FSU football: SP+ metrics show wild fluctuations on offense and defense
By Kelvin Hunt
2018-19
Willie Taggart declares Deondre Francois the starting quarterback even though he missed spring and summer practice rehabbing his injury.
If we’re looking at the graph, we notice the offense freefalls back to levels of where it was when James Blackman initially became the starter in 2017.
What’s crazy is the offense gets worse than it was the previous year and doesn’t begin to improve until the last handful of games. The rate of improvement isn’t anywhere close to what we saw in 2017 with Blackman as the quarterback.
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Deondre Francois is no longer with the program in 2019, and James Blackman is the starting quarterback. There’s a new offense with Kendal Briles as the offensive coordinator, and the offense starts the year among the best in the nation.
However, Wisconsin transfer quarterback Alex Hornibrook begins to get playing time in the fourth game, and Blackman suffers a knee injury. The two-quarterback system is born, and the offense continues to worsen as the season progresses, and Willie Taggart gets fired after the Miami game.
The offense shows signs of life, with Kendal Briles having full control of the offense the last couple of games.
On the flip side, the defense begins the season among the worst and improves each week as the season progresses. Both units finish around the No. 40 mark in the nation at the end of the season.