired Matt Millen.
Brett Favre reportedly is not going to unretire -- at least not yet, anyways. It is only May, after all. I'm willing to bet this isn't the last we will hear of this story. In fact, if I had to make a prediction, I would say late June/early July is when talk of Favre signing with the Vikings comes about again.

Being Billy Devaney - RB

Tackle Box — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:40:14 -0000

Continuing our search for depth and possible future assets, BBD turns to the position of Running Back. You can't have enough good viable running backs and if Spags and company are truely committed to focusing on the run, then we're probably going to have to beef up that position a bit.

Unfortunately, Runnning Back is actually a position that has gotten it's fair share of attention for a long time. I say "unfortunately" because for all the draft picks spent on the position, there's not a whole lot to show for it because it's not like the team has totally neglected to draft or acquire running backs. Now, one could easily make an argument against a lot of the guys they've brought in (Trung Candidate, I'm kinda looking in your direction......oh, and could you please take a seat next to Brian Leonard? Thanks) but there have also been a couple of true stars. And by "a couple" I mean "exactly two".

We all remember the Marshall Faulk trade and how could anyone forget Steven Jackson. For some reason (and this completely baffles me), there are people who doubt that Steven Jackson is an elite running back in the NFL. Personally, I have no idea how you could miss it, but I digress.

Some may point to Jackson's injuries like that's a legitimate knock on the guy. If you haven't noticed, running backs get hurt all the time in today's game. I suppose it's because the defensive players are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before. Whatever the reason, you can't go into a season any more with one viable running back. Your guy WILL get injured at some point and then you're in big trouble. Plus, having a viable backup allows you to have a change of pace and someone who can give opportunities of rest to Jackson that might actually help keep him healthy.

(btw, did anyone notice Jackson got hurt this past season during garbage time? The game was in hand for the Rams and he was out there getting handoffs. I blame that one on the coaching staff and the fact they didn't have another running back on the roster who was any good. However, even if they didn't have anyone viable, Jackson shouldn't have been out there.)

So, with that being said, we'll take a look at the running back position and some possible upgrades to that number 2 slot which is becoming more and more important.

Let's take a look at the roster.

Steven Jackson - 6'2" 231 - Signed through 2013 (if he averages 1,200 yards rushing and 400 yards receiving over the first 4 years of his contract he voids the final two years) - Jackson counts $7.4M against this year's cap. Oh, and he's a stud.
Kenneth Darby - 5'10" 211 - Signed through 2009 (RFA in 2010) - Darby emerged as the number 2 running back for the Rams last year, the question is...is he the guy to hold that spot going forward? Personally, I'm not sure. He's definitely a change of pace back for the Rams and he didn't seem to let the two fumbles in his first game affect his play the rest of the season, so maybe he's a diamond in the rough.
Antonio Pittman - 5'11" 195 - Signed through 2009 (RFA in 2010) - When the Rams claimed Pittman after the Saints let him walk last year, I thought they had really made a coup. Well, Pittman hasn't exactly shined in his backup role and now finds himself behind Darby on the depth chart while being pretty much the same exact type of runner. I wouldn't be surprised to see Pittman cut lose at some point this offseason especially if the team drafts a running back.
Brian Leonard - 6'1" 226 - Signed through 2010 - After a really good career at Rutgers, Leonard has failed to do anything in the NFL. He's got great size and has good speed and athleticism, but for whatever reason, he just hasn't (can't?) gotten it done as a pro. He's probably safe for this season, but he'll be gone before the 2010 season.

So, there's our running backs. I suppose your opinion of this unit falls squarely upon how you feel about Kenneth Darby and his ability to be a valuable part of the offense. If the Rams are going to focus on the run as much as they say they are this season, then Darby (or whoever becomes the number 2 RB) will have to be able to log valuable and productive minutes on the field. Can Darby do it? Honestly, I'm not convinced but I feel much better about him than I do about Pittman and Leonard.

But, let's say Darby isn't the answer we all seek. So what now? Do we target a Free Agent or do we look to the draft? Well, there are positives and negatives to each of those options. A draft pick would probably be cheaper since we'd be drafting this position later in the draft and that draft pick could possibly develop into a legit running back but then again with a free agent RB, you pretty much know what you're getting but with less upside. Many RBs fail making the transition to the NFL. Can the Rams afford to lose a draft pick on a guy who fails?

Of course I realize this could be said about any of our draft picks, but with so many needs is it smarter to see if there's a good backup on the market now who has a proven track record? I think it's worth a look.

Warrick Dunn - Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 5'9" 180 - Could you imagine a backfield of Jackson and Dunn? Wow.......I just got a tingly feeling inside. As of right now, there is no news out there about Dunn. He had a great season last year and would be a great addition to a team as a third down/change of pace back.
Deuce McAllister - New Orleans Saints - 6'1" 232 - Here's a guy that can do the dirty work........if healthy. He's had both knees operated on but he's been working out at Duke University and says he feels "fine". He also claims he's spoken to "10-12 teams". About what, I'm not sure. But apparently there's some interest in him.
Ahman Green - Houston Texans - 6'0" 218 - At this point, he's probably too old (32) and too injured to be a legit option here. He had some really good years but has played more than 8 games in only one of his last four seasons.
Tatum Bell - Denver Broncos - 5'11" 213 - Bell is still a pretty good RB, but his off the field troubles kinda overshadow him and make him a risky signing.
Dominic Rhodes - Indianpolis Colts - 5'9" 203 - Rhodes probably isn't a great fit for the Rams future run-happy offense. If all the Rams needed was a guy who could get a couple of yards and catch some passes, that'd be fine, but that's not really what they need. They need someone durable who can do some dirty work (so Jackson doesn't have to do it all) and Rhodes probably isn't that guy.

After Rhodes, there really isn't anyone who instills any interest in me. So, what do you think? I really like Dunn and wonder what it would take to get him. Granted, I know I just said in the Dominic Rhodes piece that the Rams need someone who can do some dirty work, but Dunn is just a special talent. He gets things done. Period. And would be a deadly combination in the backfield with SJ.

But, I understand there are people out there who are committed to finding a backup in the draft. There's some guys available, but with this piece I'm not going to be looking at the first 4 rounds. I decided long ago the Rams need to focus on OT, MLB, CB, WR and DT and if they draft anything other than one of those 5 guys in the first four rounds, it'll feel to me as if they've missed out on something.

So, looking at rounds 5 through 7, let's take a look at the Running Backs.

(Remember, if the name is highlighted, click it to read Mocking Dan's scouting report)

Javon Ringer - Michigan State - 5'8" 205 - Ringer has improved his stock (possibly too much for the Rams to get in the front of the 5th round) since having his knee scoped in January by running a 4.42 40-yard at he combine and by posting a three-cone time that was 0.07 seconds faster than any other running back at the combine. Ringer also had an impressive Pro Day by running the short-shuttle drill in 3.89 seconds. By the way, the fastest running back at the combine (Branden Ore and Bernard Scott) was 4.08 seconds and the best time posted by any player at the combine (Kevin Barnes) was 3.96 seconds. Needless to say, Javon Ringer is healthy, and while his 40-times could improve, having straightaway speed for a running back is less important than the cone and shuttle drills.
James Davis - Clemson - 5'11" 210 - Davis is not a very good receiver and is just an average runner. He ran a 4.45 40-yard at his Pro Day but many are suspect of the time since it was run on a rubber track and at the Combine he ran a 4.60 40-yard. That's a pretty drastic improvement.
Mike Goodson - Texas A&M - 6'0" 212 - I like Goodson better than Davis but I'm not in love with him. He's bigger and probably faster than Davis (4.43 Pro Day and 4.54 Combine) but right now, Ringer looks like the pick of this bunch.
Kory Sheets - Purdue - 6'0" 206 - Had a very good year for Purdue and has possibly been a little over-looked. Probably has a future as a backup/3rd down back and return man in the NFL. Catches the ball well.
Antone Smith - Florida State - 5'9" 190 - Has vaulted himself on to many a team's radar by posting a 4.32 40-yard, 31 reps on the bench, a 32-inch vertical, and a 10-2 broad jump at his Pro Day (he wasn't invited to the Combine). Typically, I don't advocate drafting Running Backs of this size (Warrick Dunn is a freak of nature). They typically get hurt or are simply unable to make an impact no matter how fast or shifty they may be (Garrett Wolfe).
Glen Coffee - Alabama - 6'1" 198 - Needs to bulk up a little to make a successful transition to the NFL. Had really only one good year at Alabama and probably should have stayed there for his senior year. If he had, he might have been able to get into the 3rd or 2nd round, but at this point he's at best a 4th rounder and probably a little lower.
Tavarris Williams - Tennessee State - 5'11" 215 - He's short but powerful. He also shows good quickness and change of direction.
Ian Johnson - Boise State - 5'11" 212 - Somehow, Ian Johnson put on almost 20 pounds before the Combine and still wowed many scouts. He ran an "un-official" 40 time of 4.30 (his official was 4.46) and has convinced some scouts he's more than just a third-down back in the NFL. Has drawn comparisons to Steve Slaton.
Arian Foster - Tennessee - 6'1" 215 - I guess we now know where Ian Johnson found that extra weight since it's apparent the "former" power back at Tennessee lost about 20 pounds before the Combine. Ran a 4.73 and a 4.69 40-yard at his pro day. Probably needs to get the weight back to have value in the NFL.

(Check out Mocking Dan's Running Back Rankings)

After Foster, you're probably looking at guys like Jeremiah Johnson...here's his pic (Oregon), Devin Moore (Wyoming), Gartrell Johnson (Colorado State), and Josh Vaughn (Richmond) although any of these guys and a handful of others could be picked up as un-drafted free agents at a later date but they probably aren't what the Rams are looking for anyway.

Of this group, I probably only like Javon Ringer but there's a possibility he could be gone by the time the Rams get to their 5th pick and I don't think I'd like to pick him ahead of any of the other (more important positions) in the draft. Ian Johnson might be one to keep an eye on and you could probably get him in the 5th round (maybe high 6th which would be ideal).

So, at this point, I really want the Rams to take a strong and long look at Warrick Dunn. I think with him in the fold, the Rams offense becomes absoltuely powerful. Plus, adding him takes away from our lack of experience at the WR postion since you'd have the possibitliy of Steven Jackson, Warrick Dunn, and Randy McMichael running routes which would definitely keep defeneses honest and should free up Donnie Avery deep.

Florida State Seminoles Spring Football Preview: The Backfield

FSUncensored — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:00:11 -0000

Note: Florida State pushed back the start of spring practice to March 16. The Noles were supposed to start on Monday, March 2nd, but Jimbo fisher decided it would be better to start after spring break, which begins on March 9, instead of starting practices and having a long layoff. The spring game will still be on April 4, but now FSU will have two practices after the spring game.

Here's the schedule: March: 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30. April: 1, 3, 4 (Spring Game), 6, 8

Part One: Florida State's Spring Football Quarterback Battle

In the second part in a series of Florida State spring football previews, we'll discuss the backfield.

Last year, under the direction of ACC Offensive Coordinator of the year, Jimbo Fisher, the Seminoles had the top rated rushing attack in the ACC. This was a huge improvement over the 2007 season which saw the 'Noles finish a pathetic 10th of 12.

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)
Team	Off. Rushing S&P+
Florida State	123.7
Georgia Tech	122.4
N.C. State	113.2
Miami	110.4
Boston College	101.9
Maryland	96.6
Virginia Tech	96.0
North Carolina	93.7
Virginia	93.5
Clemson	88.5
Duke	84.7
Wake Forest	79.2

Click the link in the table header for an explanation of those numbers.

Let's take a look at what the 'Noles will need to do to equal last year's proficient rushing attack.

Opponent (ACC Games Only)	Rushes	Net
Wake Forest(3-12)	28	102
Miami (Fla.)(41-39)	52	330
North Carolina St.(26-17)	45	138
Virginia Tech(30-20)	38	89
Georgia Tech(28-31)	36	196
Clemson(41-27)	36	266
Boston College(17-27)	24	73
Maryland(37-3)	42	172

NOTE: The above numbers include sacks.

4.3 yards per carry, including sacks, is very good.

Here's a breakdown of the individual rushing performances. I have crossed off the guys the 'Noles will lose due to graduation, discipline, or injury.

Florida State 2008 Individual Rushing (ACC Games)
Name	Rush	Net
~~Smith,Antone~~	104	418
Thomas,Jermaine	31	279
Ponder,Christian	91	299
~~Richardson,D'Vontrey~~	23	134
Jones,Carlton	5	20
* Parker,Preston	7	67
Sims,Marcus	21	61
* Reed,Bert	3	13
* Givens,Louis	2	24
* Easterling,Taiwan #	4	17
* Owens,Rod	3	12
Team Totals	294	1344

Note: Ponder had 174 yards in sacks, which are included in his total.
* Player is not a backfield member but is likely a wide receiver
Players who will not be playing in 2009 are crossed through.
# Player is injured and will not participate in spring practice, but may play in 2009.

Florida State is losing roughly 245 carries and about 1200 yards on the ground.

The Seminoles must replace Antone Smith's production.

via i.a.cnn.net

Many don't think Antone was very good. I think he was a good college back. He was never great, but he was decent. Smith struggled to learn the Seminoles zone run scheme, which is not difficult to learn. He never seemed natural out there. I will always remember him for his huge effort in the Miami win.

Game (ACC Only)	Rushes	Yds
Wake Forest	8	24
at Miami (Fla.)	27	92
at North Carolina St.	20	89
Virginia Tech	9	57
at Georgia Tech	9	35
Clemson	8	57
Boston College	10	19
at Maryland	13	45
Totals	104	418

That's about 4 yards per carry in ACC play. There's a hidden advantage to losing Smith, however, and that is variance. Smith was a boom or bust back.

63 104 carries in ACC play. He gained 481 yards and lost 63 yards. That's a pretty high loss number for having only 104 carries. Smith gained 5.23 yards per carry and lost .61 yards per carry. That's probably a new stat to you. It is to me as well. I like to use it to look at how often a back puts his team in a negative leverage down after he has a run (like 2nd and 9, for instance). Modern football scholars almost universally agree that the median carry is a much better measure of running back value than yards per carry. Part of this it is very much attributable to an offensive line that exceeded expectations, but was far from good. Smith was frustrating in that never seemed smooth in his approach and often struggled to find the hole in the zone scheme-- which often did not designate a specific hole. He also really faded down the stretch. Antone also struggled with handling option pitches-- something that we saw was increasingly important in Jimbo Fisher's scheme. He also struggled running out of the shotgun, a formation that the 'Noles increasingly resorted to as the offensive coordinator gradually migrated against the use of a fullback, which is a dying position in the sport. As a receiver, he caught 10 balls for 100 yards, but 43 of those 101 came against Division 1-AA filler or in garbage time. Antone was a good Seminole, who never embarrassed the program and really ran hard his senior year. It wasn't his fault that the system didn't fit his style and I'm not wanting to bash a good Seminole like Antone.

Antone basically contributed 104 carries and 418 yards. Let's call his departure a deficit of 105 carries and 420 yards.

Florida State needs to find someone to take D'Vontrey Richardson's carries

via www.orlandosentinel.com

	Rushes	Yards
Western Caro.	4	68
Chattanooga	5	38
Wake Forest	8	46
Virginia Tech	4	21
at Georgia Tech	4	41
Clemson	1	7
at Maryland	6	19
Florida	3	14
ACC Total	23	134
Season Total	35	254

D'vo was good as a change up to Christian Ponder. Running the student body left and right out of the shotgun. He had issues that I'm not going to discuss here, but if you read every D'Vo article on our site you can probably get a feel for what he had going on. He'll focus on baseball now and has some chance to play defensive back in the spring, but it is unlikely he will be back. I don't want him back on the team as he won't be able to pick up defensive back and be productive in the remainder of his career. We need his scholarship. D'Vo was a very good runner, and importantly, a warm body to advance the ball and take hits that Ponder didn't have to take. We will need to replace about 25 carries and 135 yards in ACC play due to D'Vo's departure.

What of Parker and Easterling's carries?

Florida State dismissed Parker and Easterling had Achilles surgery. I doubt he contributes this year. These two wide receivers combined for 15 carries and 107 yards overall, with 11 of those coming in conference, for 84 yards. Next year, we'll need to replace that to the tune of roughly 14 carries and 110 yards. The 'Noles could do without Preston Parker's fumbling problem. I hope whatever team he lands with in the Florida Penal League knows about this.

The goal for Florida State in conference will be about 300 carries and 1400 yards.

Quarterback Christian Ponder should continue to be an excellent runner. I think an estimation of 90 carries and 325 yards (including sacks) is a reasonable expectation. I came to this conclusion because I think Ponder will be sacked less in 2009. I estimate that his yards per carry will improve by 10%, due to the reduction in sacks. We still need 210 carries and 1076 yards.

Jermaine Thomas should be good for 110 carries and 525 yards in ACC play.

via cache.daylife.com

Jermaine Thomas was made to be a running back in the zone scheme. He has no use for a fullback. Thomas understands the need to make one cut and get up the field. His stride is deceptively fast. At 6-1, 190lbs, his upright style is a thing of beauty to watch. Let's do just that:

Personally, his running style reminds me of Ricky Watters. Both Thomas and Watters played a fair amount of wide receiver in their prep days and both have a very upright gait. Here's Watters:

Longtime Tomahawk Nation contributor compared him to:

Jeff Cheaney. Both seem real wiry and don’t look very strong, but seem to have a knack for contorting to shed tackles. They have odd cuts and sometimes seem to be dodging imaginary players.

Last season, Thomas went for 279 yards on just 31 carries in ACC play. That's 9 yards per carry. I think 110 carries for 525 yards is a reasonable projection. Thomas is not a huge back. He is not the type of player I want drawing 20 carries per game. If Thomas can get 14 carries and 3 catcher per game in ACC play, that will be great for the Seminoles. I have a feeling that Thomas will decline quickly if he gets anything over 125 carries in ACC play. In fact, only 5 players had 125 or more carries in ACC play last year, and all were significantly bigger than Thomas. Only one (Dwyer) had an average approaching what I expect out of Thomas. It seems to me that Thomas' goal for Spring needs to be health and normal development. He must stay healthy and continue to get stronger. There is absolutely no need for Thomas to get extensive work in the spring and risk a possible growth stunting injury. All he needs to do is to learn the blitz pickup schemes and the intricacies of the Jimbo Fisher offense, an offense I don't think is all that complicated for running backs. Let's hope Fisher and staff manage him correctly as he can be a special weapon for the 'Noles in 2009.

Based on my projections of Ponder and Thomas combining for 200 carries and 850 yards, the 'Noles will still need to get another 100 carries and 550 yards to reach my goal of 300 carries and 1400 yards.

Marcus Sims should see an expanded role in 2009.

via www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com

Most FSU fans know the story of Marcus Sims. The brother of Seminole superstar linebacker Ernie Sims, Marcus was highly recruited and came to FSU on the promise that he could play running back. Despite having a serious need at the linebacker position, FSU kept the promise. That may now prove to be a good move.

Sims missed 4 games last year with various academic related suspensions. He is a talented runner and can be a valuable bigger back in Jimbo Fisher's system. To call Sims a fullback would be inaccurate. He's essentially a 6' 0" 230lb running back. He rushed 23 times for 21 times for 61 yards in 7 conference games. Sims has very good receiving skills as well, catching 8 balls for 45 yards in 7 conference games. His best performance coming against NC State, catching 5 balls for 38 yards, including 3 first downs. Sims really needs to put better effort into his blitz pickup in the passing game and give more effort in carrying out his fakes. He also must hold onto the ball better. Maybe embattled running back coach Dexter Carter can help him with his ball security issue?

The spring is a perfect time to work on all of those issues. I think Sims can play at 235lbs and be a big time contributor for the 'Noles. It's worth noting that he is a Junior and not a Senior, thanks to some scholarship finagling. I expect Sims to get 55 carries for 200 yards this year in his 8 conference games. Like Thomas, he needs to increase his understanding of the offense and maybe his new found eligibility youth will inspire him to become a leader on the practice field.

Adding Sims 55 for 200 to our 200 for 850, we come to 255 carries for 1050 yards. We still need 45 carries for 350 yards to reach our goal. We can pick that up with the remaining guys and the incoming freshmen.

I think E.J. Manuel will have a decent year rushing. Most of his work in spring will be of the learning variety, however, and I doubt he focuses on running when he still needs to learn the passing game.

Highly touted JUCO running back Tavares Pressley (from last year's recruiting class) will miss Spring practice as he continues to recover from his August ACL surgery. I'm of the opinion that we should cut Pressley unless he makes significant strides this offseason. I really doubt that he can stay eligible for three years anyways, being a JUCO guy with past academic struggles. Here's some of his JUCO video for you to enjoy. Please keep in mind that it is very unlikely that he will both recover from ACL surgery, regain his prior form, and remain eligible all within the same time frame.

That leaves us with two guys who will be playing this spring.

The first is low-profile fullback Seddrick Holloway. He's sort of a man without a role in Fisher's offense, as we try to move away from the fullback and more towards the traditional H-Back role. Holloway is a good to very good blocker. He's not an elite college blocking full back. One of our members recently spotted Holloway and said that he is bigger than Kendrick Stewart. Kendrick Stewart is 6-1 270. Holloway is 5-10, generously. I don't know how much Holloway weighs, but apparently he is really out of shape now. He won't play if he doesn't get seriously committed to his conditioning. We don't need lazy players on this team. We really don't need waste of space seniors setting a poor example for the younger guys. We don't need a fullback with a 42 inch waist. Holloway only had one carry last year and is not a candidate to carry the football, though I guess he could rest it against his ample hip if need be. All kidding aside, we will need Holloway for limited goal-line and short yardage situations and he is way too slow right now to flow with our quicker linemen. He must get his act in gear.

Come On, Seddrick! Put down the burger!

That leaves us with Carlton "Ty" Jones, a sophomore from Tampa who has his own medical issues. Jones is a very promising prospect with a major issue-- he has diabetes. Right now, Jones is tiny. He is under 200lbs, after suffering another major diabetes induced weight loss. Jones cannot afford to mismanage his diabetes. His Grandma used to make him special diabetes friendly meals when he was a kid in high school, but apparently he is not getting that taken care of at Florida State. Know anyone who could help this kid out?

via cache.daylife.com

Jones needs to play at 220lbs to be effective. He doesn't have the moves to be a running back at a school like Florida State if he is down 20lbs of muscle. Jones is the kind of back who sheds tacklers with leverage and strength. I think he can be a decent player if he can get to 210lbs, and he will get a bunch of work in spring. Last year he rushed 11 times for 99 yards. Clearly he is a back with a lot of potential. Jones also has some intelligence issues working against him. I don't want to call the kid dumb, but he had a qualifying scare, really didn't understand the offense last year and hasn't had the mental discipline to manage the diabetes. Is it realistic to expect a college kid to manage his diabetes? His real work will come this summer in the weight room.

The real key for the spring will be for everyone to work hard, for the backs to avoid major setbacks due to injury or otherwise, and for Thomas and Sims to learn their pass protection responsibilities.

Inside The Seminole Film Room (1st Half, With Pictures): Virginia Tech Hokies 20, Florida State Seminoles 30

FSUncensored — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:59:53 -0000

Welcome to another edition of Inside The Seminole Film Room! I want to give a huge thanks to the official stat guys Woody Hayes, Tommy Sabourin, Pat Campbell, Andrew Brady, Steve Heil, and Brian Taylor. I've never met them, but if you know them, thank them. They make this weekly report possible.

Why do we pay big money for Jimbo and Co.? Adjustments

11 First half passing plays netted 8 yards. 3-7, 15 yards (3 throwaways), 2 runs for 9 yards, and 2 sacks for -16 yards.
16 pass Plays netted 130 yards , 8-12 for 148, 1 TD, 1 run for 2, 1 Pass Interference for 4 yards, and 2 sacks for -20 yards.

We weren't nearly as unbalanced as unbalanced as people might think.

Anyways, here we go:

As always, we use these terms to denote formations:

"Chollie" is shotgun, 3 wide, 2 backs, like Charlie Ward ran.
"KGun" is what the Jim Kelly bills teams ran, with 3 WR, a TE, and back.
"BAMA" is Singleback, Twins WR, Twins TE (we sometimes line up in this with the FB acting as an HBack or second TE)
Hawaii is a 4WR GUN Trips Overload look out of Hawaii's playbook. It's Shotgun, with 3 WR and a rb all on the same side. This is great for forcing defenses to show their hand early.
Wendy's is 4 WR, or 4 Standing players, stacked behind each other in groups of 2, on each side of the offensive line. This is usually run with a tight alignment. I named it Wendy's because it's effectively a "DoubleStack"

Vt	1/10	at Vt30	Esco, J kickoff 66 yards to the VT4, Roberts, D return 40 yards to the VT44, out-of-bounds (Esco, J;Wright, R).
Jody Allen needs to go. I've railed about this for too long, and nothing changes. Please bring back former DE Coach Jim Gladden. With our athletes, there is NO excuse for poor kick and punt coverage, for consistently outpunting your coverage, etc.
Vt	1/10	at Vt44	Taylor, T sacked for loss of 6 yards to the VT38 (Verdell, T). Taylor breaks his ankle (basically)
You never really want to see that, but I am glad FSU is back to hitting people. Know why Taylor really broke his leg? Neefy did a great job of recognizing the FB slipping out of the backfield, and rocked him, not allowing him to get into his route. Taylor had no open men, and Verdell went Mortal Kombat on him, with "Get Over Here" and "Finish Him." Photo Credit: Phil Sears, Democrat
Vt	2/16	at Vt38	Glennon, S deep pass incomplete to Harris, V.
Max Protect, no blitz, 2 man route, excellent coverage.
Vt	3/16	at Vt38	PENALTY VT false start (Boone, G) 5 yards to the VT33.
Vt	3/21	at Vt33	Evans, D rush over right end for 2 yards to the VT35 (Nicholson, D).
Zone Read, Mincey blew it up, changed angles, everyone else swarmed.
Not sure why we didn't just punk their receivers from the start (we later did), and instead started off in very loose coverage.
Vt	4/19	at Vt35	Bowden, B punt 51 yards to the FS14, Carter, T return 12 yards to the FS26 (Martin, O).
Think Mickey wants to punch Jody Allen for allowing Tony to return punts? How should we protest? Let's write e-mails! E-Mail Jody Allen at jdallen@fsu.edu, E-Mail Mickey at mandrews@fsu.edu, or E-Mail Jimbo at jjfisher@fsu.edu . Please do not abuse this, and if you do E-Mail, just express your concerns over using key defensive starters to return punts and kicks, remind them that there is a huge dropoff between our first string CB's and the backups, mention the Patrick Robinson injury resulting from a kickoff return against Colorado, and just ask that they stop discontinue the practice. Make sure to be respectful and thank them for considering your suggestion.
			Drive: 3 plays, minus 9 yards, TOP 01:31

Click "Continue Reading This Post" for the rest of the game.

Fs	1/10	at Fs26	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 13:29.
Fs	1/10	at Fs26	Smith, A rush right for loss of 5 yards to the FS21 (Worilds, J).
BAMA. Zebrie and Spurlock don't double correctly, which kills this from the beginning, and they follow their weak double team with poor 1-on-1 blocking. Freshmen. I think if they did get this correctly blocked, we would have had big yards, as they were heavily shaded to the opposite side. Losing first down doesn't work well.
Fs	2/15	at Fs21	Richardson, D rush right for 1 yard to the FS22 (Sturdivant, P).
CHOLLIE Random bad luck, as VT is in a perfect stunt right into our play, which was option right.
Fs	3/14	at Fs22	Ponder, C sacked for loss of 6 yards to the FS16 (Martin, O).
HAWAII (4wr Trips Overload). Rolll the pocket to the wide side (left). We're running a 20 Yardcomeback with the outside guy, the middle guy is running a pick. This is funny to watch on replay, and it pretty obvious. Easterling tries to pick Parker's defender (the 2 nickel corners were in bump, the outside corner was 15 yards off Surrency), but the defender plays it beautifully, nobody is open. VT Blitzed 5, and played cover 1. Hudson got beat here, amazingly, and sacked CP7. I'd prefer him to throw this away, but he didn't take a foolish chance, so that's good.
Fs	4/20	at Fs16	Powell, S. punt 45 yards to the VT39, Harris, V return 7 yards to the VT46 (Smith, K).
			Drive: 3 plays, minus 10 yards, TOP 02:04

Vt	1/10	at Vt46	VIRGINIA TECH drive start at 11:25.
Vt	1/10	at Vt46	Evans, D rush over right guard for loss of 1 yard to the VT45 (White, M.,).
Vt	2/11	at Vt45	PENALTY VT false start (Render, S) 5 yards to the VT40.
Vt	2/16	at Vt40	Glennon, S rush QX for 7 yards to the VT47, out-of-bounds.
Vt	3/9	at Vt47	Glennon, S crossing pass incomplete to Boykin, J, dropped pass.
Vt	4/9	at Vt47	Bowden, B punt 51 yards to the FS2, downed.
			Drive: 3 plays, 1 yards, TOP 01:50
GREAT DLine series. Moses McCray is back, and he looks huge. People don't need to worry about our defensive tackle depth in the coming years. He looks like his frame could hold 320 lbs. Nicholson took a bad angle chasing Glennon the run. The really damaging play was the punt, which pinned us. That 51 yard change in field position, accounting for the change in possession, is worth probably 3 points on field position point expectency alone! VT started off better than us because of the return yadrage advantage. Good defensive series.

Fs	1/10	at Fs02	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 09:35.
Fs	1/10	at Fs02	Sims, M rush up middle for 2 yards to the FS4 (Chancellor, K).
I-Form. I worry that we give this away since our tailback is 9 yards deep. Very little push, but good job of moving the pile by Marcus.
Fs	2/8	at Fs04	Ponder, C pass complete to Smith, A for 2 yards to the FS6, out-of-bounds.
I-Form. Wow! How did we escape disaster here? Zebrie and Spurlock BOTH forgot to block the DT. Ponder's wheels save us here, as he rolls out. Amazingly lucky. This play was setup for a first down if Ponder can set and throw on time, as nobody was close to Antone within the design of the play. Lucky.
Fs	3/6	at Fs06	Ponder, C deep pass incomplete to Carr, G (Harris, V).
4 wide. Vtech plays 7 evenly across the line of scrimmage. Brings 4, drops 3. Difficult look for offensive line, and pressure comes early from outside. Ponder steps up, nobody open, looks to run, pressure from inside, he spins, dances, and somehow gets away. Crazy escapability here. Then he fires to Greg Carr coming back. Very dangerous throw, could have been sacked, but honestly, we got screwed here as Harris was clearly holding Carr, though Carr didn't do a great job of selling it.
Fs	4/6	at Fs06	PENALTY FS false start (Lawson, R) 3 yards to the FS3.
Fs	4/9	at Fs03	Powell, S. punt 42 yards to the FS45, Harris, V return 16 yards to the FS29, out-of-bounds (Bradham, N.).
Go ahead and send those E-Mails RE: Jody Allen. FSU's punt coverage is atrocious, but here, it's probably a product of the protection first attitude due to the horrible field position.
			Drive: 3 plays, 1 yards, TOP 01:05

Vt	1/10	at Fs29	VIRGINIA TECH drive start at 08:30.
Vt	1/10	at Fs29	Glennon, S rush QX for 3 yards to the FS26 (Thacker, B), PENALTY VT holding (Render, S) 10 yards to the FS39, NO PLAY.
On second viewing, our Dline played really well. We had a great "7 flat backout" play here, and Mincey almost had the sack.
Vt	1/20	at Fs39	Oglesby, J rush over right tackle for 2 yards to the FS37 (Verdell, T;Nicholson, D).
Mincey was playing pretty well in this game.
Vt	2/18	at Fs37	Glennon, S rush QX for 3 yards to the FS34 (Verdell, T).
Mickey getting tricky! A LB and a Safety in zone? Nice.
Vt	3/15	at Fs34	Glennon, S crossing pass complete to Boykin, J for 11 yards to the FS23 (Garvin, M).
For the second time in 4 plays, the ref picks one of our linebackers. Ridiculous, and it allowed VT to pick up 5 more yards.
Vt	4/4	at Fs23	Keys, D field goal attempt from 41 GOOD, clock 05:51.
			Virginia Tech 3, Florida State 0
			Drive: 4 plays, 6 yards, TOP 02:39
Zero complaints about the defense here. 2nd viewing was pretty encouraging. We get screwed by the refs on 2 pick plays, and the 3-0 lead is almost entirely a result of Jody Allen's unit. In fact, at this point, VT had run 10 plays for -2 yards, and produced 3 points. I bet people won't realize how good this defense is until we lose them next year.

			Myer, J kickoff 62 yards to the FS8, Garvin, M return 19 yards to the FS27 (Pickle, D;Reidy, M).
Fs	1/10	at Fs27	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 05:43.
Fs	1/10	at Fs27	Smith, A rush right for loss of 2 yards to the FS25 (Grimm, C;Warren, Br). Backwards Lateral.
TIGHT BAMA. Strange play. Antone catches the ball way deep behind the line, unsure if this was his fault, an alignment problem, etc. VT had our number early. Ponder floated this ball too much, and it's a pass he hasn't throwm much in games. Protection was decent here. That's twice in the early going that Antone was open in space, and the ball didn't get to him properly (the first was when Zebrie/ Suprlock forgot to block the DT right in front of them, haha... nervous laughter... freshmen.) NOTE: This was probably the play he hurt his ribs.
Fs	2/12	at Fs25	Easterling, T rush ER for no gain to the FS25 (Worilds, J).
K Gun. Easterling motion, hand to him. VT played this well, but we ran it to the short side. Lots of people are annoyed with the short side WR runs. I haven't made up my mind.
Fs	3/12	at Fs25	Timeout Florida State, clock 04:21.
Disorganized, for the first time in a while.
Fs	3/12	at Fs25	Ponder, C sacked for loss of 10 yards to the FS15 (Grimm, C).
Great job of creating confusion by VT. Credit foster. Also, we seem to be trying out lots of new formations. This was "Caz as a wideout, Sims as a Tailback, nobody checks the corner blitz. Sack" Nobody was open here, and I don't realistically expect these guys to pick up this type of blitz at this point. The responsibility falls on Tone or Datko, and probably # 67 is at fault.
Fs	4/22	at Fs15	Gano, G punt 55 yards to the VT30, Harris, V return 6 yards to the VT36 (Wright, R).
			Drive: 3 plays, minus 12 yards, TOP 02:10
Hindsight is 20/20, but it looked like we were very close to doing some things, and VT had been very lucky/ perfect in playcalling at this point. Maybe it is because I know the final result. Gano is now punting, and he hits an amazing boomer. I favor shorter, higher punts, but that's because the alternative is usually long and low. Long and High is obviously the best. Smiles.

Vt	1/10	at Vt36	VIRGINIA TECH drive start at 03:33.
Vt	1/10	at Vt36	Evans, D rush up middle for 2 yards to the VT38 (White, M.,).
Vt	2/8	at Vt38	Glennon, S sideline pass complete to Harris, V for 9 yards to the VT47, 1ST DOWN VT, out-of-bounds.
Credit VT for putting Harriss at Fullback and motioning him out. Sprint out right and Nicholson can't cover him.
Vt	1/10	at Vt47	Evans, D rush up middle for 3 yards to the 50 yardline (Ingram, K).
Tight splits, we get block up here. Good job fighting down the line by Ingram.
Vt	2/7	at Vt50	Glennon, S BS pass complete to Boykin, J for 14 yards to the FS36, 1ST DOWN VT (Mangum, K), PENALTY FS face mask (Mangum, K) 15 yards to the FS21, 1ST DOWN VT.
They went 4-wide, with a standup TE. We played very loose man (Mickey blamed himself for this, and would adjust soon after.) Blitz Nicholson. Good pickup, quick throw. Personal foul was iffy but not terrible.
Vt	1/10	at Fs21	Evans, D rush over left end for 16 yards to the FS5, 1ST DOWN VT, out-of-bounds (Robinson, J;Verdell, T).
Weak option look. Average blocking, poor recognition, not shedding blocks. That sounds like a recipe for disaster against Gtech. The DT's played well for most of this game, but not on this series.
Vt	1-G	at Fs05	Evans, D rush over right guard for 4 yards to the FS1 (Verdell, T;Rolle, M).
We played this correctly, Ingram just whiffed the tackle.
Vt	2-G	at Fs01	Glennon, S rush quarterback sneak for 1 yard to the FS0, TOUCHDOWN, clock 00:00.
			Keys, D kick attempt good.
			Virginia Tech 10, Florida State 0
			Drive: 7 plays, 64 yards, TOP 03:33
Intelligently designed series of plays by VT. Credit them. They had our LB's moving around a ton, pre-snap, with all kinds of motion. This one goes to you, Stinespring.

2ND QUARTER

Vt	1-G	at Vt30	Start of 2nd quarter, clock 15:00.
			Myer, J kickoff 55 yards to the FS15, Garvin, M return 27 yards to the FS42 (Myer, J).
Fs	1/10	at Fs42	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 15:00.
Fs	1/10	at Fs42	Ponder, C rush QX for 11 yards to the VT47, 1ST DOWN FS (Chancellor, K).
I-Form. This was not a QB draw. VT brought 5, we blocked 1. 4 missed blocks. Datko held his, as he was the backside guy on the roll out. Nobody was open, but even if they were, McMahon, Spurlock, and Zebrie missed their blocks immediately, as in zero blocking time. I'm sure Jimbo loved that.
Fs	1/10	at Vt47	Ponder, C TA pass incomplete, PENALTY FS holding declined, PENALTY FS holding (Sanders, Z.) 10 yards to the FS43, NO PLAY.
I-Form. Play action. Simms doesn't get a great block. BOTH right side blockers (Zebrie and Spurlock called for holds. Also, Datko was holding.) Zero time once again. If we pull this act in Atlanta, we lose. One positive: Ponder didn't get hit. Holding is better than sacks. Ponder that. Why? No loss of down and hopefully no QB hit.
Fs	1/20	at Fs43	Smith, A rush up middle for 5 yards to the FS48 (Brown, N).
I-Form. I rip on McMahon a lot, because he played horribly as of late, but he and Spurlock blocked about as well as they can on this play. First down win.
Fs	2/15	at Fs48	Ponder, C sideline pass complete to Carr, G for 13 yards to the VT39 (Harris, V).
4WR Gun, Double Stack. I'm calling this formation "Wendy's" from now on. No blitz, average protection. Datko gets driven back into Ponder, and that causes the pass to be a little bit softer than it should have or would have been. Ponder definitely dinged his hand or wrist here, and that's something to watch. Nice route and adjustment by Carr.
Fs	3/2	at Vt39	Smith, A rush over left end for 39 yards to the VT0, 1ST DOWN FS, TOUCHDOWN, clock 12:40.
Goal Line set. Let's talk strategy. Why in the world to teams load up against 3rd and short at midfield? The benefit is that you might stop the team, who should then go for it on 4th (can't punt from the 40 or kick a field goal). The downside to loading up so heavily is that it kills your angles. 2 good blocks by Hudson and Sims (who is markedly better in run blocking than blitz pickup, and Antone is off to the races. Dumb by VT, but I will take it. Photo By Phil Sears (Democrat)
			Gano, G kick attempt good.
			Virginia Tech 10, Florida State 7
			Drive: 4 plays, 58 yards, TOP 02:20

			Esco, J kickoff 60 yards to the VT10, Roberts, D return 23 yards to the VT33 (Wright, R).
Vt	1/10	at Vt33	VIRGINIA TECH drive start at 12:33.
Vt	1/10	at Vt33	Harris, V rush ER for 13 yards to the VT46, 1ST DOWN VT (Mangum, K;Verdell, T).
			Injured player for FSU is #94-Mincey.
VT using motion to read our coverage. This was a misdirection end around. Mincy played really well until this point, and I hope he is okay.
Vt	1/10	at Vt46	Glennon, S screen pass incomplete to Oglesby, J (Thacker, B).
Vt	2/10	at Vt46	Oglesby, J rush over left end for no gain to the VT46, fumble forced by Nicholson, D, fumble by Oglesby, J recovered by FS Nicholson, D at VT46.
			Drive: 3 plays, 13 yards, TOP 00:31
Just a great play by a very good player. This was a team play too, as we handled the trap very nicely, Nicholson unblocked did what we want to see.

Fs	1/10	at Vt46	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 12:02.
Fs	1/10	at Vt46	Richardson, D rush over right end for 8 yards to the VT38, out-of-bounds (Worilds, J).
I-Form. Designed boot. I love this. 10 blockers instead of 9. D'Vo is a very special runner, and we need to get him several touches per game. Not only to showcase his talents and gain yards, but to give Ponder a break from the killshots, and to make the defense prep for it. If Marcus Sims doesn't trip, I think this goes for 20 yards. D'Vo must protect the ball better though, as his technique was downright reckless (loaf of bread).
			QB for FSU is #7-Ponder.
Fs	2/2	at Vt38	Smith, A rush over right guard for 8 yards to the VT30, 1ST DOWN FS (Porch, D;Chancellor, K).
I-Form. Hudson and Datko great job, McMahon held his as well. Antone running really hard. Smart.
Fs	1/10	at Vt30	Smith, A rush over left guard for 3 yards to the VT27 (Warren, Br).
Fs	2/7	at Vt27	Ponder, C screen pass complete to Sims, M for no gain to the VT27 (Virgil, S).
			Injured player for FSU is #35-Sims.
This was a quick PA, designed throw to Sims, and the WR was basically blocking downfield. Very well read by VT. They keyed on something, not sure what. Killshot on Sims.
Fs	3/7	at Vt27	Ponder, C TA pass incomplete to Smith, A, QB hurry by Martin, C.
Hawaii. Oh man. Instant pressure. Ponder quick sets, and we're lucky he did, otherwise he would have been killed. VT had 7 on the LOS, dropped the DE's into coverage beautifully on delay, and blitzed the trips side (zone blitz). Zebrie picks up the blitz, incredibly. VT did a great job here, having their DT stab upfield, before dropping back. LB blitzing, on a half second delay. Spurlock realizes too late, but I'm not sure that even a guy like Hudson would have played this effectively, and the LB is untouched.Sometimes you must tip your cap. Cap Tips here go to VT DC Bud Foster, our RT Zebrie Sanders, and Ponder, who saw what was happening, rolled, and did not take a sack, but rather, threw the ball away.
Fs	4/7	at Vt27	PENALTY FS false start (Hudson, R) 5 yards to the VT32.
Fs	4/12	at Vt32	Gano, G field goal attempt from 50 GOOD, clock 09:33.
			Virginia Tech 10, Florida State 10
			Drive: 6 plays, 14 yards, TOP 02:29

			Esco, J kickoff 70 yards to the VT0, touchback.
Vt	1/10	at Vt20	VIRGINIA TECH drive start at 09:33.
Vt	1/10	at Vt20	Glennon, S sacked for loss of 3 yards to the VT17 (Brown, E).
How in the world did VT think they could single block Everette? EB has superpowers, and on this play he chose to use "spin." Everette Brown, guys, get a good look, and hope he is on your NFL team next year. He deserves it.
Vt	2/13	at Vt17	Evans, D rush TR for 23 yards to the VT40, 1ST DOWN VT, out-of-bounds (Rolle, M).
Over half of VT's rushing yards came on this option play, which isn't an option, but a fake option with a designed pitch. Why didn't we get this blocked well? Probably because our DB's were way off the ball. Mickey adjusted in the 2h. I doubt he thought we would see option from Glennon.
Vt	1/10	at Vt40	Glennon, S sacked for loss of 6 yards to the VT34 (Brown, E).
This time, he chose the "club" superpower.
Vt	2/16	at Vt34	Evans, D rush right for 6 yards to the VT40 (Nicholson, D;White, M.,).
Vt	3/10	at Vt40	Glennon, S crossing pass complete to Boykin, J for 15 yards to the FS45 (Smith, K), PENALTY VT illegal formation (Wang, E) 5 yards to the VT35, NO PLAY.
In order to block Brown, the LT lined up at H-Back. That's illegal.
Vt	3/15	at Vt35	Glennon, S FY pass complete to Boykin, J for 41 yards to the FS24, 1ST DOWN VT.
Photo Credit: Phil Sears, Democrat This was easily the play that pissed me off the most. Micheal Ray Garvin is a decent return guy, and he's a great olympian. Garvin should not ever be left on an island. He is a poor cover guy. Tack speed does not equal coverage skills. Patrick Robinson and probably TC are fine doing this. VT was in KGUN. We're not a good blitz team. We blitz a lot, but we're not especially good at getting past blockers. Garvin gets burned here, and it takes a great throw from Glennon to burn him,a nd I'm sure Garvin neever expected to have to cover for that long, but I question the wisdom of this call. I'd like to see some help to that side of the field from a safety. This is maybe the one call that I'll take issue with on Mickey's side. Garvin really isn't a good defensive player.
Vt	1/10	at Fs24	Evans, D rush over right tackle for loss of 3 yards to the FS27 (Verdell, T).
Vt	2/13	at Fs27	Glennon, S screen pass complete to Jefferson, K for 8 yards to the FS19, out-of-bounds (Rolle, M).
Vt	3/5	at Fs19	Glennon, S sacked for loss of 7 yards to the FS26 (McNeil, K).
Good to see McNiel playing well, and this was a coverage sack.
Vt	4/12	at Fs26	Keys, D field goal attempt from 43 MISSED - wide right, spot at FS26, clock 04:21.
			Drive: 9 plays, 54 yards, TOP 05:12

Fs	1/10	at Fs26	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 04:21.
Fs	1/10	at Fs26	Ponder, C screen pass incomplete to Thomas, J..
Swing Screen to Thomas that VT is all over. Intentional throwaway, in my opinion. Datko didn’t cut his guy. That's a problem.
Fs	2/10	at Fs26	Thomas, J. rush TR for 1 yard to the FS27 (Sturdivant, P).
Sims must get better at blocking, and fast.
Fs	3/9	at Fs27	Ponder, C sideline pass incomplete to Parker, P.
Nifty Spin move to get around Zebrie's man. Not a great throw, could have definitely found him earlier. Parker needed to slow down instead of running full speed.
Fs	4/9	at Fs27	Gano, G punt 47 yards to the VT26, Harris, V return 5 yards to the VT31 (Aronson, Z.).
			Drive: 3 plays, 1 yards, TOP 01:09
11 First half passing plays netted 8 yards. 3-7, 15 yards (3 throwaways), 2 runs for 9 yards, and 2 sacks for -16 yards.

Vt	1/10	at Vt31	VIRGINIA TECH drive start at 03:12.
Vt	1/10	at Vt31	Glennon, S sideline pass incomplete to Porch, D, QB hurry by Nicholson, D.
Vt	2/10	at Vt31	Evans, D rush over left tackle for 13 yards to the VT44, 1ST DOWN VT (Robinson, P.).
Vt	1/10	at Vt44	Glennon, S deep out pass complete to Coale, D for 18 yards to the FS38, 1ST DOWN VT.
			Previous play is under review.
			Call on the field is confirmed.
Vt	1/10	at Fs38	Glennon, S sideline pass complete to Coale, D for 4 yards to the FS34, out-of-bounds (Robinson, P.).
Vt	2/6	at Fs34	Glennon, S HT pass complete to Harris, V for 5 yards to the FS29 (Rolle, M).
Vt	3/1	at Fs29	Timeout Virginia Tech, clock 01:32.
Vt	3/1	at Fs29	Evans, D rush over right guard for no gain to the FS29 (Nicholson, D).
Vt	4/1	at Fs29	Timeout Florida State, clock 01:19.
			Virginia Tech has challenged the ball spot.
			Spot on field is confirmed. VT is charged a timeout.
Vt	4/1	at Fs29	Timeout Virginia Tech, clock 01:19.
Vt	4/1	at Fs29	Glennon, S rush quarterback sneak for 1 yard to the FS28, 1ST DOWN VT.
Vt	1/10	at Fs28	Glennon, S sacked for loss of 2 yards to the FS30 (Brown, E).
Vt	2/12	at Fs30	Glennon, S flag pass complete to Boykin, J for 23 yards to the FS7, 1ST DOWN VT (Rolle, M).
Vt	1-G	at Fs07	Glennon, S TR pass incomplete to Coale, D.
Vt	2-G	at Fs07	Glennon, S rush QX for 4 yards to the FS3, out-of-bounds (Bradham, N.).
Vt	3-G	at Fs03	Glennon, S middle pass incomplete to Smith, A, QB hurry by Verdell, T.
Vt	4-G	at Fs03	Keys, D field goal attempt from 20 GOOD, clock 00:03.
			Virginia Tech 13, Florida State 10
			Drive: 13 plays, 66 yards, TOP 03:09
			Keys, D kickoff 45 yards to the FS25, Bradham, N. return 19 yards to the FS44 (Carmichael, R).
Fs	1/10	at Fs44	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 00:00.
Fs	1/10	at Fs44	End of half, clock 00:00.
			Virginia Tech 13, Florida State 10
Glennon played out of his mind in this half. He has a very big arm, and he was just perfect

I'll have the 2nd half up after a bit.

(This single post isn't big enough to hold me).

The Kool-Aid Debate: Do you drink?

FSUncensored — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:39:59 -0000

INSIDE: I argue with myself. Hopefully, you'll join the conversation.

Garnet & Golded: 5-1! We are way ahead of expectations at this point. This team is coming together, we're the best in the ACC! We're tied for the ACC lead and should at least make the Orange Bowl! I'll go with Purple Koolaid!

Donald Downer: 2 of our wins are against 1-AA teams. The other 3 are against below average teams. Have we beaten a probable bowl team? Maybe Miami. Colorado and NC State are horrid. FSU's real season starts now. I'll have water.

Garnet & Golded: FSU is 3rd in the Nation in total defense! We're first in 3rd down conversion defense! We are 17th in pass defense! Give me the red stuff!

Donald Downer: I can't argue with that. This is a pretty talented defense. There are a few cracks, however. We aren't even top 50 in Opponent Adjusted Pass Efficiency Defense. That's a concern, as it further underscores our weak schedule to date. Miami's offense is nothing special, Colorado can't score on anyone, and NC State is pathetically bad. We held Wake to 12, true, but they've only scored one TD so far in ACC play.

My concern isn't playing 3rd down pass defense, but rather, forcing opponents to get to 3rd down. Colorado and NC State had success running the football on this team in spurts (as did Miami on their 2nd drive).

Our DT's haven't played especially well against the run, and they are even worse in pass rush. Everette Brown is doubled and sometimes tripled. The DT's are getting single blocked every time, and are not pushing the pocket. Markus White, Neefy Moffett, and Kevin McNiel can best be described as inconsistent.

We're not getting to the QB, registering only a 6.04% Sack Rate, the worst in our last 5 years. Obviously, Jody Allen needed to be fired yesterday, as he's been massively underqualified throughout his entire employment. Please bring back Jim Gladden!

The effort from the DLine is concerning. We have 4 DT's who rotate, as well as 3 DE's not named Brown, and yet they don't consistently appear to give maximum effot. With this kind of veteran depth, we need to have these guys play 100% every play, and then come out when they tire.

Even more concerning from the DLine is the lack of discipline. We play out of control, consistently lose contain, and are often caught out of position. I'm pretty sick of seeing Moffett crash down only to see the back bounce outside for 15.

The LB's have played amazing all season, but they had by far their worst game against NC State. Nicholson was especially poor, as he failed to get off blocks and just appeared to be out of sorts. I have confidence that they will turn that around, however, because they've done it before and are not coached by Jody Allen. These guys need to learn to use their speed to their advantage and take better angles to the football.

This might be the ACC's best defense, but until they fix those issues, they won't be special. Getting Patrick and Jamie Robinson back and fully healthy, in addition to Dekoda Watson and an improving Nigel Bradham could go a long way towards making this a "Nationally Elite Unit." Coffee would be fine. Black.

Garnet & Golded: We're averaging 413 yards and over 35 points in our last 3 games, all away from Doak Campbell. We're #1 in Total offense and scoring offense in the ACC! As a unit, the offensive line has far exceeded expectations. Hudson has played out of his mind, while most other members of the line have faired well in run blocking. The Noles run game has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few seasons. I believe this is a combination of better offensive line coaching, a mobile quarterback, improved blocking by the wide receivers, and having Antone in good health.

Gimme the red stuff!

Donald Downer: Schedule, schedule, schedule. Oh, and film. I really like what Jimbo is doing with our offense. As a member of the "he's a good but not great playcaller" club, I've been very happy with his effort so far. After an iffy game against Wake, he has stepped up and I have to give him an A.

What do I like about his playcalling? So far, he's been able to scheme around our weaknesses. With numbers like that, one might think we have no offensive weaknesses. They would be wrong.

Opposing coaches have to salivate when they think about our offensive line play. Rodney Hudson is a bona fide stud, and everyone knows that. The other interior line positions, however are huge question marks.

Ryan McMahon was a freshman All American last year. He is the worst starter on this team and I do not think it is all that close. McMahon gets destroyed on over half his snaps, consistently put on his back or pushed into the backfield, his poor play destroys our running lanes and kills our angles. I can't fault him for his effort, but he just isn't any good. I really hope we look to the JUCO ranks to find a replacement center, or hope that McMahon gains some strength. I'm not calling Mcmahon a slacker here, but he is consistently getting dominated and his performance is handcuffing our offense.

At the other guard spot is Will Furlong David Spurlock. Furlong injured his foot and was seen on crutches after the game. He is now in a boot. That doesn't sound good for the Va Tech game. Luckily for us, I actually think Spurlock is the better player. While he is 18, and thus makes the youngest offensive line in the Nation even younger, he is bigger. Spurlock also plays with a mean streak. He is closer to the Hudson mold than the McMahon model: meaning that plays really hard and is aggressive. Spurlock has the look of someone who will eventually be a very good player for us. Right now though, it looks as if he doesn't know all of his assignments. That's expected from a guy in his first game. Hudson didn't know all of his last season, and we all know how he has turned out. While I wish Furlong well, I have serious concerns about his ability to ever be a decent player. He has had two offseasons in the program and has not been able to put on the size he needs to be an effective player. Furlong's loss is a blow to the depth chart, but I don't expect a major dropoff in production.

Datko and Sanders, however, at the tackle spots (left and right respectively) are 18 yearolds who are experiencing their ups and downs. I think these guys have decent, but not great technique, considering their age. To compound matters, they are each 20LBS too small, even for a Rick Trickett offensive line. There isn't much we can do about this right now. I have to assume that, unlike RS FR Will Furlong, they will put on weight in the offseason program and keep it on. These two players clearly have potential to eventually be all conference type performers, and we don't really have other options here.

Bowden yelled at the ref's for the holding penalties against the Wolfpack on Thursday night, but they were doing their jobs. FSU was holding on the holding calls, and there several obvious holds that the refs did not call. This isn't something we can immediately correct. Sure, better technique and focus can help, and CRT is certainly capable of schooling these guys, but the majority of these holds occur because we're not very good right now. The alternative to holding may very well be a broken Christian Ponder. I hope we continue to hold, because we will get away with it a good bit of the time.

There is further trouble on the Horizon, however. The fact is that we haven't played very many good defensive fronts yet. Take a look at the best and worst fronts we will face/ have faced (italics).

Georgia Tech

NC State

Clemson

Miami

Wake Forest

Maryland

Colorado

So, we're about to face 4 defensive fronts that are certainly better than anything we've seen so far. That doesn't bode well for this offense. I think we will continue to use the fast break run offense, utilizing the speed and cut blocking of our linemen, but the dropback passing might take a turn downhill.

These fronts will brutalize McMahon and probably the 3 18-yearolds as well. We won't have much of a pocket to step up in. Expect to see some fumbles as Ponder is hit from the blind side. This could get ugly. We're going to have to win some ugly ballgames, with a lot of clock grinding, running, and punting.

Until next time...

Colorado @ Florida State: The Seminole Play-by-Play Review: 1st half

FSUncensored — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:38:54 -0000

Here is the 1st Quarter. The 2nd quarter is after the jump (hit "continue reading" ).

I will have the second half up later, probably later tonight. What do you think?

	Play	Commentary
	Esco, J kickoff 46 yards to the CU24, Sumler,Demetriu return 0 yards to the CU24.	Pooch kicked
1st & 10 at COL 24	Hawkins, Cody sacked for loss of 8 yards to the CU16 (Moffett, N).	Misdirection Play action, attempting to block Moffett with a center, as the Tackle doubled down. Neefy is way too fast off the edge.
2nd & 18 at COL 16	Sumler,Demetriu rush over left guard for 10 yards to the CU26 (McClure, D;Watson, D).	Well run Draw Play
3rd & 8 at COL 26	Hawkins, Cody rush for loss of 2 yards to the CU24, fumble forced by Brown, E, fumble by Hawkins, Cody recovered by FS Moffett, N at CU27.	Shotgun 4 wide, Brown wasn't touched. This should have absolutely been scored a sack. Great job by the 'Noles of falling on the ball & not trying to pick it up & run with it in traffic.
	Drive: 3 plays, 3 yards, TOP 01:16, Col fumble.	We used some zone on this drive & our defense seemed overwhelmingly fast.

	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 13:44.
1st & 10 at COL 27	Smith, A rush over left tackle for 9 yards to the CU18 (Perkins,Anthony).	1RB, 3WR (Trips Right). Colorado plays 7 in the box. The line moves in unison, & open up a huge hole. Colorado was in zone, but went to man-switching here.
2nd & 1 at COL 18	Smith, A rush over right guard for 6 yards to the CU12, 1ST DOWN FS (Walters, Ryan;Perkins,Anthony).	1RB, 2 TE (Surrat as H-Back), Twins Right. Nice block by Surrat. Line fired off fast.
1st & 10 at COL 12	Smith, A rush right for 10 yards to the CU2, 1ST DOWN FS (Perkins,Anthony).	1 RB, 2 TE (Surrat as H-B), Twins Right. 4 of 5 lineman on the ground, cut blocking. Also, motion w/ Surrat for 2nd time in a row.
1st & Goal at COL 2	Smith, A rush up middle for 2 yards to the CU0, TOUCHDOWN, clock 12:01.	1 RB, 2 TE (Surrat as H-B), Twins Left. HB motion left. Man coverage. Caz & Surrat bury their man on a straight blast block.
	Gano, G kick attempt good.
	Florida State 7, Colorado 0
DRIVE TOTALS: FlaSt drive: 4 plays 27 yards, 01:01 FlaSt TD	Drive: 4 plays, 27 yards, TOP 01:43	Interesting look this week with Surrat as the H-Back. That was similar to what we saw at LSU a few years ago. The line fired off quickly & got their men on the ground. Antone rushing harder than I've seen him run at FSU. Good wideout blocking as well. No Shotgun on the drive.

	Esco, J kickoff 70 yards to the CU0, Smith, Josh return 18 yards to the CU18 (Givens, L.).	Bradham & Givens cover kicks like mad men. I'm glad to see our young guys giving their all on special teams.
	COLORADO drive start at 11:57.
1st & 10 at COL 18	Stewart, Rodney rush left for 9 yards to the CU27 (Rolle, M).	Colorado in offset I right. Really well blocked & designed counter to the right. Everette got collapsed inside.
2nd & 1 at COL 27	Hawkins, Cody deep pass incomplete to Moyd, Kevin.	Moyd is a tailback they snuck through the middle & down the sideline on this play action. Looks like we were in zone, difficult to tell here because they cut back from commercial break. Any help here guys?
3rd & 1 at COL 27	Moyd, Kevin rush over left tackle for 5 yards to the CU32, 1ST DOWN CU (Watson, D).	CU used end around action here to freeze the LB's on the run up the middle. We did the "LB's In the gaps" pre-snap look.
1st & 10 at COL 32	Stewart, Rodney rush TL for 9 yards to the CU41, out-of-bounds (Verdell, T).	We went zone against their 3wr I look quite often. Again, the buffs faked the h&off to the motion WR, & then pitch to the tailback going the other way. McNiel was in here, & Brown probably makes this play.
2nd & 1 at COL 41	Stewart, Rodney rush over left guard for 3 yards to the CU44, 1ST DOWN CU (Nicholson, D).	Direct Snap, qb motioned out. Looks as if we played this pretty well, disregarded the QB running out, & stayed in man coverage.
1st & 10 at COL 44	Hawkins, Cody sacked for loss of 9 yards to the CU35 (Mincey, J), PENALTY CU intentional grounding (Hawkins, Cody) 0 yards to the CU35.	Colorado goes to the GUN here. We play it man. Same play that Neefy sacked earlier. Hawkins sees pressure & launches downfield for the grounding. Mincey had an idiot late hit here, not called. NIGEL BRADHAM PANCAKED THE GUY HE WAS COVERING! ITS LEGAL TO HIT WITHIN FIVE YARDS, & WOW! BRADHAM KNOCKS THE RB DOWN! WAY TO GO BEAST MODE!
2ND& 19 at COL 35	Stewart, Rodney rush over left end for 8 yards to the CU43 (Nicholson, D;Rolle, M).	Draw, over Bradham overruns, cutback inside.
3rd & 11 at COL 44	PENALTY CU false start 5 yards to the CU38. PENALTY FS personal foul 15 yards to the FS47, 1ST DOWN CU.	Watson flied in & crushed QB Hawkins after whistle blew.
1st & 10 at FSU 47	Sumler,Demetriu rush MIM for 1 yard to the FS46 (Watson, D).	Kendrick Stewart stacks it up, Watson cleans it up.
2nd & 9 at FSU 46	PENALTY CU false start (Geer, Riar-- guy assigned to Block Moffett) 5 yards to the CU49.
2nd & 14 at COL 49	Scott, Darrell rush left for 4 yards to the FS47 (Bradham, N.).	Bunch set, trips right, motion to right, h& to left. Nigel scrapes, makes tackle, but could use better angle. FSU is getting used to seeing this play now, as Colorado ran some variation of it several times.
3rd & 10 at FSU 47	Hawkins, Cody deep in pass complete to Smith, Josh for 17 yards to the FS30, 1ST DOWN CU (Robinson, P.).	K-Gun (early 90's Bills) look. We're in zone. Watch this if you can, but somehow we mess up a stunt & a zone blitz (Everette & Kendrick.) Hawkins finds the zone's soft spot.
1st & 10 at FSU 30	Hawkins, Cody FY pass complete to Smith, Josh for 30 yards to the FS0, 1ST DOWN CU, TOUCHDOWN, clock 07:27.	3 Wide I form look again. Play action. Press man on TD WR, PRob loses him, Hawkins makes a great throw in stride. No way did Prob think Hawkins had that much time. I have full confidence in PROB.
	Goodman, Aric kick attempt good.
	Colorado 7, Florida State 7
	DRIVE TOTALS: Colo drive: 11 plays 82 yards, 04:34 Colo TD

	Davis, Jameson kickoff 70 yards to the FS0, Garvin, M return 25 yards to the FS25 (Moyd, Kevin;McKay, Gardner).	Garvin took this from 3 yards deep in the end zone.
	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 07:20.
1st & 10 at FSU 25	Smith, A rush left for 3 yards to the FS28 (Lucas, Maurice).	1 rib gun 4 wide stack. This was a well designed play, & four linemen had very good blocks. Unfortunately, McMahon got absolutely embarassed here as he was driven 2 yards deep in the backfield by Colorado's only decent defender, DT Hypolite. That really screwed up the whole play. Credit Antone for finding a little crease.
2nd & 7 at FSU 28	Ponder, C middle pass incomplete to Parker, P, dropped pass.	1 RB, K-Gun Look. Ponder checks here at line. Three step drop out of shotgun, ball out quickly, good job of stepping & throwing. INCOMPLETE # 1: Parker drops the ball, on a 5 yard hitch over the middle. Parker was the hot here, it looks like, as CU brought the blitz. Pass was on target.
3rd & 7 at FSU 28	PENALTY FS delay of game (Ponder, C) 5 yards to the FS23.	BAD PENATY # 1: Took forever to call the play, then Ponder called a check at the line. Still though, it looked like we got the snap off from the TV Camera. Can anyone confirm if the in-stadium play clock & the TV Play clock were meshing today?
3rd & 12 at FSU 23	Ponder, C rush left for 2 yards to the FS25 (Jones, Brad;Smart, Jeff).	Designed run, safe.
4th & 10 at FSU 25	Powell, S. punt 33 yards to the CU42, out-of-bounds.	This ball bounced at the CU 47, a pretty bad punt on Powell's part. He had time to get it off.
DRIVE TOTALS: FlaSt drive: 3 plays 0 yards, 01:37 FlaSt PUNT	Drive: 3 plays, 0 yards, TOP 01:30	This drive was all about personal accountability. McMahon absolutely killed the first play because he didn't fire off very well. If Parker would have caught the ball on the 2nd down, we face a 3rd & short situation. Ponder/ or Jimbo need to get the play out quicker, & Ponder had to monitor the clock. I really question the penalty, as it looks like he got it off.

	COLORADO drive start at 05:50.
1st & 10 at COL 42	Hawkins, Cody deep pass incomplete to Williams,Patric.	Colorado is again in the Offset/I or Wingback look. Play action, Markus White gets good pressure & forces Hawkins to roll right. Total throwaway. Good win on first down. Interestingly, we were in Cover 3, a ZONE defense!
2nd & 10 at COL 42	Stewart, Rodney rush over left tackle for 14 yards to the FS44, 1ST DOWN CU (Rolle, M;Watson, D).	Offset I again, Twin WR. We're caught in a blitz here, to the B & C gaps, & the RB goes through the cleared out hole. Mincey needs to stay more disciplined. Good job by Myron to make the TD saving tackle.
1st & 10 at FSU 44	Hawkins, Cody deep pass incomplete to Stewart, Rodney.	Shotgun 2 back look. Interestingly enough, we have 8 men within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, & our corner & FS are more than 10 yards off the ball. One of the weirdest plays I saw today. We DOUBLE COVER the fullback. No Blitz. Watson had GREAT coverage on the downfield RB.
2nd & 10 at FSU 44	Stewart, Rodney rush left for 7 yards to the FS37, out-of-bounds (Mangum, K).	Shotgun 2 backs again, & we have 8 men within THREE YARDS of the LOS. Very strange look, as 7 of 8 are inside the tackle box as well. Everette Brown definitely lost his contain. Credit Nicholson for scraping off his block & pursuing. Credit Mangum for delivering a nice hit. We really need better awareness here. If you have 7 men lined up inside the tackles, w/in 3 yards of the LOS, the outside man does NOT need to help down inside. A veteran QB would have audibled to a quick pass & beat this look.
3rd & 3 at FSU 37	Hawkins, Cody post pass incomplete to Smith, Josh (Jenije, O).	2 wide right, offset I right, no Gun look, TE right. This look makes you declare your Defense, early. We went man, but I didn't like that we were 7 & 9 yards off the ball, respectively, on a 3rd n 3 look. Before the snap, we bring Myron as a Blitzer, as well as the OLB. Play action, & GREAT COVERAGE by Jenijie, about 20 yards down field! That was so refreshing to see! Also, if you're wondering how int he world we didn't get pressure with 6 rushers against 5 blockers, Play action & Holding (Markus White). Still though, Jamie Robinson did a poor job getting over from his centerfield position.
4th & 3 at FSU 37	Hawkins, Cody screen pass complete to Behrens, Jake for 2 yards to the FS35 (Nicholson, D).	2 wide right, offset I right, no Gun look, TE right. Dan Hawkins proving he underst&s the concept of field position point expectancy. We're in Man, & bring two. Hawkins throws to the FB on the flat, & Nicholson makes a GREAT play to get over there & make the tackle! The FB had a 2-3 yard head start, yet Derek still got there!
DRIVE TOTALS: Colo drive: 6 plays 23 yards, 01:21 Colo DOWNS	Drive: 6 plays, 23 yards, TOP 01:21

	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 04:29.
1st & 10 at FSU 35	Ponder, C sideline pass complete to Piurowski, C for 13 yards to the FS48, 1ST DOWN FS (Perkins,Anthony;Jones, Brad).	ESPN stupidly shows a shot of the Colorado OC, instead of our formation. Judging from the quick shot, we were in 1RB 2TE, NO GUN. I guess this look is fine since one of the TE's is Caz. No idea who the other TE was. PA, Ponder rolls right, looks like he will run, then flips it to Caz. Ponder is really fast, but here, he needed to throw the ball to Caz earlier. This play could have been disastrous, as we had a man downfield, a TE already blocking before the pass was thrown (thought Ponder was running), & Ponder was very close to crossing the line before he threw. This looks great on the stat sheet, but Ponder's first incomplete (Preston's drop) was much better than this.
1st & 10 at FSU 48	Thomas, J. rush right for 1 yard to the FS49 (Smart, Jeff).	1RB 2TE, NO GUN, even. Colorado only has 7 men in the box, & the MLB is almost 8 yards deep. Great reverse out, h&off look (UGA does this a lot). This is a trap all the way. Unfortunately, we don't block it very well, & a frosh TE doesn't block ANYONE. Zebrie also gets owned here. Great job by Thomas to know the hole wasn't going to open, make the first man miss, & get outside for one. This wasn't impatience on his part.
2nd & 9 at FSU 49	Thomas, J. rush over left tackle for 3 yards to the CU48 (Lucas, Maurice).	GUN, 1 RB, 3WR (TRIPS LEFT), TE RIGHT. I thought this would be a bubble screen as the Colorado DB's were in man, but were at least 9 yards off the ball. 7 in the box for Colorado. HIGH SNAP BY MCMAHON! This was a really good play. Why? We had 6 to block 7, but got 3 yards to set up 3rd & manageable. The zone scheme worked here, as we ran away from the TE side overload. Rodney Hudson did a GREAT job here, as he was a full step up field before the DT moved. Thomas didn't look great here, & his 1-yard run was much more impressive; if he breaks one tackle here, we had this blocked for a huge gain. Credit the frosh for not dancing, however.
3rd & 6 at COL 48	Ponder, C middle pass complete to Piurowski, C for 5 yards to the CU43 (Walters, Ryan;Mohler, Shaun).	GUN, 1 RB, 3WR (TRIPS LEFT), TE RIGHT. Colorado in the exact same look. Fortson or Carr Motions right, Colorado switches to Zone. 2 blitzers come as well. 3 step drop, Quick, hard pass right into Caz's torso. I checked the film twice, Caz was the only open man, & this was an excellent example of a young QB growing. He did NOT do this at Wake last week, at all. Stepped into his throw, fairly quick release, rocket pass. Also, pretty good blitz pickup by the freshman Thomas. I'm glad to see Ponder is finding his hot routes. The announcers here were idiots here, as they wanted CP to throw downfield, even though Colorado had a 6 man rush, & nothing was developing downfield.
4th & 1 at COL 43	Thomas, J. rush right for 3 yards to the CU40, 1ST DOWN FS (Walters, Ryan).	Big I, double Tight. This scared me, since I don't think we can successfully blow any D1 team off the ball. 9 in the Box for CU, but not exceptionally close to the line. Heck of a double team by Caz & Zebrie! Surrat nice block as well! The ultimate credit here, however, goes to Thomas for his excellent vision. I like him a lot. He reminds me of Curtis Martin, vision wise.
1st & 10 at COL 40	PENALTY FS false start (Reed, B) 5 yards to the CU45.	No GUN, 1 RB, 3WR (TRIPS LEFT), TE RIGHT. I think we're using this formation to settle Christian down, as it really makes the defense show at least a partial h&, pre-snap. Fortson motions right, & BAD PENALTY # 2: Bret Reed leaves a half second early. I was SO pissed at this moment. Why? Because we had this play! Reed on a takeoff against a safety, great play action fake, Christian's eyes were totally on Reed, way deep! Bert, you have great speed, there is no need to leave early.
1st & 15 at COL 45	Ponder, C rush right for 11 yards to the CU34, out-of-bounds (Walters, Ryan).	K-Gun look (think old Jim Kelley Bills: GUN, with 2 wide left, one right, one TE, & one RB). Colorado has only 6 in the box, yet the announcers still want FSU to go downfield. We were going downfield on the LAST DAM PLAY!, but Reed's false start killed it. Now, the play: I apologize for calling this a zone-reed during the game yesterday. This was a designed QB run. Ponder fakes the veer-zone type h&off, the line moves left, the backside defensive end collapses, & Ponder keeps (so I think it's a read). It's not a read, however, because as you can see, Thomas immediately turns & blocks a pursuing LB (great timing by him). Ponder is of course, very very quick, & picks up 11 as Greg Carr holds his block for 7 seconds of real time! Also, excellent job by CP to not do any rid style diving.
2nd & 4 at COL 34	Thomas, J. rush up middle for 4 yards to the CU30, fumble forced by Perkins,Anthony, fumble by Thomas, J. recovered by CU Walters, Ryan at CU27.	I Form, Twins left, TE right. Surrat bounce motions left, & for the first time I can remember, we drive block someone! Now, Surrat did miss his man here, but Thomas hit the hole so fast, it wasn't a huge deal. Unfortunately, Thomas is stripped as he is fighting for yards 4 & 5.
	Drive: 7 plays, 38 yards, TOP 03:50, Thomas Fumbled.	This drive was looking really good. Make no mistake here, Colorado hadn't stopped FSU yet on this drive. FSU blew a golden opportunity for a TD when Reed jumped (had it open), & then the Freshman Thomas was stripped. The strip was just a good strip, & that sometimes happens. He wasn't holding the ball carelessly. Here's a question: Ponder was 2-2 on this drive; how much did this fumble hurt his rhythm?

Colorado at 0:39	COLORADO drive start at 00:39.
1st & 10 at COL 27	Hawkins, Cody screen pass complete to Stewart, Rodney for 2 yards to the CU29, out-of-bounds (Robinson, P.).	Shotgun 2 backs, no TE. We are in the loosest man coverage in the history of Football. This screen could have gone for more, but Prob whips his man. Nigel made a great recovery after almost running himself out of position.
2nd & 8 at COL 29	Stewart, Rodney rush over left tackle for 2 yards to the CU31 (Bradham, N.).	Offset I right, Twins right, TE right. We go man, walk Jamie Robinson into the box, & EVERETTE BROWN DESTROYS HIS MAN TO BLOW THIS PLAY UP! Everette stoned a pulling guard 3-4 yards in the backfield.
	Colorado 7, Florida State 7

	Start of 2nd quarter, clock 15:00.
3rd & 6 at COL 31	Hawkins, Cody sideline pass complete to Smith, Josh for 7 yards to the CU38, 1ST DOWN CU, out-of-bounds (Carter, T).	K-GUN, we play man, this was good coverage by us, & it just so happens that Colorado's only open man fit perfectly into the only throwing lane he had. Still though, wasn't happy with the push from the DT's. No blitz here, as we had 2 LB's play zone over the middle, & actually had Myron cover their slot guy. This was risky, since it could be exploited deep, but was very well executed. Good play by both teams. Colorado's call matched up well. This happens, can't really fault anyone here.
1st & 10 at COL 38	Hawkins, Cody TA pass incomplete, QB hurry by White, M.,.	K-Gun, TE st&ing up. We play man & load the box with 8. PA, we don't bite badly, & nobody is open as Hawkins throws it away as Markus applies the pressure on the rollout. Good first down discipline.
2nd & 10 at COL 38	Scott, Darrell rush up middle for 6 yards to the CU44 (Watson, D).	NH. 3-Wide- I. Motion the QB out this time we chase with a LB., but rather, adjust. Direct snap for 2nd time today. Watson overruns this a bit, which worked in Colorado's favor since they blocked it like a trap. Cool looking play. Never seen a direct snap play blocked like a trap.
3rd & 4 at COL 44	Hawkins, Cody deep pass incomplete to Devenny,Patrick.	K-GUN, TE SPLIT. We stay in 4-3. Questionable personnel decision? Maybe. Then, however, we bring ALL 3 linebackers up, even with the Dline to create a 7 man flat look. The DB's are still off the ball a good ways. I thought this would be an easy pitch & catch for a first down. We bring 2 initially, then Nicholson checks that his man is a blocker & also comes. Colorado runs (from left): 6 yard curl (covered), streak (covered), streak, 7 yard in (double covered). Wait! that's 4 defenders for 4 wideouts, how can you double cover someone? You can't! Darius McClure had a major bust here. Nobody was within 20 yards of the streaking TE. Fortunately, Hawkins overshot him by 2 yards. Also, the pressure didn't really get there. I think we had 2 guys run into each other.
4th & 4 at COL 44	DiLallo, Matt punt 39 yards to the FS17, downed.	Tony Carter back to return??
	Drive: 6 plays, 17 yards, TOP 02:04	This was a very good defensive drive that almost turned into disaster thanks to the bust.

	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 13:35.
1st & 10 at FSU 18	Smith, A rush left for 1 yard to the FS19 (Jones, Brad).	K-Gun. Datko misses block which causes Antone to delay & move.
2nd & 9 at FSU 19	Ponder, C sideline pass incomplete to Parker, P.	Double TE Even Single back. PA roll right. Nice job by FR. Te to hold his block. Ponder's throw isn’t great here as he tries to his Parker on the out. Bad TV angle, but looks like he was a second or half second late on the throw. He did zip it though, which is important on the out. INCOMPLETE # 2 This was the right read here, for the record.
3rd & 9 at FSU 19	Ponder, C TA pass incomplete to Parker, P, QB hurry by Lucas, Maurice.	INCOMPLETE # 3. Multiple screw-up's here. Easterling & Surrency don't line up in tight, so Ponder has to tell them to come in. This wastes time, but good job by Christian to recognize their mistake. He doesn't get a look at the D until the clock is at 0:06. Now, if you watch this, it looks like they he had Antone in the flat for a second. He didn't. Why? He doesn't even read Antone on this play; smith is just a decoy. Why? The play is a middle screen to Parker. Unfortunately for this drive, Colorado has the PERFECT play called! They are in a big-time zone blitz here. Ponder didn't do anything wrong here at all. We had this, but for the dropping lineman. He actually did a good job of holding the ball for as long as he did. Throw was fairly safe, as Dlineman has his back turn. We had this set up. There is only 1 read on this play: either throw it to Parker, or get rid of it.
4th & 9 at FSU 19	Powell, S. punt 40 yards to the CU41, downed.	Rugby punt.
	Drive: 3 plays, 1 yards, TOP 00:57

	COLORADO drive start at 12:38.
1st & 10 at COL 41	Stewart, Rodney rush draw play for 5 yards to the CU46 (Thacker, B;Smith, K).	Very well blocked draw. Good hustle play by Thacker.
2nd & 5 at COL 46	Hawkins, Cody screen pass incomplete to Stewart, Rodney.	Flare screen. Enjoy the Nigel for 3 years. His speed is scary. Wow. This never had a chance.
3rd & 5 at COL 46	Hawkins, Cody slant pass complete to Crawford, Cody for 7 yards to the FS47, 1ST DOWN CU.	Spread. We play Man, with Nigel in a zone. Really nice throw by Hawkins here on the slant. Tight window here.
1st & 10 at FSU 47	Hawkins, Cody deep pass intercepted by Robinson, J at the FS22, Robinson, J return 0 yards to the FS22.	Trips left GUN. Really good pressure by the Strong side DE. Zone look, I think. Jamie Robinson step for step with the INT. Play was a fake bubble screen with a deep route. Would be a really hard throw to make. I like it when Mickey makes college QB's make NFL throws.
	Drive: 4 plays, 12 yards, TOP 01:15; INT

	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 11:23.
1st & 10 at FSU 22	Parker, P rush right for 1 yard to the FS23 (Smart, Jeff;Burton, Marcus).	2 BACK GUN, old Ward Fast Break look. Man cover all the way. H& to Parker on sweep from RB spot.
2nd & 9 at FSU 23	Ponder, C middle pass intercepted by Cunningham,Curt at the FS22, Cunningham,Curt return 10 yards to the FS12 (Smith, A).	4 wide stack look. NON-COMPLETE # 4. Ponder wants to go to Carr on the 8 yard stop. Carr was open. I THINK Parker was slightly more open, but the Carr read wasn't a bad read. Not much pressure. Now, this play happens because Furlong doesn't get his man on the cut block, & his man gets his h&s up to bat this ball. Christian runs forward, catches the ball, & rushes forward with the ball, bobbling it, & never getting control, hits it to a Dlineman. This was positively Rixian. I appreciate the hustle & the awesome effort, but knock that pass down. This was should be scored a fumble, not a pick. Also, great hustle by the captain smith, to make the tackle. This was so fluky, they I doubt we see this ever again. I'll assign the incomplete to Furlong for doing a horrible job on his block. I blame Ponder for trying to do too much in catching his own pass. Batting the ball down is the correct play here.
DRIVE TOTALS: FlaSt drive: 2 plays 1 yards, 00:49 FlaSt INT	Drive: 2 plays, 1 yards, TOP 00:49	Wow. Weird.

	COLORADO drive start at 10:34.	The defense gets a chance to fulfill a goal: no TD off sudden change.
1st & 10 at FSU 12	Stewart, Rodney rush right for loss of 2 yards to the FS14 (Ingram, K).	4WR GUN, Motion to 3WR 2RB. Straight Man. Excellent job by Neefy Moffett to crush his man. Excellent pursuit by the D. Important win on first down.
2nd & 12 at FSU 14	Hawkins, Cody crossing pass complete to Williams,Patric for 4 yards to the FS10 (Garvin, M).	4 WR GUN. We play man, with 6 guys lined up along line, 1 LB deep. This is a Nickel set for us (serious, but also a joke). Did I mention how much I love the idea of Kenny Ingram blitzing & jumping with his h&s up? The guy is 6'6" & destroys throwing angles. he will produce an important INT off a tipped ball this season. This is great defense by the 'Noles. 6 man Blitz, force the quick throw, DB's know where the hots are, & immediately make the tackle.
3rd & 8 at FSU 10	Hawkins, Cody slant pass incomplete to Williams,Patric.	Colorado ran the same play, FSU ran the same blitz! just flipped. The DB laid a great hit on the WR who had no chance. The ball was drilled, WR had zero chance, even if he caught it he would have fumbled or been way short.
4th & 8 at FSU 10	Goodman, Aric field goal attempt from 27 MISSED - wide left, spot at FS20, clock 09:14.	Good pressure, but not blocked.
	Drive: 4 plays, 2 yards, TOP 01:20

	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 09:14.
1st & 10 at FSU 20	Smith, A rush over left guard for 6 yards to the FS26 (Dykes, D.J.).	I form, HB lead Draw (Old Dallas Cowboys Emmit Smith staple).
2nd & 4 at FSU 26	Smith, A rush over left tackle for 2 yards to the FS28 (Lucas, Maurice;Sipili, Michael).	A rare poor block by Hudson.
3rd & 2 at FSU 28	Reed, B rush ER for 5 yards to the FS33, 1ST DOWN FS, out-of-bounds.	H& to Reed as he comes in motion. Surrat throws a hell of a block.
1st & 10 at FSU 33	Ponder, C flag pass incomplete to Fortson, J..	NON-COMPLETE # 5 I-Form, play Action. Correct read, I think, as he had Fortson deep. He was a half second late, IMO, but still made a good throw that Fortson could have had. This IS his fault, as it would have been a difficult catch. Colorado did not bite badly on the fake. If he throws throws this a split second earlier on time, it's a huge gain as the safety can't get over. NO DB touched the pass.
2nd & 10 at FSU 33	Smith, A rush over left tackle for 2 yards to the FS35 (Hypolite,George).	A rare poor read by Antone on the zone play. Needed to bounce it, could have had 5 before being touched. Caz had a pancake.
3rd & 8 at FSU 35	Ponder, C deep in pass complete to Fortson, J. for 17 yards to the CU48, 1ST DOWN FS (Dykes, D.J.).	Where to start? This was a big 3rd down. 4-wide GUN. He hits Fortson on a deep square in. This was an absolute laser. 3 important things: 1) This was a very difficult throw, as he had to get it over a linebacker & over the referee. 2) The ball was thrown behind Fortson, & this was a difficult catch to make. 3) IF he throws this to Fortson in stride, it's a 25+ yard completion. 4) Excellent pass protection by the line. A slow developing route needs great blocking, & Ponder had four full seconds. 5) I think this is where he started to trust his reads in the game. he had Antone underneath for 5, & maybe Antone can pick up 8, but this is why CP was named the starter: to exploit weaknesses downfield. In time, he will hit Fortson in stride for a big hitter. Well done all around, especially The line & Fortson. Also, he looked off a safety on this, something he did NOT do last week.
1st & 10 at COL 48	Ponder, C post pass incomplete to Carr, G.	NONCOMPLETE # 6 TWIN WR I-FORM. PA, they don't bite much. Now, there were reasonable explanations for the first 5 non-completes, most of which were not solely Ponder's fault, if his at all. This one was. The protection was GREAT. Nobody was open. He threw the ball way late, to Carr, who wasn't open. Ponder looked like a freshman here, & really needed to either use his legs to run, or just launch this to the end zone, where he MIGHT have had a shot. This was a dangerous, ill advised, poorly thrown pass. I would love to be a fly on the wall on Monday when Jimbo & CP talk this one over.
2nd & 10 at COL 48	Thomas, J. rush over right tackle for 7 yards to the CU41 (Mohler, Shaun).	Thomas runs with authority on a quick hitter up the middle out of 3 WR Single back, NO gun. Nice job by Hudson to seal the DT.
3rd & 3 at COL 41	Ponder, C flag pass incomplete to Reed, B.	NON-COMPLETE # 7 Sprint out left, 2 man route as Caz & Antone stay in to block. Ponder has Easterling for a second, but Ponder is cautious. When he does square his shoulders, nobody is open, & Ponder throws this ball high & to the sidelines. If you miss your short throwing window, what should you do? Run. In this case, however, he would have been tackled quickly. This play was designed to be a man-buster (the motion is a tell), but CU played a great zone. Ponder realized he missed his window of opportunity & didn't act stupid, as he threw the ball where it had no chance to be picked off. The crowd booed, & the announcers said it was well off the mark, but there wasn't a spot for him to throw after the initial window. This is the play I watched the most (5 or 6 times). Watch it if you can, this window is tiny, if at all.
4th & 3 at COL 41	PENALTY FS delay of game (Powell, S.) 5 yards to the CU46.	ACCEPTABLE PENALTY # 1: Delay of game on punt Get more room to punt. Also, I was very angry that we didn't go for this. The coverage on the eventual punt was poor.
4th & 8 at COL 46	Powell, S. punt 35 yards to the CU11, Smith, Josh return 6 yards to the CU17 (Wright, R).	The coverage on the eventual punt was poor.
	Drive: 9 plays, 34 yards, TOP 04:06 PUNT

	COLORADO drive start at 05:08.
1st & 10 at COL 17	Scott, Darrell rush over left guard for 7 yards to the CU24 (Lawson, R;Thacker, B).	Walk on Jon Jones??!!! (# 58 DT) Got crushed here, huge hole.
2nd & 3 at COL 24	Stewart, Rodney rush left for 7 yards to the CU31, 1ST DOWN CU (McClure, D).	Bradham & McClure miscommunicate as both overrun this play.
1st & 10 at COL 31	Hawkins, Cody deep pass incomplete to Smith, Josh, QB hurry by White, M.,.	Twin WR Right, TE Right, Strong I right, Play Action, 2 man route with 8 blockers, we blitz one, Markus White gets really good pressure, Hawkins throw is a bit off, but make no mistake, this was BUST # 2, as Smith had 4-5 yards on all defenders. Garvin was the defender.
2nd & 10 at COL 31	Sumler,Demetriu rush over left tackle for loss of 1 yard to the CU30 (Nicholson, D).	Same formation, we're in a double twist, perfect call, Nicholson cleans this up. Nice jump off the ball by the entire Dline (EB, KSTEW, BUDD, WHITE-- notice that walk on Jones is NOT in on this play. Glad we get Griffin back this week).
3rd & 11 at COL 30	Hawkins, Cody screen pass incomplete to Sumler,Demetriu.	K- GUN. Announcers commentate that WR smith is visibly gassed. We're in loose man & stay in 4-3 defense. Obvious blitz coming. We bring 6, force a quick throw, & Kendall Smith absolutely OWNED the RB, crushing him into the backfield before the throw even got off. Thus, the play never had a shot.
4th & 11 at COL 30	DiLallo, Matt punt 38 yards to the FS32, fair catch by Reed, B.	YAY-- an essential cover corner is NOT back to return the punt.
	Drive: 5 plays, 13 yards, TOP 01:57 PUNT	A very up & down defensive series, featuring the big run through the walk-on DT, & BUST # 2 on Garvin, but also fierce pressure.

	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 03:11.
1st & 10 at FSU 32	Ponder, C sideline pass complete to Carr, G for 13 yards to the FS45, 1ST DOWN FS, out-of-bounds (Brown, Jalil).	4-WR Stack, GUN. I like this formation a lot. Very nice protection by the entire line. Ponder with the 7 step drop, hits Carr in stride on a Laser Out. Excellent throwing lane. Excellent job to step up. This was a beauty! Excellent throwing lane as well. Excellent job of trusting his route & throwing before the break, & excellent route by Carr. Excellent.
1st & 10 at FSU 45	Ponder, C pass incomplete to Carr, G.	Same Formation (4-WR Stack Gun). FSU runs a similar play. Ponder has to double clutch for a second, because Zebrie lets his man jump into the air. Now, why does this play not go for a completion? There are two explanations: The first, is that Gregg Carr ran the wrong route. This is possible, since Ponder looked really confused to the sideline, & the WR's had an automatic check: you can see the WR's & Christian point (acknowledging the check). Carr does NOT check or point, so maybe he missed it. The second, is that he had Carr open on the stop route when the Defensive End jumped, but the window to throw closed, & he zipped the ball to the sideline. If this is it, he did a hell of a job selling the idea that Carr ran the wrong route. This might have happened as well, because the refs were about to call grounding, & Ponder knew he had to act this way to get them to hold off the flag.
		Either way, I can't see blaming him for this. Watch & tell me what you think, but I'm going with "Carr's Fault" on this one.
2nd & 10 at FSU 45	PENALTY FS false start (Parker, P) 5 yards to the FS40.	BAD PENALTY # 2
2nd & 15 at FSU 40	Smith, A rush left for 60 yards to the CU0, 1ST DOWN FS, TOUCHDOWN, clock 02:29.	I- Form. We can't even line up. Colorado stunts against the grain of our zone scheme. Smith makes a slight stutter move to draw the defender into Surrat, who Surrat levels. Parker throws a highly questionable block. Datko holds for half a second, but is smart to let go & makes it look like a push. Parker gets a piece of his guy, & Antone says "what turf toe"? Very impressive speed. Several CU defenders on the ground. Antone put some serious space between him & the defender. Talent is scary. You can line up wrong, completely miscommunicate on the previous play, & still hit a big one. # of CU defenders on the ground: 5. Also, great hustle by Preston Parker.
	Gano, G kick attempt good.
	Florida State 14, Colorado 7
	Drive: 3 plays, 68 yards, TOP 00:42 ANTONE TD.

	Esco, J kickoff 69 yards to the CU1, Smith, Josh return 3 yards to the CU4 (Wright, R;Garvin, M).	Returner fumbles the ball, & Garvin actually has a shot to bury him at the 1, but he misses. Up & down day for Garvin.
	COLORADO drive start at 02:20.
1st & 10 at COL 4	Stewart, Rodney rush left for 1 yard to the CU5 (Brown, E).	Mincey & Brown both do a great job to shed their blocks with their h&s, while Moffett is disciplined on the back side!
2nd & 9 at COL 5	Timeout Florida State, clock 02:10.	2 years ago, under Jeffy, we would not have a timeout to use here, much less 3.
2nd & 9 at COL 5	Hawkins, Cody pass complete to McKnight,Scotty for no gain to the CU5 (Rolle, M).	Way loose man, 3wr, no gun, no blitz, quick pass to wr is slightly behind him b/c of insane pressure from Moffett & Thacker. Myron rushes up, breaks down, squares his hips, & wraps the WR for no gain. GREAT ,GREAT PLAY!
	Timeout Florida State, clock 02:01.	2 years ago, under Jeffy, we would not have a timeout to use here, much less 3.
3rd & 9 at COL 5	Scott, Darrell rush left for 2 yards to the CU7 (Thacker, B).	Safe run, not a draw. Mincey & Thacker excellent job.
	Timeout Florida State, clock 01:57.	2 years ago, under Jeffy, we would not have a timeout to use here, much less 3.
4th & 7 at COL 7	PENALTY CU false start (Jones, Brad) 4 yards to the CU3.
4th & 11 at COL 3	DiLallo, Matt punt BLOCKED, recovered by CU TEAM at CU0, Watson, D safety, clock 01:54 (blocked by Watson, D).	Dakota Watson is just a beast, physically. We were in full block here, & the up-back was destroyed. Also, Watson's jump was so fast; I think he read something (not the ball).
	Florida State 16, Colorado 7
DRIVE TOTALS: FlaSt drive: 0 plays -97 yards, 00:00 FlaSt SAF	Drive: 3 plays, minus 1 yards, TOP 00:26	This drive was all about the "welcome back crew." Mincey & Moffett were beasts, & owned the LOS. Watson blocked the punt with plenty of room to spare. Welcome back guys!!

	DiLallo, Matt kickoff 44 yards to the FS36, Reed, B return 41 yards to the CU23 (Dykes, D.J.).	Hey, a player other than a starting corner is returning a kick! Sweet!
	FLORIDA STATE drive start at 01:44.
1st & 10 at COL 23	Ponder, C HT pass complete to Carr, G for 11 yards to the CU12, 1ST DOWN FS (McKay, Gardner).	4-WR Stack set again. No blitz, & Ponder had 3 options open. Antone in the flat, Surrency on Antone's side on an 8 yard hitch, or Carr on a 5 yard hitch. Personally, I think he chose the worst of the 3 options. I can't criticize him, however, when he stays in the pocket, steps up, & delivers a strike. For purposes of this, I have to assume that was his first read. Carr takes his hitch, makes a move, & drags a tackler for 6 more. Read that again. Carr has changed.
1st & 10 at COL 12	Ponder, C rush right for loss of 1 yard to the CU13 (Brown,Cha'pelle;Brown, Jalil).	Ponder needed to be calmer down here, as he looked rushed. The play was a zone read (think Vince young) from 4WR Gun. Zebrie blew his block. Also, for whatever reason, Surrency & Easterling ran the motion of a bubble screen. Very weird. Watch if you can.
2nd & 11 at COL 13	Ponder, C flag pass incomplete to Easterling, T.	NON- COMPLETE # 9 Best throw he made all day. 4 wide gun. Colorado brings blitz , we pick it up. Now, yesterday some thought he had another guy open. He made up his mind to throw at the 0:48 mark, & at that time, his read was correct. This ball was beautifully thrown to the corner of the end zone. Easterling couldn't get the foot down, but the DB never had a chance. I question the personnel use here. Why not have Surrency, Carr, Fortson, Parker, or even Owens run that route!? This was a great throw. He had ZERO margin for error here, & this was the right read.
3rd & 11 at COL 13	PENALTY FS delay of game (Ponder, C) 5 yards to the CU18.	BAD PENALTY # 3. I think this is on Jimbo. Why? Ponder went to the sideline immediately to get the play. He didn't return to the huddle until 0:11. If he arrived at the sidelines with :32 of the 40 second clock left, that means it took Fisher 18 seconds to call the play, leaving Christian basically no time. Now, we did get this snap off, but Antone tried to call a timeout (delay of game when you don't have one). So, yeah, Chris Webber Clusterjob. Frustrating.
3rd & 16 at COL 18	Ponder, C post pass incomplete to Parker, P.	NON- COMPLETE # 10: 4 WR Stack GUN: Many problems on this play. Bad block by Zebrie (driven back & let man inside. Very very Lazy route by Fortson or Carr, couldn't tell (didn't threaten defense). Ponder had to throw off his back foot here (well, didn't HAVE TO, but the pressure was in his face). He launched it out of the end zone. I do think he had him if he could have stepped up & thrown on time. Also, Antone out in the flat on a 3rd & 16? Not a real option. I didn't like the blocking, route running, or the QB play on this play. I also didn't like Fisher's call here., as there weren't any routes to threaten the defense downfield or over the middle, except for Parker.
4th & 16 at COL 18	Gano, G field goal attempt from 36 GOOD, clock 00:34.
	Florida State 19, Colorado 7
	Drive: 5 plays, 5 yards, TOP 01:10 FG

	Esco, J kickoff 40 yards to the CU30, Sipili, Michael return 8 yards to the CU38 (Lampkin, B.).	Very very glad to see Lampkin on special teams & NOT playing on defense, where he cost FSU last week.
	COLORADO drive start at 00:29.
1st & 10 at COL 38	Hawkins, Cody sacked for loss of 7 yards to the CU31 (Brown, E).	Every Dlineman beat his man here. In fact, Mincey took up 2 blockers, & that made Brown's spin move all the more effective.
	End of half, clock 00:00.