FSU football: Top 4 things I want to see against Duke
By Kelvin Hunt
Offensive Patience
Duke’s head coach, Mike Elko, was one of the better defensive coordinators in college football before taking the head coaching job at Duke.
I’m sure Elko has his fingerprints all over the Duke defense, and I expect him to take the conservative approach in making the FSU offense execute drives down the field with 7+ plays per drive to score.
That approach does a couple of things. It limits the possessions, and FSU hasn’t been the most efficient offense down-to-down. All it takes is a penalty, dropped pass, or miscue to get the offense behind the chains.
FSU has the talent to overcome second and third, and long, but it’s not where you want to be consistently. FSU quarterback Jordan Travis will need to put FSU in the right plays at the line of scrimmage with his pre-snap reads.
He can’t force the ball downfield if they have two safeties deep and will need to hit the routes underneath and in the middle of the field when they’re there.
FSU running backs out of the backfield matched up against Duke linebackers should be in play also.