Fee Fi Foe Film: Florida State Offense Comment Count

Ace

Much of the information in this post is provided by Pro Football Focus.

So, yeah, that guy might be a problem.

Personnel. Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:

While FSU's most serious injury issues are on defense, they're making some adjustments on offense, too. Senior left guard Kareem Are is expected back in the lineup after missing the last two games with a concussion. His replacement in those games, redshirt freshman Cole Minshew, is now locked in a battle at the other guard spot with redshirt junior Wilson Bell, who's also dealing with some legal issues. Minshew grades out as the best of the three, albeit in a much smaller sample size, so we have him projected to start over Bell.

The other injury situation to keep an eye on is at receiver. Funchess-like jumbo wideout Auden Tate was spotted in a non-contact jersey at Monday's practice. They're also likely to make a change at kicker. Logan Tyler, who's 1/2 on the year, is taking first-team reps over Ricky Aguayo (brother of Roberto), who's 17/24 but looked awful against Florida, missing well short on a 49-yarder and getting a low live-drive 44-yarder blocked.

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Hybrid that leans pro-style. FSU spent a lot of snaps in the gun with three wideouts on the field, but they also go under center and play a fullback on about a quarter of their snaps.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? FSU has a pretty diverse running game. They like getting Dalvin Cook to the edge and they'll do it in a variety of ways: zone stretch, toss sweeps, and counters, along with a couple screens, got him into plenty of space against Florida.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Right in the middle; FSU is 55th in adjusted pace.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Deandre Francois has some good straight-line speed, though he's selective in using it. According to PFF, he's scrambled 20 times at 7.8 yards per carry, and he generally takes what the defense gives him before getting down; he's forced only one missed tackle. He's at his best as a runner when he can step through the pocket and go straight upfield:

FSU features him on some occasional designed runs, mostly lead sweeps that act as counters to Cook runs going the opposite direction. The Noles ran several plays that looked like read-options but I'm not sure they were true reads; Francois always gave.

I'm giving Francois a 7 on the dilithium scale. While he doesn't utilize his legs often and isn't likely to make a guy miss in the open field, he can pick up healthy chunks of yardage when he takes off.

Dangerman: Take Akrum Wadley, add 30 pounds, make him a faster and more instinctive runner, put him in an offense designed to maximize his usage, and you have Dalvin Cook. This is no knock on Wadley. Cook is the best back Michigan has faced this year. Nobody, not Saquon Barkley or LJ Scott or Wadley, combines the speed, power, patience, and vision of Cook.

Cook is a threat to score every time he touches the ball, which is quite a feat behind this FSU offensive line, which has one reliably good player: left tackle Roderick Johnson. Johnson is steady in pass protection—not elite, but solid—and he looked excellent as a run blocker. Most of FSU's best run plays come off the left side and it's not hard to see why; the announcers are focused on the tight end here, but watch Johnson (#77) chip Florida DT Caleb Brantley—a legit early entry candidate—hard enough to move him over a full gap, then slide out to the playside linebacker to seal off a huge hole:

Johnson will be a good test for Chris Wormley and Taco Charlton as they try to make a final impression on NFL scouts. He can only block one of them at a time, however, and that'll spell trouble for FSU.

Zook Factor: Nothing egregious to note here.

HenneChart: Francois is in a tough spot as a redshirt freshman behind a bad offensive line. He makes some NFL-level throws in the face of pressure; his mechanics sometimes break down even in clean pockets leading to missed throws; he makes the occasional freshman error. FSU protects him by calling a lot of short, quick throws to the perimeter. Even with a lot of easy completions built into the offense, Francois didn't have an impressive game statistically against Florida: 15/26, 138 yards (5.3 YPA), 1 TD, 1 INT. The Hennechart reflects his boom-or-bust nature:

Opponent DO CA MA IN BR TA BA PR SCR DSR
Florida 3+ 7 (5) 2 (1) 4 3xx 1 1 -- 1 55%

Francois has no shortage of arm strength. Florida may not have tight coverage here, but this is still an NFL-level throw in the face of a free rusher:

His interception, on the other hand, was both a terrible read and terribly inaccurate:

Francois nearly threw another pick into the end zone because of another freshman mistake: he had nobody open and tried to thread the needle instead of throwing it away and living to fight another down—Jalen Tabor would've had an easy interception if a linebacker hadn't tipped the pass on the way through. While his talent is apparent, he still has plenty of growth left, and his offensive line exascerbates many of his issues. He's going to make a couple throws that leave you tipping your cap; he's going to make a couple throws that give Michigan defensive backs an opportunity to make a game-changing play.

OVERVIEW

FSU runs the bulk of their offense from a shotgun three-wide set. When they go under center, usually on early downs, it's a clear tip for run or the occasional very surprising waggle:

Formations Run Pass PA
Gun 12 21 3
I-Form 4 -- 1
Ace 7 -- 1
Pistol 4 1 1
Heavy -- -- --

Their clear preference is to run until it's absolutely necessary to throw. This doesn't even fully represent the conservative nature of FSU's approach; a big chunk of these throws were within five yards of the line of scrimmage:

Down Run Pass PA
1st 15 4 3
2nd 9 7 2
3rd 3 11 1

After acknowledging that Cook will be an NFL feature back for a long time, the discussion of FSU's offense has to start with the offensive line, which is 85th in adjusted sack rate and grades out poorly in all facets on PFF. They're usually competent in the run game, at least, though the non-Johnson linemen are prone to getting blown out. Here's Wilson Bell, who's trying to hold onto his starting job at right guard, getting knocked back to completely blow up a play:

Center Alec Eberle was the most freqent culprit on stuffed running plays. In pass protection, FSU didn't allow a sack, but the effects of Florida's pressure were still obvious. FSU utilized designed rollouts on a high percentage of their throws, yet Francois still had pressure in his face on several of them:

That second screencap was a hold on tight end Ryan Izzo, who didn't look good as a blocker, that negated a dead-on completion by Francois into a tight window. When not rolling out, Francois sometimes makes the job harder on his offensive linemen by dropping way back; this pressure was half on the OL for losing their blocks and half on Francois for doing the Madden dropback instead of stepping up:

He did get the throw off there but couldn't make a completion into a hittable window between zones.

The offensive line isn't the only thing holding FSU's passing game back. Against a Florida secondary that's a good facsimile of Michigan's, FSU's receivers struggled to create separation. Travis Rudolph caught a long touchdown when FSU hit a deep dig against a soft Cover 2; Rudolph had a nice catch-and-run but that was more an RPS win than him beating a defensive back. Slot-types Kermit Whitfield and Nyqwan Murray combined for three catches for 11 yards.

While he only had two catches, I thought Auden Tate was the best bet to produce against Michigan. The one-time Michigan recruit looks every bit of his listed 6'5", 225, and while he doesn't get a ton of separation he knows how to use his big frame to box out defensive backs, even the likes of Jalen Tabor:

If Michigan wants to shadow receivers, I'd guess they'd put Jourdan Lewis on Rudolph—the most dangerous big-play threat—and Channing Stribling on Tate. The guy Michigan may most need to worry about in the passing game is Dalvin Cook, who averages 10.7 yards per target despite getting the vast majority of his catches near the line of scrimmage. Jabrill Peppers will be watching him closely.

I clipped a fullback dive touchdown mostly to show that FSU has their own version of the Hammering Panda:

Freddie Stevenson has 90 yards and four touchdowns on 12 carries this year; he's athletic enough to hit big plays when opponents overplay Cook in short-yardage situations and he's also a solid lead blocker.

This matchup comes down to two things: Michigan's ability to keep Cook from gashing them for too many big plays and their ability to offset the inevitable big Cook plays by harrassing Francois into mistakes. Given FSU's way of taking the pressure off Francois was to call a lot of rollouts that are susceptible to creative blitzes, I like Don Brown's chances of finding a way to get his front seven to hit home on a regular basis.

Comments

MichiganMan14

December 27th, 2016 at 6:02 PM ^

FSU does not tackle particularly well. They swarm very well and this makes for an interesting matchup against Deveon. He may get some YAC on Friday. Evans will not run past the secondary and is not able to break tackles so I'm not sure this is a game for him to shine. Karan could be a weapon on delays as FSU over penetrates some. The LBs aren't particularly discipline but they are top flight talents. You have to like play action against the Noles in the middle of the field. Mcfadden leads the nation in picks and is particularly tough on the sideline. Ifor Speight tries him on the sidelines he will likely make some plays on the football. I don't know what the answer will be to Jake Butt. He is truly a phenomenal mismatch and he should have a big game.

MichiganMan14

December 27th, 2016 at 6:14 PM ^

As "Experience" vs. "Talent". I think that's unfair for both sides to be honest. Michigan is experienced and talented. FSU is talented and far more experienced than theyre billed to be. FSU lost 2 Heartbreakers to UNC and Clemson in the closing minutes. Both should have been wins and just like Michigan...FSU should also be in this Playoff. What will be interesting is seeing the matchup of team speed and how it plays out. Harbaugh is in the midst of changing the profile of the average Michigan player into a more athletic ball player across the board and it will be interesting to see that matchup against a top 5 roster in college football. For all of the knocks on FSU...it has not been the players. Coaching issues were the reason for the first half of the season being a mess. That coupled with a distracting Showtime series. The 2nd half has been more in line with what was expected. This game could be the first in a series as both FSU and Michigan project very well in their respective conferences going forward. A meeting in the Playoff is inevitable based on how these programs are tracking. The Gators found out last year that Michigan is not a "slow" Northern team. While I don't think FSU at thinks lowly of Michigan.....FSU is NOT at all Florida. I'm excited to see some of the roster overhaul in the way of young players in this matchup. I think many of us are in a state of mourning over some of the great kids exiting the program this year. I hate to see these men leave too but my goodness is the future bright. There is a younger faster and more athletic profile of ball player at Michigan now and the class on its way is truly the best I've ever seen at Michigan. I think we will all see some of the competitiveness come out of the Florida Wolverines especially in this game. In state recruiting can get really strange in Florida and I'm sure some of these boys have a point to prove. I know Karan does.

Blau

December 27th, 2016 at 7:53 PM ^

I remember a couple years back when he committed late in the recruiting process, someone came to the blog and released a bunch of insider info the night before he committed claiming to be a coach of his while really hyping him up and then deleting their post within a couple minutes. 

FYI - I'm not saying any of that is bad. I guess I just don't recall a situation where we've had actual former coaches or mentors of current players comment on the board before.

lhglrkwg

December 28th, 2016 at 10:09 AM ^

Obviously he's elite, but we also sport the top run defense in the country and probably the best defense all-around. I don't think Cook will be able to beat us by himself. Francois is going to need to make some plays and I'm a little skeptical of his ability to do that reliably while probably being pressured a great deal back on the pocket. We all saw how much JT Barrett struggled to do anything against us. I think we can keep FSU under 21 pts.

On the flip side, can we score more than 21 pts? I have no clue, but probably. I could see a 28-21 type victory