Florida State Football: The Hidden Yards V. Idaho

This was probably one of the sloppiest games that the Seminoles have turned in the entire season. Jimbo definitely did not drive the point home to his players to eliminate the clutter. You could argue that this was the worst team that FSU will face the entire season, I think Bethune-Cookman would even have a decent shot at beating them. Oh well, they still scored 80 points and only gave up 14. So yeah, hidden yards guys, let's take a look at those.

Remember that analysis does not include garbage time drives and clock killing drives. I also did not include yards from interception returns.

I also implore you to check out Bill Connely's advanced box score for this game here (just FYI he uses a different garbage time methodology than I do).

• The Noles average 8.43 yards per play before garbage time. Still not bad, even if it's against an inferior opponent. You almost feel like they should have had more considering that Idaho is ranked 117th overall and has the 106th ranked defense according to the F/+ rankings. We can probably attribute this to the team not taking the opponent too seriously and prepping for Florida. Still, the offense is pretty damn good.
• 5 explosive drives on the game (drives over 10 yards per play). This has been a consistent occurance in almost every game for the Noles this season. This offense is by far the best in country right now, make no mistake. They are also still stringing together consistent scoring drives consecutively.
• FSU is still one of the most efficient in the country as they gained 82% of their possible yards in the game. Not bad for not really caring about your opponent.
• The Noles' average starting field position was on their own 35 yard line. That is incredibly good. The Noles have consistently had great starting field position all season and according to FEI rankings has been the 3rd best team in regards to starting field position.

• While the offensive effort was sloppy it does not stand up to how the defense was. FSU's defense allowed 3.39 yards per play before garbage time, which would good for most opponents, except this is Idaho. They have the 116th best offense according to F/+ in the FBS. Seminole defenders were missing tackles all over the place and just not playing well in general. The numbers indicate that the second stringers played much better against this team except for Timmy Jernigan, who had an absolute monster of a day.
• The Noles gave up one explosive drive on the day which resulted in a turnover for Idaho. Not much to make of that really other than FSU is lucky to have been able to stop that drive after they were getting gashed (mashed?) by IDAHO.
• Despite the sloppiness, the Noles did remain efficient in only allowing Idaho to gain 21% of the possible yards.
• An addendum to the last note, this was made possible because Idaho's average starting field position was at their own 26 yard line. That allowed the Noles to out gain Idaho by 90 yards in the hidden yardage category. Honestly though, it really did not matter too much in this game. I have a feeling hidden yards could be a much bigger factor in the next three game for the Noles.