Watch, Read, Listen: FSU vs Wake Forest Preview

The Florida State Seminoles team comes into this weekend off of a disappointing start to the season. They’ve failed to get their feet under them as young mistakes and questionable coaching decisions have led to their early 0-2 record.

Wake Forest couldn’t be a more different story. They are returning 19 of 21 starters and, despite talent deficiencies when compared to FSU, they are a solid team that doesn’t make too many errors. They’ve got their business done early in the season and soundly defeated the two weaker opponents that were set out before them.

Wake Forest features one of the most interesting offensive schemes in the country which has been pioneered by head coach Dave Clawson. Some features to look out for are:

• Heavy reliance on the RPO
• Long rides through the mesh point
• Lots of zone runs that use double teams to allow for longer QB reads
• West coast passing concepts that allow longtime QB Sam Hartman to make quick and accurate throws

Defensively they tend to play pretty vanilla under defensive coordinator Lyle Hemphill.

• They play a lot of one high sets
• This leads to a decent amount of man coverage- specifically man free
• They play pretty conservatively in man coverage- often giving a pretty big cushion- but they are pretty efficient in coverage
• Their interior run defense is sturdy and bolstered by defensive tackle Miles Fox
• They may struggle to defend the exterior run game

Some of these concepts are better illustrated through the use of film. So let's jump in real quick to get a good idea of what FSU can expect in their upcoming matchup.*

*This is almost the exact same team that FSU was set to play at the end of the season last year with all of the same coordinators and 19 of 21 returning starters. Much of this video was taken directly from my previous work.