Florida State had a light practice yesterday and as is customary on Mondays, Fisher wasn't available to talk as he addressed things earlier in the day via his press conference. To see what the 'Noles' coach had to say, see my comments in this post.

I'll say it again, but your heart goes out to Jacobbi McDaniel. He was playing very well and had earned the starting job before dislocating and breaking his ankle. I will note that while I don't anticipate him needing to sit out 2012, he does have a red-shirt option available for that year. McDaniel has played through a lot of injuries during his time at FSU and he was badly misused by the previous coaching staff because FSU had no depth. 

Speaking of depth, here is the only FSU depth chart that also shows the players lost for the season.

Here's the On The Line Gambling Podcast. Cut it late last night.

Florida Gators suddenly running on empty - UF - MiamiHerald.com
The rumors of Ronald Powell considering a transfer abound.

The View from Scott: Georgia Tech Edition - Streaking The Lawn
Takes a look back at Virginia's huge upset win over the Yellow Jackets from the perspective of fan in the crowd. Virginia ran like crazy on the Jackets. That won't happen against FSU.

The so-called "wide nine" | Smart Football
A great note on Mickey Andrews and the defense that worked for him for many years. So well, in fact, that teams really started changing up their offenses. The Eagles are determined to play this defense this season, and it works better in the professional ranks because teams aren't going to run any spread option.

I can’t believe that this is as new as people are making it out to be. I remember being at a Florida State practice in the 1990s and seeing Mickey Andrews telling his guys to use a technique on passing downs that looked a lot like the "wide nine." Except he didn’t call it the "wide nine" or anything else fancy. He simply told his guys to take as much room as they needed and to "kick ass."

Further, it’s not going to happen in the pros, but if anyone tried this at the lower levels you’d see coaches immediately going to plays that option off of this single minded defender, be it the veer, the speed option, the shovel option, or even the inverted veer. All that "track stance" stuff wouldn’t do him much good, and his wide alignment would mean the other blockers would be up on the rest of the defense.

Grantland Blog: The 49ers and the ‘Wham’ Play | Smart Football

On Gore’s first big run, with just a few seconds left in the first quarter, the 49ers lined up in a "trey" set with a wide receiver to each side and a tight end and wing or "H-back," Delanie Walker, each lined up to the right. The goal of the "wham" blocked run play was to leave Suh unblocked. As shown below, Walker’s job was to perform the "wham" block on Suh as he crashed upfield — a surprisingly simple block because Suh would be so focused on getting in the backfield that he wouldn’t see it coming. This freed up the other linemen to block Detroit’s linebackers, which they did.

Reorientation: Jacory Harris finds his mojo (Miami’s mileage may vary) - Dr. Saturday
Jacory Harris is a different QB. Miami has a very good offensive line, arguably the best back in the country, and they are using them. As such Harris is throwing less, but throwing much more efficiently. In fact, Harris has been the best QB in the conference. And it's not close. Credit their new staff for evaluating the pieces on hand and deploying them in the best possible way. We laughed when they said Harris had outplayed Morris and when healthy would be the starter. And we were wrong. If only Jacory could figure out a way to stop the continued bleeding from the poor recruiting. This will still be Miami's best year for a long while.