SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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- We made Florida State look like Wagner. We actually out-gained them by a larger margin 201 yards to 168. They aren’t Wagner. Their line-up is studded with 4 and 5 star players. We are mostly 2-3 star guys. But the saving grace of college football is that all the recruiting advantages that a school can have: state school, location, budget, facilities, recent winning (and Florida State has all of them) only give you the inside track on recruiting 16-17 year old high school kids. You don’t really know how they will turnout. So many things can impact that. It’s like looking at frame of film and trying to decide if the butler did it. All I know is that on September 15, 2018, Syracuse University’s football team was a lot better than Florida State University’s football team.
- The Seminoles are struggling just now and this is obviously the year to beat them before Willie Taggart and his men figure it out. But we made them look that bad. We put on a sustained pass rush. DeAndre Francois looked like Jim Cantore reporting on a hurricane: Sometimes, when you play aggressive defense, you can give up big plays. Coach mac used to say that when you blitz, somebody’s band is going to be playing. When we saw Western Michigan gash up for 60, 70 and 80 yard plays, we all wondered what Florida State would do with their athletes. They did nothing. We covered their people deep and shot and bottled up Akers. The one score they got probably shouldn’t have counted: the call on the passing interference on the fourth down play looked like a bad one to me.
- Meanwhile the offense, while stubbornly sticking to “meathead football”, eventually made it work and wore out the Seminole defensive front. There were a lot of arm tackles in the fourth quarter. We out-rushed them 222-62 and 3.9 yards per carry to 2.7. Jarveon Howard averaged 11 yards a carry and Markenzy Pierre averaged 6.0. Strickland’s closing 12 yarder was a tiptoe through the tulips.
- Strickland and Neal, especially, are clearly better runners than in past years and are getting better opportunities than in past years. Neal is much stronger than he was and keeps his feet moving. Strickland is running more with his head up and is seeing the openings now. Howard and Pierre both have power, moves and speed. Abdul Adams is waiting in the wings. It’s bene a long time since we’ve this much depth at running back. (Man, I’d love to see two of them in there together, working in tandem as they would have done in the old days. Our running game could use some misdirection where the defense doesn’t know which guy is going to get the ball or which direction the play will go in. Do we have any sweeps in this offense?)
- There will be no more questions about Tommy DeVito. He answered them today. He was poised and made some great decisions, (other than just throwing the ball away to the sidelines) and ran the ball well. He’s got to hold onto the ball crossing the goal line but overall, you have to be comfortable with him being in there. You had to look at #13 DeVito and #28 Howard and say "Boy, that's the future down there!". But it's the present, too.
- I love our defensive line. We had 4 sacks, 5 hurries, (at least) and 7 tackles for a loss. Their success isn’t primarily due to one man, as in the Dwight Freeney Era. It’s more comparable to the “Four Wheel Drive” Era where Tim Green was the star but Jamie Kimmel, Blaise Winter, Bill Pendock and later ted Gregory and Rob Burnett could also make big plays. Chris Slayton takes on the double teams and makes plays anyway but that allows Bear Williams, Kendall Coleman and Alton Robinson to make plays. Clemson may have the best defensive line by acclamation but they will not be the only strong defensive line on the field in two weeks.
- Our advantage in field position held-up: many felt we could not maintain it against FSU’s athletes. Against western Michigan our average drive started at our 39: theirs started at the 20. We were at total of 299 yards closer to the goal. That’s like 299 yards in hidden offense. Against Wagner it was our 45 vs. their 24 and 461 yards of hidden offense. In this game it was our 39 vs. their 20 and 244 yards of hidden offense. We’re going to win a lot of games if we can maintain this edge.
- Third down: SU 8 for 18, FSU 1 for 14. That’s how you control a game.
- You get that edge with superior defense, turnovers, long kick=offs and punts and good returns, as well as sustained drives on offense. Chris Fredrick’s interception plus a favorable review on Nykeim Johnson’s apparent fumble gave us a +1 edge in turnovers. We had a slight edge in return yardage: 42-32. Sterling Hofrichter averaged 43.8 yards per punt, including a 50 yarder under pressure that almost hit the speakers under the roof. He also averaged 64 yards a kickoff. Only two of seven of them were returned. Antwan Cordy let a couple of punts get behind him early but he adjusted and that didn’t happen again.
- The Atlantic Division of the ACC is a tough row to hoe but we’ve now beaten everyone in it.
- We are going to be 4-0 going to Clemson. I’ve heard since August that the one game we will have no chance to win is that one. We don’t look like a team that has no chance to win any game on our schedule. I recall that the year after breaking the 16 year losing streak to Penn State in 1987 we did something that might be more impressive: we went to Penn State and beat them in their own place 24-10. I don’t see such a result as impossible, even if it’s unlikely.
- You can feel it: we aren’t a Have-not any more. We aren’t a Wannabe any more. We are back among the Haves.
- Who’s House? Our House into
3-0 with 9+ to go.
LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
- The Seminoles are struggling just now and this is obviously the year to beat them before Willie Taggart and his men figure it out. But we made them look that bad. We put on a sustained pass rush. DeAndre Francois looked like Jim Cantore reporting on a hurricane: Sometimes, when you play aggressive defense, you can give up big plays. Coach mac used to say that when you blitz, somebody’s band is going to be playing. When we saw Western Michigan gash up for 60, 70 and 80 yard plays, we all wondered what Florida State would do with their athletes. They did nothing. We covered their people deep and shot and bottled up Akers. The one score they got probably shouldn’t have counted: the call on the passing interference on the fourth down play looked like a bad one to me.
- Meanwhile the offense, while stubbornly sticking to “meathead football”, eventually made it work and wore out the Seminole defensive front. There were a lot of arm tackles in the fourth quarter. We out-rushed them 222-62 and 3.9 yards per carry to 2.7. Jarveon Howard averaged 11 yards a carry and Markenzy Pierre averaged 6.0. Strickland’s closing 12 yarder was a tiptoe through the tulips.
- Strickland and Neal, especially, are clearly better runners than in past years and are getting better opportunities than in past years. Neal is much stronger than he was and keeps his feet moving. Strickland is running more with his head up and is seeing the openings now. Howard and Pierre both have power, moves and speed. Abdul Adams is waiting in the wings. It’s bene a long time since we’ve this much depth at running back. (Man, I’d love to see two of them in there together, working in tandem as they would have done in the old days. Our running game could use some misdirection where the defense doesn’t know which guy is going to get the ball or which direction the play will go in. Do we have any sweeps in this offense?)
- There will be no more questions about Tommy DeVito. He answered them today. He was poised and made some great decisions, (other than just throwing the ball away to the sidelines) and ran the ball well. He’s got to hold onto the ball crossing the goal line but overall, you have to be comfortable with him being in there. You had to look at #13 DeVito and #28 Howard and say "Boy, that's the future down there!". But it's the present, too.
- I love our defensive line. We had 4 sacks, 5 hurries, (at least) and 7 tackles for a loss. Their success isn’t primarily due to one man, as in the Dwight Freeney Era. It’s more comparable to the “Four Wheel Drive” Era where Tim Green was the star but Jamie Kimmel, Blaise Winter, Bill Pendock and later ted Gregory and Rob Burnett could also make big plays. Chris Slayton takes on the double teams and makes plays anyway but that allows Bear Williams, Kendall Coleman and Alton Robinson to make plays. Clemson may have the best defensive line by acclamation but they will not be the only strong defensive line on the field in two weeks.
- Our advantage in field position held-up: many felt we could not maintain it against FSU’s athletes. Against western Michigan our average drive started at our 39: theirs started at the 20. We were at total of 299 yards closer to the goal. That’s like 299 yards in hidden offense. Against Wagner it was our 45 vs. their 24 and 461 yards of hidden offense. In this game it was our 39 vs. their 20 and 244 yards of hidden offense. We’re going to win a lot of games if we can maintain this edge.
- Third down: SU 8 for 18, FSU 1 for 14. That’s how you control a game.
- You get that edge with superior defense, turnovers, long kick=offs and punts and good returns, as well as sustained drives on offense. Chris Fredrick’s interception plus a favorable review on Nykeim Johnson’s apparent fumble gave us a +1 edge in turnovers. We had a slight edge in return yardage: 42-32. Sterling Hofrichter averaged 43.8 yards per punt, including a 50 yarder under pressure that almost hit the speakers under the roof. He also averaged 64 yards a kickoff. Only two of seven of them were returned. Antwan Cordy let a couple of punts get behind him early but he adjusted and that didn’t happen again.
- The Atlantic Division of the ACC is a tough row to hoe but we’ve now beaten everyone in it.
- We are going to be 4-0 going to Clemson. I’ve heard since August that the one game we will have no chance to win is that one. We don’t look like a team that has no chance to win any game on our schedule. I recall that the year after breaking the 16 year losing streak to Penn State in 1987 we did something that might be more impressive: we went to Penn State and beat them in their own place 24-10. I don’t see such a result as impossible, even if it’s unlikely.
- You can feel it: we aren’t a Have-not any more. We aren’t a Wannabe any more. We are back among the Haves.
- Who’s House? Our House into
3-0 with 9+ to go.
LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
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