FSU football: A look at how good coaching improves things
By Kelvin Hunt
2018 Offense vs. 2019 Offense
There were a lot of problems with the 2018 FSU offense. Some of it was switching from a pro-style offense to an uptempo spread offense. There was poor play from the quarterback and offensive line.
However, I believe both of those issues were affected by coaches who had never worked together before. Willie Taggart had never worked with offensive coordinator Walt Bell or offensive line coach Greg Frey.
Bell had never worked with Frey, so coaches were trying to implement a new offense while trying to learn on the fly.
Here were the results:
- 21.9 ppg
- 5.12 ypp
- 29.1 percent third-down conversions
- 78.13 percent red-zone success rate
- 59.38 percent red-zone touchdown conversions
- 97 SP+ ranking
The 2019 season saw Kendal Briles take over for Walt Bell and hand-picked Randy Clements to replace Grey Frey as the offensive line coach. The two had coached together many times before and were much more organized in their approach regarding what they wanted to accomplish on offense.
They still had poor QB play and an offensive line that was still terrible overall but we managed to see improvements.
Here were the results:
- 27.9 ppg (+27 percent increase)
- 5.84 ypp (+14 percent)
- 35.6 percent third-down conversions (+22 percent)
- 82.5 percent red-zone success rate (+5.5 percent)
- 67.50 percent red-zone touchdown conversions (+13.6 percent)
- 49 SP+ ranking
The offensive unit was made up mostly of the same players and even lost two productive wide receivers for about half the year in Keyshawn Helton and Ontaria Wilson. It simply came down better coaching from Kendal Briles and Randy Clements working together before.
A jump from 97 to 49 is pretty incredible ladies and gentlemen. I had my issues with how Kendal Briles did some things, but he did make the offense better overall.
The good news is Mike Norvell and Kenny Dillingham have worked together which should make for a fairly smooth transition in 2020.