Once again the high octane ‘Noles offense makes up for another horrid performance on the other side of the ball. Honestly, the sooner this season comes to an end, the happier I'll be. I grew up in Florida in the 90's and watched FSU post a top 5 finish year after year after year. Yes, the offenses during the ‘Glory Years' were good (Charlie Ward, Warrick Dunn, Peter Warrick, etc.) but the defense was the staple that held everything together (Derrick Brooks and Co.).

No team wanted to come into Tallahassee and go against a Mickey Andrew's defense (or come to Tallahassee in general for that matter).  But now, offensive coordinators drool at the thought of playing against our defense, and they should. The recent posts here on Tomahawk Nation summarizing our defense's stats don't lie, but I sure wish they did.

The decline of this decade early on was at first on the offenses of that other Bowden guy... The defense kept us in games but our offense could never pull it out. Now, it's the exact opposite. I hate seeing our offense put up such monster numbers but, at the same time, watch our defense allow just as much.

My point in this post is that the urgency on defense is not there like it is with offense. This radio interview with Jimbo Fisher posted by FSUncensored really hit home with me. In his interview, Jimbo Fisher talks about the mindset of his offense and how they come out every play, every drive, with a sense of urgency; that way, when the offense needs to come up with a big play, nerves are less of an issue and they are in the same mindset as they were on every other snap.

The defense, on the other hand, is nothing like the offense. To me, its almost like they're thinking, ‘Well, if they score, our offense will answer. No big deal.' This blatantly falls right into the hands of the defensive staff. Jimbo Fisher has to ‘coach' the players into the right mindset. That's the thing the defensive coaching staff isn't doing. They are not coaching (ironic isn't it?).

Throughout the NC State game, the defense never showed urgency, until they absolutely positively had to. On the very last drive of the game, the ‘Noles defense got more pressure on Russell Wilson than they had the entire game. The defensive line was coming harder and faster than they had all game long. The couple linebacker blitzes were actually effective (Dekoda Watson had a great return to the lineup, by the way) in disrupting Wilson and the timing of the Pack's offense. Granted, there were several plays more than 10 yards, which I've come to expect with our defense. Maybe, just maybe if this defensive unit played with the sense of URGENCY like it did on that final drive, then MAYBE it would be just enough to give our offense the point cushion it has been hoping for every game this season.

This is my first post here on Tomahawk Nation, or on any blog for that matter and I enjoyed writing it. I hope to do more posts and feedback and comments are welcome. The future is bright for this program with Fisher replacing Bowden at the reigns and Mickey just needs to go ahead and make room for a Greg Hudson or a Kirby Smart.

GO NOLES!!