FSU Football: ‘Tremendous improvement’ expected from offense in 2019

FSU football has high expectations for the new version of the Gulf Coast offense that will be in place under first year coordinator Kendal Briles.

In the first season for FSU football head coach Willie Taggart, the new offense that he brought in from his previous stops at both South Florida and Oregon – known by many as the ‘Gulf Coast offense’ – had plenty of ups and downs during a season that many in garnet and gold would like to forget took place.

While the passing game led by former quarterback Deondre Francois and an upstart group of receivers finished with a respectable ranking of 41st in the FBS, the running game was an abomination of epic proportions that finished with the fourth worst stats in the highest level of college football.

That stat was enough to drive down the total offense for FSU football down to 111th in the FBS – but somehow, it got offensive coordinator Walt Bell a job as a head coach at UMass.

Florida State Seminoles Football

That opening allowed Taggart to go out and hire a new assistant and that’s what he did, bringing in Kendal Briles after a season with the Houston Cougars and one before it at Florida Atlantic following nine seasons coaching under his father at Baylor – a time known for success on the field and controversy off of it.

Much has been made this offseason about the move and how Briles plans on having an uptempo offense without the use of a playbook for the Seminoles – moves that are just fine by Taggart as he talked about it during ACC Kickoff while admitting to the struggles from year one.

"“I think going into last year, it being the first year in a new offense for a lot of guys that didn’t come there to necessarily play spread offense, there’s a lot of learning lessons…This off-season, I felt our coaches did a great job of teaching our players, making them understand what it takes to be successful on the offense.I could tell you this: year two, guys are comfortable and understand exactly what we’re doing. I’m pretty sure you’re going to see a tremendous improvement in our offense in execution and the consistency when it comes to executing.”"

The positive side for the FSU football team is that when you are ranked as one of the worst teams when it comes to total offense in major college football, there literally is nowhere to go but up – and that’s what both Taggart and Briles and everyone else leading the team needs to recognize.

The offense is going to face challenges to start the season with three of the first five opponents ranking in the top half of total defense last season – meaning Briles and the Noles must step up early and often during the 2019 season.