1) A somewhat shocking result.
2) I need to remember a couple of things that are related. One, is that we are young offense. Two is that when a young offense sputters, it can have a major impact on the defense. Our defense was tired last week and I probably didn’t put as much a stock in that as I should have.
3) I’ll be really disappointed if D’vo can’t go vs. Florida — he’s a big weapon.
4) It’s really so odd to see us so reliant on a running game. Other than the 95 season, it’s been 25 years since that’s the case.
5) I think if we play the Gators 10 times in Tally as we are currently mached, we win 2, maybe 3. To win we must: Be +2 or better in turnovers; win special teams handily; be perfect in the Red Zone. All of that goes right and FSU boosters hang on to their tickets so we have a raucous crowd and we could win a 35-31 type game. Still, I imagine UF will open as a low-double digit favorite.
6) Has anybody noticed how good E. Brown and Gano are?

It was nice to see the team take command of a game for once. The nail biters got old quick. Loved the way the defense swarmed towards either the QB or ball carrier. Seemed to me that the D stayed at home on most of the misdirection plays. Plus, the D was laying some serious hits on the Maryland players. That was definitely a positive sign.

The offense played well. Loved the way the WR’s made the DB’s miss on quite a few tackles. The offensive line played well. If I remember correctly, neither Ponder nor Richardson was sacked tonight.

Overall, it was nice to stay alive in the ACC race.

I just got back from the game. There’s nothing like getting hammered after your team hammers its opponent. I’m not gonna pass that up, I’ll write up my thoughts tomorrow

For the second time this entire season he went away from his tendencies.

Seems like somebody lit a fire under his behind.

for being almost the only person not to be sold on the season being in the toilet last week? The worst thing I thought the D did last week was telegraphing blitzes and general poor timing on the snap count, which was not a trend. It was the first time all year I’d seen them do that so badly. Fix that, and the other problems they had would not have been nearly so bad. There were no bad distractions this week(only a good one), they got the receivers back(temporarily, at least), and they were well prepared for today’s game. Result? Beatdown.

I was very glad to see the defense playing so well. I watched the game on JustinTV (don’t know if any of you experienced the frustration of that streaming issue they were having but I almost pulled my hair out!) so it was difficult to see the nuances of the game. However, I still think our defense plays with too much of a talent mindset, meaning they play sloppy but cover it up with dynamic ball hawking skills. I still have to hold my breath every time the opposition hikes it. It’s not like the dynamic defenses of the glory days. They get hammered every time someone schemes to play to their weakness and stays disciplined. How can BC blow us off the ball? I don’t know if Paul Johnson and Jagodzinski (as well as Meyer) represent a new wrinkle that old line coaches like Coach Andrews can’t plan for but they definitely blindside our defenses.

That being said, I LOVE this team’s heart! They lose one week and come out the next and hammer the living dogshit out of the next team. CU, Clemson and now Maryland have faced the wrath of these guys. They don’t quit on the coaches. They don’t quit on the season. They keep playing hard even in the games they lost. If anything makes me think we can beat the Gates, it’s that this team won’t quit.

I hope the NCAA looks at what happened this year and bans the blackout from college athletics. It is not a good thing for anyone.

Because I’ve thought about it and I honestly do not know the answer.

When was the last time Florida State was able to put its backups in during an ACC game, not because we had to but because we wanted to?

This team play with a lead and not look back. How many games this year have we played form a 10-0 or 14-0 hole? It feels like most of them. I was refreshing to finally see them play hard the whole game and control it from start to finish.

Is it me or was the roughing the passer call against fsu a bs call? Looked like a perfectly good hit to me.

I think that they were a result of the cold weather. I believe the temp was 26 degrees last night. That’s below freezing. Believe me, your hands feel different when the temperature is that cold!

on kickoffs isn’t a gamble. Not using him on kickoffs would be insane. Take the GT game for example. Esco started that game kicking off, and GT’s field position off of the kick was the 46 yard line on an average of 38 yards per return. After Gano was put in the avg position off of kickoffs was the 21 with two touchbacks and an average return of 21 yards. Gano kicked the ball farther, and the coverage was better. Gano has had only 3 kickoffs returned for more than 25 yards, and 31yards is the longest. People keep worrying about his line drive kicks, but kick coverage in general has been better with him kicking off.

As usual, FSU represents well up here in the DC metro area. Lots of grads/bandwagon fans that converted when we would venture up here and routinely smack around UVa and UMd.

I think this week was a vindication of the critique that has been posited and discussed on these boards throughout the week. Specifically on defense, where Mickey was unfairly by some eyes disparaged for his stubbornness, lack of creativity, and general oldness . Yeah, we dominated in that phase of the game. But the method by which we dominated was indicative of what a Mickey Andrews defense denotes.

Everette Brown is a perfect example of what I’m trying to get at here. He earned his pending paycheck last night. In person, this guy is impressive . He reminds me of a cross between Peter Boulware with his hand on the ground and Dwight Freeney. His speed rush was unblockable; we were guaranteed a sack every time they isolated him against either tackle. His footwork and intuition only accentuated the obvious physical disparity between him and everyone else on the field, as he would toy with the opposing linemen, get him to cross his feet, and then swim or speed by him. Admittedly, putting him at the DT position with Mincey, Moffett, and White may be the best schematic quirk we’ve employed in a while: it gave us 4 DE’s that each have superior 1on1 technique. This only works well when you have a first rounder like Brown to as the fulcrim, however, because he generates enough worry to shake the whole line’s confidence and divert their attention enough to accentuate the advantage that our other 1on1’s should take advantage of.

With ample pressure from the front four, the vanilla scheme behind the LOS was able to succeed. FSUncensored’s comparison to Miami’s ubiqitous man under during the early decade is spot on. Press coverage by the DB’s, not necessarily to remove the player as an option, but essentially to rush the play even more, skewing the timing between the QB and the WRs that is already stressed due to the lack of time in the pocket. Clogging the middle of the field with athletic linebackers playing a rough man zone, taking away the middle of the field from a quarterback that doesn’t have the composure, arm strength, or sure footing to drive it outside. Deep safety or robber-1 coverage from the back behind, a conservative aspect that works when you have DL pressure, changed timing, middle contain.

We didn’t try to fool anyone. We ran this look for much of the game (we used the robber coverage with Ingram, but switched to deep halves when Myron came back). But the reason it worked was not due to schematic advantage or precise response. It was due to our personnel advantage.

We had a verifiable game changer on the field. Brown last night was the definition of the necessary element of Mickey Andrew’s defense. Everything we did worked because of the havoc he wrought. Without him beating anyone he lined up against, wherever he lined up, our man coverage doesn’t work. The old hook that you can only successfully cover your man for under 3 seconds proves, true, and we get torched by crossing and rub routes. The deep halves we played get exposed, with multiple verticals or play action.

Whittled down to its core, the offense’s advantage over the defense in football is directly related to time and space . Each offense attempts to generate a temporal or spatial advantage against the defense in a unique way. Either they use the width of the field and create pockets of nuermical and directional advantage in space, or they use the duration of the play to create pockets of the same. A game changer on defense, one of those elite players that is a significantly better than anyone on the field, can singlehandedly remove the ability of the offense to use either time or space to its advantage. A dominant DE or CB do this most directly. The DE disrupts the timing of the offense, compressing its ability to make decisions and find those pockets of advantage, and the CB eliminates the spatial aspect: shrinking the field to 27 yards. Compressing the field to 27 yards makes finding that same advantagous situation very difficult.

Brown was the cause of our advantage last night. Mickey Andrews’ defense is predicated upon each player’s ability to beat his opposite. His scheme does not creatively or through subterfuge put his players in their best chance of success. Instead, it places the onus on each player to exhibit perfect execution and superior athletic ability. This can work when you have a dominant force on your side, because it disrupts the natural advantage of space, time, and direction that the offense possesses. But when you don’t have that trump card, the inevitable weight of personal responsibility and the stress of perfect execution is too heavy to bare. Good defensive coordinators use schematic know-how and creative intuition to limit that weight. When you put your athletic players in places that highlights their strengths and diminishes their weaknesses, you get great players making great plays. Mickey’s way can work. But it puts the albatross on the game changing player instead of the coach. It’s the player’s responsibility to highlight the abilities of his teammates and mask their weaknesses, through his disruption.

I’ve got impressions about our offense and employment of personnel on either side of the ball too, but I wanna post this first and see what the response is. If I’m completely talking out of my ass, I don’t want to do it twice more, lol.

The Terps don’t play particularly well on the road (1-3 this season), but regardless, I far prefer to play a team that’s recently had their dreams crushed than one that’s still believing they can play for the title.

Should be a close game in Chestnut Hill with Davis getting the nod. BC’s only a 6.5 point favorite as of now….guess we’ll wait and see. Nice win vs. The Turtle this past weekend.

Please remember – you’re comparing FSU success against other ACC teams. That’s like picking the star decathlete of the special olympics and saying he’s the best in the world. Then you line him up against a true world class athlete and what happens – it’s no contest.

Truth is this – ACC is incredihly mediocre to flat out terrible this year. I agree that the SEC, overall, is down a little this year, but they’re still light years ahead of the pathetic ACC. UF WILL hang 50+ on this team next week. I’ll be first to cheer an upset, but that is most unlikely.

I think FSU is on the right track – they need to make some coaching changes and soon – but they are moving in right direction. They’re not there yet.

I agree – the football is equally bad in this league.

I love SEC fans. It really doesn’t matter what they do or who they lose to (DUKE), they’re still the best at everything, ever.

Here’s to hoping the ’Noles shove a spear up your ass this weekend.

We will get a good comparison b/w the ACC and SEC this weekend but look at the teams in the SEC. LSU mediocre with a bad defense, Auburn terrible, Vandy lost to Duke, Arkansas terrible, Miss St. terrible, Tenn lost to Wyoming, Ole Miss lost to Wake Forest, how many bad teams do you need in one conference. Of course Florida is prob playing the best in the country, Georgia looks good on paper, and Alabama has done great with young players. It’s hard to down another conference when there is not much too say about your own.