FSU Football: How much offensive improvement to be expected?

FSU football has some major strides to make on offense to get back to a respectable level. How much improvement can we expect in 2019 under Kendal Briles?

The FSU football offense has been as abomination by FSU standards the past two years. It has regressed considerably since the 2016 season when it finished No. 5 in the nation according to S&P stats.

An injury to its starting QB forced a true freshman to start 12 games which wasn’t ideal considering he didn’t early enroll.

James Blackman played well considering, and the Noles finished No. 37 in the nation according to S&P.

The 2018 season brought a lot of hype with Willie Taggart bringing his “Gulf Coast Offense” and an experienced QB in Deondre Francois coming back from injury.

Florida State Seminoles Football

However, a mix and match of coaches that had never coached together, a regressed Francois and a terrible offense line saw the Noles finish the season ranked No. 97.

How much improvement can expect from the FSU football offense in 2019?

Willie Taggart brought in new offensive coordinator Kendal Briles and his handpicked offensive line coach Randy Clements. The two of them have a long history of success and have not taken long to see that success unfold on the field.

The two were not together in Briles’ one year at Florida Atlantic, but it’s still worth looking at. The FAU offense went from No. 69 the year prior to No. 30 in Briles first season.

FAU went from averaging 5.7 ypp to 6.8 ypp under Briles and 26.4 ppg to 40.6 ppg.

Briles and Clements were together for the lone year in Houston and the improvement was impressive. Houston was ranked No. 43 the year prior to the two arriving and finished the 2018 season ranked No. 20.

The Cougars went from averaging 6 ypp to 6.6 ypp and 28.3 ppg to 43.9 ppg. FSU football averaged an anemic 5.12 ypp and 21.9 ppg in 2018.

In terms of yards per play we saw an increase from 19 percent at FAU to a 13 percent increase at Houston. There was a 54 percent increase in ppg for FAU and a 55 percent increase in ppg at Houston.

If we look at what Briles has done at two recent stops where he only spent one year we might be able to draw some general conclusions going into his first year at FSU.

There’s nothing scientific about these numbers, just looking at some quick observations from the past two years.

Briles saw his ppg totals increase over 50 percent at both stops. So let’s use that low end figure to guesstimate what he could average at FSU his first year. A 50 percent increase would mean the FSU offense would average 33 ppg in 2019.

That’s the same number they averaged in 2014 making the inaugural College Football Playoffs. Let’s go with the median between the 13 percent and 19 percent increases at the other stops. Let’s say FSU has a 16 percent increase in 2019 right?

That would mean FSU would average about six yards per play in 2019.

Would you take that FSU fans? A FSU offense that averages 33 ppg and six yards per play in 2019? I think that would win a lot of ballgames.