FSU Football: Harlon Barnett wants defensive players with high football IQ

FSU football looks to get back to an aggressive defense that causes havoc for opposing offenses.

FSU football defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett spoke at length about his defensive philosophy and what he looks for in players during Sunday’s press conference.

His defenses are built to stop the run first and foremost, which ultimately makes opposing offenses one-dimensional and easier to defend.

However, one thing that stuck out to me among many was the subject of teaching “football IQ” to the players over the summer.

When speaking about progress players made over the summer Barnett said (:35 mark):

"As far as the summer is concerned, like Coach mentioned, we were big on teaching football IQ this summer, understanding certain things about offenses in certain situations, because we are so simple.The reason we stay simple on defense is so that they are not thinking about their job, as much as: I know my job; now how are these guys trying to attack us or how are they trying to attack me individually.So that’s something we were teaching them, football IQ this summer, and we feel very good about it and we’re going to see the results of it hopefully on this week, starting with tomorrow."

Thoughts

I’m sure the former regime went over this somewhat, but it didn’t seem to be the case based on how they line up in certain situations.

If a team needs three yards for a first down why are you lining up seven yards off the line of scrimmage?

Think of this as a boxing match right? If you were going to have a boxing match with someone you’d want to know as much as possible about your opponent.

You’d watch film to look for tendencies in certain situations. How does he or she like to attack. Do they like to stay outside or attack from close range? Which punches are most effective for them?

That’s what Harlon Barnett is trying to get the FSU defense to understand. Understanding that Clemson is going to run their quarterback more in certain situations against FSU football.

NC State is going to look to negate the pass rush by getting the ball out of their quarterback’s hands and into their playmakers in space.

Understanding formations and different things opposing offenses like to run out of those sets. If players understand these types of concepts they’re more liable to make more plays, but it’s going to take every individual collectively doing their job correctly.