FanPost

FSU football's disappointing start We've been here before.

I’ve been an FSU fan for 50+ years now and have memories going a long ways back. The program today appears to be in a post-Bowden era that reminds me a lot of the post-Peterson era nearly 5 decades ago.

Larry Jones was the successor back then but fell into disfavor with the administration, media, and fans. Despite a national championship, Jimbo Fisher is the modern equivalent of Jones in that he followed a successful coach and ran the program into the ground.

Darryl Mudra followed Jones. He produced very little that exciting the fans, but at least he recruited a few good kids, most notably Larry Key. Willie Taggart is today’s Mudra. The program and kids continued in disarray, but Taggart was neither an organizer or recruiter and little improvement was visible.

Mudra was followed by Bowden and the rest is history. Norvell may not be the new Bowden (long-term answer) at FSU but so far he looks like a significant step up from his predecessor. Norvell doesn’t have much to work with due to the abysmal recruiting of Fisher and Taggart, but it’s easy to see progress. The on-field results are disappointing so far, but a lot of things are better than they have been in about 10 years now.

What the team misses the most now is game ready offensive linemen. You can recruit running backs, receivers, quarterbacks, safeties, etc. that are college game ready right out of high school, but offensive linemen typically take a couple of years to fully develop their bodies and game to play at this level. Unfortunately, the hand is dealt before the season starts and you’re not going to get any more linemen during the season. The current group should be better next year, and must be if FSU is to be more successful on the field.

I’m hoping that the fans and administration recognized the progress that’s been made from essentially nothing and are willing to to be patient with this upward trend. Then evaluate it at the end of the season, not after just 3 games.

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