FSU Football: Top 3 things learned about James Blackman

FSU football started a true freshman at quarterback Saturday and he played well enough to win against NC State.

The FSU football team is 0-2 after losses to Alabama and NC State to start the 2017 season. It’s a far cry from the lofty expectations we all had, but nobody can predict how injuries impact a team.

True freshman James Blackman replaced Deondre Francois to become the first true freshman to start in the Jimbo Fisher era.

The kid played well enough for the team to win. He finished with 278 yards on 22 of 38 passes and one touchdown.

It didn’t start well as the game looked like it was moving a bit too fast on the first couple of drives. However, the young kid began to settle down, and at one point completed 9 of 10 passes against constant pressure from the NC State defensive line.

He did have one costly fumble as FSU was looking to score in the red zone which proved to be costly. Ultimately, there was a lot to like about the beginning of the James Blackman era.

I can only think of maybe two or three passes that were ill-advised, and there were several that were absolute dimes.

Let’s take a look at the top three things we learned from James Blackman’s first game.

Confident/Poised

Jimbo Fisher and others commented about these things prior to the NC State game and it turns out they were being truthful.

As we mentioned, the first couple of drives looked ugly with Blackman looking out of sorts with his passes and NC State bringing the house. However, he settled down the FSU running game got going with Cam Akers and was solid the rest of the day.

The game never looked to big for him after the first quarter and he led FSU on some impressive drives during the game.

Blackman’s drive right before halftime was crucial to keep the game within one score.

The only problem is most of those drives sputtered as the ‘Noles approached the red zone.

It was a combination of penalties and the offensive line sucking that were the culprits most of the time.

Despite the constant pressure, Blackman kept his cool and made plays.

Tough As Hell

We all know how tough Deondre Francois is, but James Blackman proved he’s arguably just as tough Saturday afternoon.

Blackman’s listed at 6 feet 5 inches and 180 pounds with the latter being as generous as possible. He was sacked four times on the day and absolutely crushed on a number of plays.

There was a growing consensus among FSU football fans with concern for Blackman because of his lack of size prior to the game.

Of course injuries an occur anytime, but I’m not sure Blackman could get hit any harder than when he was hit by NC State’s Bradley Chubb Saturday.

Chubb will play on Sunday’s and hit Blackman as square as a defensive end could hit a quarterback at least twice. All 300+ pounds landed on Blackman along with impact from the ground.

Just like Francois, Blackman gritted his teeth, popped right back up and got right back in the huddle for the next play.

We have another tough QB FSU fans.

Blackman Can Make All The Throws

Listen, I love Deondre Francois and he’s still my quarterback too. However, I saw some throws from James Blackman Saturday that Francois struggles to make.

Blackman’s completion percentage wasn’t great, but there were a couple of drops from FSU receivers that didn’t help things.

Blackman completed passes in the flats that Francois typically struggles with and made huge plays downfield.

Francois makes his share of deep throws too, but Blackman seems to give the receiver a better opportunity of going up and getting the pass. It’s like he knows the exact trajectory to allow the receiver to run the pass down and come up with the catch.

The passes like these that were incomplete were not off by much, whereas Francois was often off by a ton.

Next: Watch Bradley Chubb Spit On FSU Logo

There’s a lot to like about Blackman and it’ll be interesting to see how he improves as the season goes. Hopefully the defense will decide to show up and the team as a whole will be play more disciplined.