FSU Football: Time to tone down Gulf Coast offense for 2018 season
By Jason Parker
FSU football has been adjusting to life with a new offensive scheme for 2018, but the stats show it needs to be eased in at this point of the year.
When the final gun sounded on Saturday’s win for the FSU football team – just the second time in the last two seasons the Noles had won at least two straight games over a FBS foe – the statistics told the story of how the offensive production, or lack there of at times, has gone for the Seminoles this season.
Despite a slow start for quarterback Deondre Francois, the redshirt junior finished the game with 294 yards passing and four touchdowns – which was consistent with the Noles having the 27th ranked passing offense that averages over 275 yards a game.
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Behind him was a stable of five star running backs that combined for 55 yards on 21 carries – which is even worse than the 118th ranked rushing offense for FSU football that is averaging 97 yards on the ground through the first five games of the season.
The final numbers show one of the problems with adjusting from life as a pro style offense to the new Gulf Coast offense being incorporated by head coach Willie Taggart and offensive coordinator Walt Bell – the FSU football team doesn’t have the players right now designed to run more of a run and misdirection offense.
It isn’t saying that the Seminoles don’t have athletes that are among the best in the country, because there is no doubt the Noles can compete with anyone in that category – and it’s also not saying that the GCO shouldn’t be incorporated at all because the youngsters need to learn if this is the way the Seminoles are going to do things for years to come.
Deondre Francois has one of the best arms in all of college football, and when he gets time to actually have a pocket to throw the ball he can compete with some of the signal callers on top 10 ranked teams – he is not there to block linebackers and cornerbacks on double reverses that end up losing yardage.
Right now, FSU football does not have the offense line that is strong and talented enough to run a RPO type offense – that’s not so much a knock on them but more of a cold reality (of course, an argument could be made they couldn’t block when it was a pro style offense last season anyway).
Wide receivers like Nyqwan Murray, Tamorrion Terry and others are passing catchers that have not been expected to block downfield the way other schools have trained their receivers – once again, it’s not saying they can’t learn but more of the fact that it takes more than five actual games to go from one offense to another when they are the polar opposites of each other.
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With FSU football slightly better off now – able to afford four losses in their final seven games and still being bowl eligible – Taggart and Bell should use the resources they have in the way that is best for the team: pass the ball first as a way to set up the running game while incorporating the GCO more and more until it actually can work.