All Eyes On Florida State Special Teams Coach Jody Allen

When the Hurricanes and Noles do battle Labor Day Night, one thing is certain:  whether FSU elects to kick of receive, Jody Allen's squad will be the first unit the nation sees.  If FSU elects to kick, however, Florida State Fans might be better off mixing a second drink.

For a team with the Lou Groza Award Winner and supremely talented athletes, Jody Allen's coverage teams are an embarrassment.

For a long time, college football fans had been limited to very simple performance measures.  Intelligent fans often spot things in live action that just don't show up in the conventional box score.  Thankfully, those days are over, as advanced performance metrics now rule the day.  One of those is Field Position Efficiency (FPE), developed by Brian Fremeau, and used to measure special teams (not field goal or extra point), among other things:  

The FPE metric divides the cumulative field position score expectations of each team's drives over those of its opponents. Punt, kickoff, interception, and fumble returns for scores are also added into the cumulative FPE score expectation total though they are not, of course, part of an offensive drive. A long return to an opponent's five-yard line is valued at 5.471 score expectation points. If the same return makes it to the end zone, the FPE score value is, like any offensive touchdown, 6.958 points. FPE is a combination of offensive success moving the football, defensive success in killing drives, and special teams kick, punt and return execution -- all of the parts of the game not already accounted for in OE, DE and STSE. 

Last year, FSU finished 62nd nationally in FPE.  Considering the speed they have in their reserve units (the guys who are most commonly used on special teams), that is embarrassing.  But while FPE is a great tool, it isn't perfect.  When you break down the components of FSU's score, there is one glaring weakness- kick and punt coverage.  FSU was 15th in kickoff returns and actually scored two TD's in the return game while having several other long returns.  And the FSU defense had 17 fumble recoveries (they were lucky here) and 13 interceptions, returning 4 of the 30 the turnovers for touchdowns, with several other long returns.  So their FPE number gets a larger than average boost from those two areas, and return man Michael Ray Garvin led the nation in return average.  So why does FSU rank so poorly despite having the nation's top kick returner and a lot of yards on turnover returns?  Could it be the coverage teams?  Yes.  FSU's punt coverage team was the 2nd worst in the conference:

Even with excellent speed, FSU's disorganized punt coverage team was the 2nd worst in the ACC, in ACC play.  It's also worth noting that Wake Forest was amazing in this momentum sitfling category, allowing only 9 punt return yards all year.  

Note:  Returns ONLY.  No touchbacks or directional out-of-bounds kicks.

The bottom line is that despite excellent return units, FSU was 62nd in Field Position Efficiency.  That falls on the kick and punt coverage teams, which are some of the worst in the nation.

But what of covering kick returns?  Can Allen fix this problem?

Here's the kickoff return numbers:

again, not to sound like a broken record, but FSU has the best or 2nd best group of athletes in the conference, yet Jody Allen's coverage unit is again in the bottom 3rd of the conference.  

Will Allen show the ability to put together a good coverage unit?  I have my doubts.  The players don't respect him, and really, they shouldn't.  He does a poor job with the defensive ends, and that permeates into his role with the coverage units.  While his problem as a defensive ends coach might be that he has never played defense  (yet Bowden hired him, one of many questionable decisions of the Nepotism Era), both his defensive ends and coverage units lack discipline.  They lose their lane integrity.  They run into each other.  They fail to maintain the proper distance between each other.  When covering kicks, that is suicide, as last year's return numbers show.  Why can't Allen get the job done?  I don't know about his qualifications to be a special teams coordinator, but it is obvious that the players don't respect Allen.  He doesn't make special teams important to them, and when players don't feel special teams are important, they will approach them without good discipline.

Personnel wise, this year should yield mixed results.  Due to downright terrible defensive recruiting in 2006 and 2007, Florida State has literally no quality depth at the position most important to special teams (linebacker).  Linebackers are big, but versatile athletes who play all over coverage units.  FSU has only 8 healthy scholarship linebackers.  Ideally, you don't want your starters to cover kicks or punts, but 8 scholarship linebackers is not enough,  Last year, Allen had the luxury of using stud athletes like freshmen linebackers Nigel Bradham and Nigel Carr on coverage teams.  This year, those guys are starters and he will have to use, well, less talented players, or risk using starters.  Unless Allen suddenly gains the respect of his players and has a miraculous turnaround, expect the coverage units to be worse this year.

One way, however, to mitigate the problem is to simply have fewer coverage opportunities:  

Touchbacks are a huge weapon in college football, although FSU was unable to exploit the touchback rule to mask their coverage deficiencies. While Gano had the leg strength to produce touchback ratio in the top twenty, his preseason injury kept him from having exclusive responsibility for FSU’s kickoff duties. James Esco handled 48 of FSU’s 87 kickoffs (Gano had 37). Esco had a much weaker leg than Gano, producing just two touchbacks (a 4.17% touchback ratio or 89th “best”). In contrast, Gano averaged a touchback in nearly 1 out of every 4 attempts (21st nationally) Without a strong leg in exclusive control, Florida State only averaged a combined 60.79 yds/kickoff, which was poor enough to land them at 82nd overall, and posted an overall touchback ratio of 12.64%, or 49th in the country.

Some of the problems in kickoff coverage can be masked if hopkins has the leg. Gano only handled 37 of the 87 kickoffs last season, and averaged 62.57 yards/ attempt, with 24% of his tries going for touchbacks. When Esco was kicking, he averaged 59.5 yards/attempt with only 4% of his tries going for touchbacks (he also had two kickoffs go out of bounds).

62.57 yards/attempt (gano’s numbers) would have been good for 50th best in the nation. But with Esco’s weaker leg, and with Esco having the majority of kickoff attempts, FSU finished 82nd in yards/kickoff.

Gano’s touchback percentage (had he kicked off every game) would have been good for 18th best in the country. Interestingly, Utah (with Louie Sakoda, who was Gano’s competition for the Lou Groza award), had a 48% touchback ratio) and USC was the best with 54.5% of their kickoffs stopping in the endzone.

The disconnect is obviously kick coverage. Touchbacks are going to be the key.

With defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews expected to retire after the end of this season, Allen is probably coaching to keep his job with FSU in 2010.  If we see any more of this, it's doubtful Jimbo Fisher will keep him:  

Travis Benjamin Vs. FSU (via thereaper)

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4) Overall, I voted for continuation. However, I don’t think any one area is going to be the same. I think we will attempt less field goals, and may score slightly more points in the process by being more aggressive. I also think we will improve upon our combined 12.64% touchback ratio, which will improve our overall ranking on yards/kickoff. I don’t know if we will be better than 50th in the nation (which is what gano’s numbers would have put fsu at). Also, I neglected the return game, but I see us as better on punts, and the same or slightly worse on kickoff returns (i would say much worse on kickoffs if garvin could have just stayed in bounds a couple of times!)