Let's start out with something different for a moment. My best friend is serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Xerox is sponsoring a project that will send free cards to all of the soldiers.  You can fill our your own personalized message and choose from 15 cards drawn by elementary school children across the united states.  Here is the link for the project:  http://www.LetsSayThanks.com/Home1024.html It takes less than a minute and you'll make a soldier's day.

Now for the offense.  FSU went on scoring drives of 81, 79, 68, 68, 43, and 27 yards.  4 offensive touchdowns and 2 field goals.  Get some, Wake Forest!  Let's break down the offensive performance.  As with all photos here, click them to enlarge. 

7.2 yards per play is outstanding. In a normal game where FSU gets 70 plays, that's 500+ yard pace.  Excellent job EJ.  And the gameplan was ridiculously simple.  FSU ran some version of the Veer 9 times.  Don't tell anyone, but that's basically UF's offense.  When they threw the ball it was a screen or a crossing route. I counted 5 passes that traveled more than 8 yards downfield.  E.J. Manuel managed the game well and did exactly what FSU asked him to do.

Inside we have more charts, recaps of the press conferences, and highlight videos!

Want to settle your QB down and let him have a nice day?  Own 1st down.  And that's exactly what FSU did.  Of 30 1st down plays, FSU only had two for 20+ yards, but they were successful a superb 53% of the time, and were only held to 1 or fewer yards on 6 of 30 1st down plays.  Of those 16 successes, 10 of them were accomplished via Jermaine Thomas.  That's important because we're dealing with a young quarterback.

Mmmmm  The best offense in the conference kept on hummin'.  And there's no scheduling quirk here.  FSU has faced 7 of the conference's best 9 defenses.

Oh, and Jeff Cameron of 1270TheTeam Sports Radio had Jimbo Fisher on with him yesterday.  Have a listen. 

As for individual player breakdowns, I thought the right side of the offensive line did a tremendous job.  That's guard David Spurlock and Tackle Zebrie Sanders.  This offensive line is already very good, but they might be incredible next year.  I really think they surprise teams, and especially opposing linebackers, with their quickness.  It messes up the angles opposing backers must take.  Ryan McMahon was his usual solid self.  He doesn't dominate but he does what we ask him to.  Rodney Hudson, until he got injured (and they are expected to hold him out until the UF game with his mild knee sprain), looked good.  And maybe most impressive because of his injury was Andrew Datko (separated shoulder).  I thought he did a great job and a shoulder injury is not all that easy to play with. 

As for the backs.  Thomas ran hard and was decisive.  He made the right cuts almost all of the time.  Ty Jones was not impressive at all.  Anyone could have run through those huge holes. 

My player of the game might be Rod Owens. He blocked his butt off and also ran some great rotues for Manuel.  Twice on 3rd downs, Manuel was very late making his read and Owens slowed down knowing he could get killed but wanting to give his QB an open target.  A big +1 for Rod Owens! Bert Reed didn't screw around and got upfield quickly.

I like the idea of flipping the ball to Jarmon in space.  It somewhat limits what coverages the opposition can play and he is an athletic freak. 

Here's Jimbo's Notes from the press conference that I took down yesterday:

We had some complexity in the offense and we were fortunate to hit our plays when we called them.   E.J. was doing the things that he needed to do. He executed the gameplan very well. Stayed in good down and distance, fortunate to have the plays be open (implying Wake's plan was dumb). No delay penalties. Changed protections, routes, etc.

Every play is from a family of plays so when the QB checks down they have to know what they are looking to attack. Jimbo teaches conceptually. What are we trying to attack. If we know it we can change on the fly. Harder to learn at first but better in the long run.

E.J. and Christian both understand the concepts of football and I think this is the reason they pick things up so quickly.

These are good emotions this week.   They have great futures ahead of them.   We do have some upper classmen who have grown up and they will go off the right way.

Never had this small of a senior class before. FSU loses only Goodman, Piurowski, and Owens, to graduation (on offense).

E.J. has a lot of instincts to play football.   Jermain Thomas did a nice job to help E.J. with the pitches by being where he needed to be. Did a great job of maintaining the pitch relationship.

You have to have the dependability of a running back who adds the dimension of a consistent running back.

Tavares Pressley could see some PT this week.

Brandon Davis did a nice job coming in for Rodney

I think the whole group (WR's) played the best game they have from blocking to running routes.

Jarmon Fortson doesn't realize how much time this game really takes.   I am not down on him but he can get to another level of greatness if he gets all of the details.   I am really looking forward to seeing how he progresses.  (Jimbo challenges Fortson every week.

Maryland blitzes like crazy and they are hard to prepare for." "They do it all." "As tough to prepare for in terms of blitzing as anyone we have played.  This could be a game where we mix incompletes with big plays because of the blitz.  When you blitz the YAC yards, yards after catch are there to be made then our receivers have to make plays.   I thin Joe Montana did a very good job of getting his receivers the ball where each of them needed it.   E.J. will understand the concepts but he will need to put in a lot of study time this week.

I told E.J. the other day that Christian had a lot of success each week because he prepared for every game the same way.   E.J. has had some success now he just needs to play the game.   This is bigger than anyone who has ever been involved with it.  E.J. is very self motivated and I tell him that the hardest job in football is being the backup QB.   He did a great job and he prepared to play and it showed.   If you think I am waiting and not going to play is not the way to prepare for a game.  E.J. and Christian are very similar in a lot of ways."

We are looking forward to having Chris Thompson back this week." (Thompson's grandfather passed away and they had a close relationship.)

If good enough is ever good enough then we have a problem. "Good enough is never good enough to me."

Fisher then talked about a question regarding the running game not being as good as people expected.  Said a lot of that run game went from the QB's legs to the qb's arm.  I think people were shocked to see that we could throw as well as we did this year.   I want to see how efficient we are on each play.  Pass blocking has been much better this year than we were a year ago.  "I don’t care how many yards we run or throw for, I care about how efficient are we each play."

Receivers are getting into their routes better, breaking them off better, catching it better.  We are making quick decisions.   Everything on offense is doing better.

Jimbo smirked when told this offense is the best since 2000, then said he wasn’t aware of that.  Said he is much more comfortable as a playcaller.

We are learning to play with more consistency.

We are getting better but I still think we leave a lot out there. Not just yards but more great runs, more great throws, more great catches.

When things aren't just like you coach them up these guys are making the adjustments to keep the play moving and that is a good sign.

Fisher said when he is going through grading the offense, there are consistent pluses rather than a big play then a minus.

On Mickey Andrews:  I don’t know if anybody played any better defense during any time during any era of college football than during Mickey’s 20 years.  Until you are a great defensive team you’re not a great team.  Defense keeps you in games.  FSU used to win 41-39 until Mickey got here.  Nobody’s legacy is above Mickey Andrews.  How would you attack a mickey andrews defense? had to be balanced, had to recruit a lot better  "I mean they rattatattattd them now I tell ya. (fsu hitting weurffel)"

Then he talked for a while about how having big hands and long arms helps in play-action.  

On Goodman- trying to get him back.

Owens, EJ, and Jermaine players of the game. Owens had some great blocks and showed great patience in his routes. Great feel for that.

On Greg Reid returning punts and not kicks… not sure, said Pat is good too.  (It's not his call)

Can’t afford to lose Cas, Christian, Rich, Rodney, but we have to have other guys step up. give someone else the chance to be a hero. guys keep stepping up keep competing keep battling great traits for the future

We are recruiting guys to fit our mold and practicing better than before.  Then (2007) they were memorizing plays now they get the concepts to what you teach which allows you to make adjustments. the older guys never got that and it was unfair to ask them to get it.

The Streak Is Over!

Our regular readers know that we had been tracking a rather embarrassing streak.  Florida State's defense had allowed every opponent to post their best offensive game of the season in either Points, Total Yards, or the most important measure of performance, Yards-Per-Play.  That is no longer the case.  FSU held Wake Forest to only their 3rd best offensive performance of the year.  Now, don't get too excited.  Wake still gained 20% more than they had been averaging in conference games.  Also, the streak would have come to an end thanks to UNC finally cracking the 5 yards-per-play barrier against someone (Miami, haha), and Clemson racking up an insane performance against NC State, both of which pushed FSU's defensive efforts down some.

For more on that Clemson game, which should make you feel a bit better about losing to those guys (they are a top 10 team this year, bank it), go here  Clemson - NC State film review - Shakin The Southland.  Also, want a fun stat?  Sure you do.  Miami's Jacory Harris leads the country in interceptions.  And before Miami fans feed you some tired line about how their offense throws for more yards per pass and are thus more likely to throw an INT, don't believe it.  Miami is 4th in conference in yards per pass, behind FSU, a team that doesn't try to go deep on every play.

Let's go comprehensive on the game:

Where did FSU succeed on defense?  They used a variety of run blitzes on 1st down.  Sometimes they worked and Wake was stopped for 1 or fewer yards.  Other times they didn't and FSU was in the wrong gaps and hit for a big gain.  Andrews talked about this some in his press conference.

I thought Kevin McNiel played better.  Perhaps he is now in shape.  Everette Dawkins played a very nice game from what I saw (#93). 

FSU is definitely playing more zone defense now and they played it well on Saturday.  Mangum is not as bad covering half a field as he is covering a whole field.

Our backers still do not read their keys and I'm not sure they know them.  Chuck Amato is a horrible coach.  Really puzzled as to why Wake didn't run more misdirection.    I like Nigel Carr's energy.  Bradham is progressing slower than I'd like but he is coming around. 

Upon watching again, we did have some guys running free in the secondary who were not accounted for and that is a problem.  Skinner just didn't hit them.

Andrews said it was a team game. Everyone pitched in.

Aays they won 1st down and aoccomplished the goal (didn't state the goal)

3rd and long did not win (we might have forced more, it's a step in the right direction)

How many yards did they make after contact? few longballs but lots of short plays that went long. (We played a lot of cover-2)

4th down not good, (but honestly, those are 4th and short’s, it's not a big deal)

Happy he didn’t have to face skinner again and they didn’t win 4 in a row

When they pull, it creates a new gap, you have to maintain gap integrity and re-adjust your leverage.  (Mickey is right here, FSU did not go a good job of this.  Said they got 100+ yards doing this).

Mickey said they are only doing the ceremony stuff because they were asked.  (He is incredible humble)

When you’re a committed football coach, sometimes you have to do things you don’t wanna do, even when your priorities should be elsewhere, like if your family needs you.  (Mickey clearly hinting that he was begged to come back but probably shouldn't be here).  Thanks to Mickey for 25+ great years.

Greg reid has come along and been rewarded with more PT.

Mickey really looks better today, seems happy.

Highlight Videos!