The biggest problem with FSU post-Richt: Player Development
by tdchrisdavis on Dec 14, 2008 12:07 PM EST
34 comments
I have a pretty important final tomorrow and didn't really have any idea of what to write for today. That being the case, I've decided to feature a fanpost that TDChrisdavis wrote. It's sort of an extension of something I was pondering the other day. I think there are some other names that should be on this list. Enjoy.
I'd like to do a little thinking about the state of FSU football and how we have arrived here. Obviously there have been many problems in these last 8 years - poor QB play, poor OL play, inconsistent defenses, lack of playmakers, etc. But what the question is, is what lead to this?
I think we have to take a serious look at how well poorly we have developed our players. There was a recent blog post on this, but I'd like to look further into the past.
Let's take a look at our starters/big PT guys in the past 7 years, and how many years they had significant PT during that span.
QBs: Rix(4), Weatherford(3), Lee(2), Ponder
RBs: Jones(2), Washington(4), Booker(4), Smith(2)
WRs: Boldin(1), Gardner(1), Thorpe(2), Sam(1), Stovall, Reid, Davis(2), Carr(4), Parker(2), Fagg, Easterling
TEs: Henshaw(2), Irons, Carter, Warren, Graham, Piurowski
DL: Dockett(2), Johnson(3), Jackson, Emanuel, Womble, Bunkley(2), Wimbley(2), Fluellen(3), E Brown (3), Guion(2), Boston, Griffin, Moffett(2), Thacker (2), Stewart
LB: Pope(2), Boulware(2), Augustin(2), Nicholson(3), Sims(3), B Davis(3), Timmons(2), Hayes(2), D Nicholson (2), Watson(2), Verdell
DB: J Carter(3), Samuels(2), Ward(2), Hall(3), Watkins(4), McFadden (2), Cromartie (2), T Carter(4), MRG(4), Williams(3), Rolle(3), P Robinson(2), McClure
I don't have any OL data and the defensive data is a crapshoot, this is the best I could come up with from the defensive stats I got from seminoles.com
Anyway, there are a few distinct patterns in this data:
1. Lots of multiple year starters
2. Lots of freshman and sophomore starters
3. Lots of guys who started a bunch of years who were not that good of a player by their final year
Let's take a closer look at the multiple year starters/big contributers/players of note:
QB:
Rix - His best year might have been his freshman year
Lee - Never showed any improvements from the day he stepped onto campus
Weatherford - Like Rix, never took the next step after year 1 and might have even stepped back
Overall Improvement grade: F
RB:
Jones - Was a strong runner for 02 and 03, injuries plagued him
Washington - Steady contributer, never really broke through
Booker - Most impressive as a freshman
Smith - Showed potential early, never reached it
Overall improvement grade: D
WR:
Thorpe - Broke through for junior year, injuries hurt his senior year
Reid - Got better each year at FSU
Davis - Freshman year looked okay, by senior year he still wasn't anything special
Carr - Stat-wise, freshman year was his best
Parker - Breakout sophomore, not as good as a junior
Overall improvement grade: C
TE:
Henshaw - If he got better we wouldn't know with the way we use TEs
Piurowski - Bounced postions too much, still isn't a weapon catching the ball
Overall improvement grade: C
DL:
Dockett - TFL monster his last couple years
Johnson - Same as Dockett
Bunkley - Same as Dockett
Wimbley - Turned into a top pass rusher but got hurt
Fluellen - Looked good as a sophomore but couldn't continue or DT dominace
E Brown - Better each year, now is an AA
Guion - Decent contributer when he was out there
Moffett - Freshman and senior years were probably his best
Thacker - Not any better than his first crowd pump-up as a freshman
Overall improvement grade: B+
LB:
Pope - Pretty good player as an upperclassman
Boulware - Turned into a star
Augustin - Same as Pope
Nicholson - Good as sophomore, got a bit better
Sims - Freshman year was great, soph and junior was more of the same
B Davis - Almost left team, turned into our best player
Timmons - Big freshman year, turned into a great player
Hayes - Looked lost as a freshman, than turned into a pretty good LB
D Nicholson - Some improvements
Watson - Breakthrough as a freshman, injuried plagued junior year
Overall improvement grade: B+
DB:
J Carter - Decent safety in final years
Samuels - Turned into a good corner
Ward - Mostly a kick block specialist
Hall - Did show improvements, had a good senior year
Watkins - Freshman year showed promise, never lived up to the hype
McFadden - Very good corner by junior year
Cromartie - Decent freshman year, strong sophomore year then got hurt
T Carter - Looked great as a frosh, never got much better
MRG - Got WORSE after freshman year
Williams - Same as Carter
Rolle - Strong freshman year has shown almost no improvements
P Robinson - Breakout sophomore, step back his junior year
Overall improvement grade: C-
Now, lets take a look at at our Rivals 5 stars since 2002:
Booker - no improvements
Platt - never played
Stovall - no improvements
Davis - very little improvements
Watkins - no improvements
Washington - solid improvements
Sims - little improvements
Lee - no improvements
Rouse - brought back the funk!!
Smith - very little improvements
Bright - never played
Rolle - little improvements
Warren - 1 decent year
Overall improvement grade: F
FSU football has been the same painful cycle for years now. We start young talented guys, they show their skills, then they never get any better. The list of these guys goes on and on - Rix, Weatherford, Booker, Smith, Carr, Rouse, Lee, Davis, Thacker, Moffett, Fluellen, Sims, Watkins, Carter, MRG, Rolle, Williams to name the obvious ones.
In some cases you could even argue our guys got worse - Carr, Rix, Weatherford, Carter, MRG, R WIlliams to name a few. Clearly our player development is terrible, and it's hard to see just what the problem is. It can't be that ALL of our positional coaches were so bad? And it can't be that Coach Bowden held back our players that much? I'm searching for answers.
The 2008 team showed lots of talented youngsters we should be excited about - Ponder, Thomas, Jones, Easterling, Reed, Fortson, Bradham, etc. But with our recent track record, that fits in with just about every other year since Richt - good looking underclassmen who never got any better.
What do you guys think has been the problem? And don't just say "Bowden," if you're going to go that direction at least expand on it. Why didn't Bowden hurt our development in the late 90s when he coached the same way?
Also, Is this year different or is it just another promising group of young guys who show their potential but never get coached well enough and never turn into the type of players they should become?
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Antone reached his potential this year.
Roger Williams was never “great” and anything. He was poor at everything.
I don’t think P-Rob took a step back this year.
“Sims – little improvements” Wat? Sims was a beast every year.
Kyler Hall never showed any improvement. At anything. Ever.
Our goal is simple: Best in the land
He was good his senior year
Sims might have been a beast every year, but he didn’t progress as a player much in his time here.
Roger showed potential early on, I remember he played well vs West Virginia in the gator bowl.
And I don’t think Antone’s potential was a 700 yard rushing season. He was supposed to be a power back with lightining speed, he didn’t really show either. Jermaine Thomas was better than him this year.
by tdchrisdavis on Dec 13, 2008 2:37 PM EST up reply actions
Kyler Hall is what I meant by good his senior year
by tdchrisdavis on Dec 13, 2008 2:37 PM EST up reply actions
Kyler Hall was an absolute disgrace
Great (okay good) in Spring Practice but during the regular season he was terrible. KH would have been lucky to be the H20 Boy had he been on campus in the early and mid 90’s. Yes he tried and showed effort and all that rah rah stuff but bottom line he NEVER should have played and yet he started for what seemed like forever. This reflects poorly on our coaching staff, especially MA as he was overseeing the DB’s.
DL as noted has played well and shown improvement whereas generally the rest of the D has played alright but not spectacularly well. Offense was god awful under JB and McHale, Dickey etc. I’ll never forget Herbie commentating with Fowler and Corso and saying on National TV that Rix was still throwing off of the wrong foot and it was his senior year.
Yea
I dont agree about antone, i dont think he ever reached his full potential. This has been a huge problem for us.
Not the biggest problem
I agree that player development is part of the problem, but I wouldn’t call it the biggest problem. The biggest problem post-Richt has been the fact that FSU has an 80 year old head coach that does little to help the team and that sets the tone of mediocracy being acceptable.
5 years in a row? Getting beat 45-15 in our house? Second straight time they have beaten us at home en route to the BCS championship? When is this crap going to end? Force Bobby to resign and let Jimbo clean house on the defensive staff. Anything less is doing permanent damage.
by mp212121 on Dec 14, 2008 3:23 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
I think Bobby would have still been a great coach is Jeff wasn't hired
Bitterness set in on both sides during the whole fiasco. I say the reason for poor player development on the offensive side was our OC stunk for way too long and we slid.
The defensive side, I don’t know how or why, we just stopped being able to develop players to defend the pass. My hope is on having a DE have a breakout year again like Brown so the QB simply doesn’t have time to find the right receiver..
Mickey Andrews is why we can't develop players to defend the pass. He is the DB coach.
We had an amazing edge rusher this year. We still couldn’t defend the pass for anything. Mickey’s scheme is outdated (except vs certain teams) and he needs to go NOW. Give a celebration like Bobby. Mickey was the best coach on this staff for many years, but the game as now passed him by.
Our goal is simple: Best in the land
Mickey's defense is built around great corner play in my opinion.
I am no expert but if you have a shut down corner or two along with some DE pressure our defense is stout. However the talent coming in over the past five years, especially at CB, is down. If you can coach up a less talented guy then maybe you can get by. Either way this falls on MA for lack of player development or poor recruiting at CB.
I happen to think that MA was one of the best DC in the business, but as other posters have noted the game has past him by. Perhaps the best way to think about it is in years past when he made a half time adjustment (if one was needed) it was basically game over for the other team. Almost every game we play now he has to make half time adjustments and sometimes they don’t work (GT for example.)
I agree, but?
in a quick flash look of the past 5 years the only three positions that has declined is LB , OL, QB. QBs will come eventually come along as long as Jimbo is around. Just look at his past stats for QB’s. running backs have not been that bad in improvment, they just havent had a good line. which will come in the next two years. Now for the LB situation, whole different story. Get rid of chuck and they will improve. the problem with our LB is not Physical talent. the problem is mental talent. they obviously are not being tought right. again this falls on chuck. until he goes they will continue to give up big plays on 3rd downs because of a brain freeze!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Defensibe backs have declined very much as well over the last 5 years.
This year is a product of having all upperclassmen who stayed very healthy throughout the whole year.
The entire defense looks poorly coached on the whole. They just put their heads down and rush. The effort is there; the direction is not.
Mickey is trying to rebuild a defense which the modern offense was specifically designed to beat.
"intensity and aggressiveness" are all that is needed.
just kidding
Our goal is simple: Best in the land
disagree on the DB
our defensive sheme is to play coverae man and then bam here comes a double blitz. this is very effective if you can play man down effectively. now the problem comes when LB miss assignments and saftys have to compensate. its foolishness to say our DB are that badly coached when Robinson has a choice to Play in the NFL and missed the first part of the season. tony carter is freakin good period. Now the only DB position that is now to par would be free safty. NO offense guys. but In my opinion DB are not the Problem. With that being said look at when our defense was great in the past. note LB position( Brookes, pope,sims all in the NFL. you cant throw effectively when you dont have time. exception to my opions stated, mickey has to go.
Tony Carter is an above average college corner, nothing more. Patrick Robinson is relying on his natural ability by most accounts. He has fallen far below what he should have and likely would have become with good or great coaching. Watch Alabama. Watch USC. Watch USF even. These guys get aligned correctly, they’re not blowing coverages in the secondary with the regularity that we do.
I don’t see our DB’s improving or developing like they used to do.
I’m not say that you have misidentified out defensive scheme. I am saying that our scheme is too simple to consistently dominate in the modern world of college football. I agree that the ability to play press man free or 1 is essential, but we don’t do nearly enough to confuse opposing offenses.
Mickey will be remembered as one of the premier defensive coaches in college football history. He’ll be noted in coaching circles as one of the guys who necessitated the change to an offense that utilizes 11 players and not 10.
I also agree with your opinions of our linebacker play, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a bigger critic of Amato. He was very good in his first tour at FSU, but he is woefully out of place now. Lazy in his work, and eager to claim another head coaching job that will never come with his track record and age, his awkward attempts at discipline are woefully out of place and he continues to hamper our growth as a program, as well as the growth of his linebackers.
If he somehow holds on to his job, I can only hope that Nigel Bradham and co don’t pick up such bad habits that the NFL can’t fix them once they go pro after their junior seasons.
yes we need someone
If we can get Chuck out and MA out The Def might turn around. We have players that can play its just getting them to the point they can. We still need MA and co. to step down. I am sure that this wont happen tell after the bolw game. It good we do have an earlyer one. Second how good is our Str and Con coaches. I know FSU has the facilitys for players to become monsters.
Are our facilities even that good? I thought they were just decent.
Our goal is simple: Best in the land
I think they're regarded as decent.
That’s an ever changing idea, so it is tough to have a gauge. It usually just correlates with money.
by Bud Elliott on Dec 15, 2008 10:32 PM EST up reply actions
In other news, Lawrence Timmons just killed somebody.
What a hit. Broke that guy in half.
Our goal is simple: Best in the land
i agree with cfcnole
your right mickeys defense is based around great corners. its a basic man down 4-3. again the problem with that this year has not been corners. it has been missed assignments by linebackers. wich they have to be extremely smart in that type of high risk defence. especially MLB. (bradham is way smarter than Nicholson) in my opinion. he will improve promise!!!!!! watch the florida game 4th quarter. Timmons looked great also. when i say smart i mean field awarness. the biggest thing lacking on our defence.
I fundamentally disagree with you about our DBs.
But what’s nice is we can do that and both still be Noles fans here.
Our corners played like garbage for the majority of the season. Minus 2 picks against Miami (I should really only give him credit for 1 as he was badly beaten and somehow managed to steal the ball from the receiver) Tony Carter was crap this year. Patrick Robinson, if he gets drafted, will be drafted IN SPITE of his performance this year, not because of it.
The only move they had was to interfere with the receiver and pray it wasn’t called.
O still would love to see a 3-4 with both Zone and man.
Its so funny how I found out about this Def. FSUncensored was talking about that a mo. or 2 ago and I tried it on NCAA 08 PS2. (I know its not the same but Wow) when you have the OLB that are fast kinda like SS that were pulled up at LB for the Spred off. This Def could be very sick with the types of recruits we get. I think we could make it work.
I am working on an article for tomorrow, Des. I think you'll enjoy.
I used to play a lot of NCAA, but I still think madden is better, gameplay wise.
by Bud Elliott on Dec 15, 2008 10:33 PM EST up reply actions
yes i agree
i play alot of ps2 09 and ill have to say its pretty realistic. but thats the point like you said SS as OLB. funny thing is man we have that kind of talent. just need a better LB coach. uncensored, have you heard from truecolors. its my brother and he told me about this site. nice work.
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