Saturday, August 2, 2008

They're Baaaack.... ACC Offense Edition

Team

CLEM

FSU

WAKE

MD

BC

NCST

VT

UNC

MIA

GT

DUKE

UVA

QB Returning?

YES

YES?

YES

YES

NO

YES?

YES

YES

NO

NO*

YES

NO

ACC Rank: Points per Game

2nd

7th

3rd

6th

4th

11th

1st

8th

10th

9th

12th

5th

ACC Rank: Total Offense Yards

2nd

3rd

8th

7th

1st

9th

5th

10th

11th

4th

12th

6th

Total Yards Lost

136

1126

2705

2287

2981

1420

3395

0

1356

2640

1230

1178

% of Total Yards Returning

97%

77%

39%

48%

50%

65%

27%

100%

64%

?

62%

73%

ACC Rank: Rush YPG

3rd

7th

8th

5th

10th

11th

2nd

9th

4th

1st

12th

6th

ACC Rank: Rush YPC

2nd

3rd

10th

7th

9th

11th

4th

8th

6th

1st

12th

5th

Rushing Yards Lost

0

235

814

1573

1405

0

1104

0

193

1645

345

279

% of Total Rushing Yards Returning

100%

90%

56%

12%

0%

100%

41%

100%

89%

?

55%

84%

Receiving Yards Lost

136

955

1891

714

1576

1420

2291

0

1166

995

885

899

% of Total Receiving Yards Returning

96%

70%

26%

73%

65%

52%

17%

100%

43%

?

64%

64%

OLinemen Starters

Returning

1

2

2

4

2

3

4

4

2

?

4

3

Sacks Against

35

22

28

40

22

26

54

37

25

22

45

33

Combined OLine starts of projected Line

21

23

24

73

41

45

70

64

72

?

70

48


Some Observations:

Clemson will easily be the best offense in the ACC this year. They have offensive line issues, but their collection of skill position talent is amazing. Additionally, they have the only upperclassman QB prospect in Cullen Harper. It is interesting to note that despite the attention paid to FSU's inexperience on the OLIne, Clemson's projected starting 5 have fewer career starts than the Seminole's 5.

Florida State has the best collection of receivers in the ACC. I also found it curious that the 2 teams who are likely to have the top offense in the league have the most inexperienced offensive lines.

Keeping with the trend, Wake's offensive line is questionable as well. The other issue that jumps out at me is the huge loss of offensive weapons. Wake lost 60% of their rushing and receiving yards. Losing Micah Andrews, Kenny Moore, and Kevin Marion hurts a lot more than people may realize. I have to think Wake will struggle early behind a new offensive line while their WR's get jammed into the turf. The loss of TE Tereshinski will also hamper the offense. Wake is more of a passing team than people know. Vegas expects them to struggle early as well, pinning them as a 6 point underdog for their early trip to Tallahassee, even though FSU will be without 5 starters due to Music Appreciatorgate.

I look for Maryland to improve this year. While they lost half of their skill position yards, they return what many consider the best offensive line in the conference. Freidgen is an excellent offensive play caller. I fully expect Maryland's offense to finish in the top 4 this year. Teams have to double team dangerous wide receiver Darius Heyward-Bay on every play and still have to contend with Freidgen's schemes. Combine that with the difficulty getting pressure on the QB due to the offensive line, and Maryland won't be an easy opponent to stop. I'm not worried about their prospects of finding a running back. Their defense, however, is another story which I'll address with a chart at a later date. FSU travels to Maryland in late November. This game worries me because of the weather, Friedgen, and because it is a huge lookahead game with UF being on deck.

0%. Boston College returns 0% of their rushing yards from last year. They lost their QB to the Atlanta Falcons with the 4th overall pick. They return as many starters on the OLine as FSU. To say that BC's offense should take a step back this year is an understatement. One positive, however, is they still have their below average wideout core intact.

NC State should be bad again this year. This team lacks offensive talent. While I do like their running back situation, their QB is unremarkable and their pass catcher's are plain bad.

I'll do the Coastal section in a bit.

Reader Questions

Reader Anonymous asks:
FSU was ranked 3rd in yard per carry and tied for 1st in sacks allowed. That seems contrary to the weak offensive line excuse constantly thrown about in forums the last few years. No?
Not quite. While our running game did get better last season, we still don't face teams selling out against our rush attack. This is simply because we don't run all that often compared to some other teams. FSU is a pass first team, and it is easier to run when facing a defense geared to stop the pass.

Reader Anthronole asks:
I'm not sure I understand how you're calculating Total Yards Lost, Rushing Yards Lost and Receiving Yards Lost and the corresponding percentiles. I'm assuming that is that based on player personnel returning. Maybe?
That is correct. The contributions by players who left/ the total yards (rushing or receiving). If I had 2 running backs, and one rushed for 300, the other for 700, and the 700 graduated, then I'd lose 700 yards and only return 30% of last year's rushing yards.
It seems FSU is right there with many of the other schools in returning starting linemen. I think it'll be interesting to see how FSU does over the season compared with Clemson and WF since we return a similar number of linemen and have a similar number of starts for projected linemen.
This is very important. Clemson and Wake are both massively inexperienced up front, just as FSU is.
Does anyone else think the talk of the OL, while a concern, has been blown out of proportion?
Yes and no. The offensive line play was bad from '05-'07. But the "no" part of my answer is in regards to the amount of attention the line is garnering this year. I do not believe that there will be a dropoff in line play from last year to this year. This is because I don't believe the players FSU lost were very good, plain and simple.

More from user Anonymous (and I encourage you to register. We will interview various commenters throughout the year for their opinions on FSU and this site.)
Pass defense (ranked 85 in the nation) and scoring (ranked 90) are the two biggest concerns I saw.

Surprisingly, on paper it looks like our defense has tanked the most over the last couple years. Last year we were third from last in total defense in the ACC. Rush defense was only average and pass defense was last in the ACC. We've also gone from giving up on average 14 (ranked 2 in the ACC)points in 2004 to giving up 22 (ranked 8 in the ACC) last year.

Back in the JB era, the offensive was surprisingly high scoring compared to the rest of the ACC, but pass heavy. Even though scoring was way down last year, the offense was more balanced under JF.

We have improvements to make on both sides. Offense looks like it should be improved this year, but defense remains questionable.
I will do one of these reviews for ACC defenses soon, probably in the middle of next week.

The error in comparing FSU's offense under Jimbo to the offense under Jeff is this: Jeff benefited for several years from Mark Richt's recruits. Jimbo now has to deal with the remnants of the "nepotism era." Let's wait to judge Jimbo for a bit at least. Also, last year's schedule was much more difficult than our '06 schedule. I'd look back to '05 for a better comparison, and I may do that soon.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, FSU was ranked 3rd in yard per carry and tied for 1st in sacks allowed. That seems contrary to the weak offensive line excuse constantly thrown about in forums the last few years. No?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure I understand how you're calculating Total Yards Lost, Rushing Yards Lost and Receiving Yards Lost and the corresponding percentiles. I'm assuming that is that based on player personnel returning. Maybe?

It's funny the first poster focused on the OL because when I read over this blog that was the first thing that jummped out at me too: the OL's of the ACC.

It seems FSU is right there with many of the other schools in returning starting linemen. I think it'll be interesting to see how FSU does over the season compared with Clemson and WF since we return a similar number of linemen and have a similar number of starts for projected linemen.

Does anyone else think the talk of the OL, while a concern, has been blown out of proportion? It's not like FSU is the only school in the ACC with only 2 returning starting OL. Clemson is as well but they get picked to win the ACC?

Thanks FSUncensored staff for this unique look at things! Much appreciated! Go NOLES!!

Scalper said...

I'll address these in a large mailbag coming up. Good observations and questions so far.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure where you get your stats from, but you made me want to investigate the numbers more. I looked over cfbstats.com.

Pass defense (ranked 85 in the nation) and scoring (ranked 90) are the two biggest concerns I saw.

Surprisingly, on paper it looks like our defense has tanked the most over the last couple years. Last year we were third from last in total defense in the ACC. Rush defense was only average and pass defense was last in the ACC. We've also gone from giving up on average 14 (ranked 2 in the ACC)points in 2004 to giving up 22 (ranked 8 in the ACC) last year.

Back in the JB era, the offensive was surprisingly high scoring compared to the rest of the ACC, but pass heavy. Even though scoring was way down last year, the offense was more balanced under JF.

We have improvements to make on both sides. Offense looks like it should be improved this year, but defense remains questionable.

Scalper said...

Anon, I plan to do one for the defensive side of the ball as well.

Natalie said...

add some mascot mash-up statistics!!
i <3 this blog. and the noles.

Scalper said...

Thanks, Nat. I considered posting stats of the Ohio State romp between the hedges yesterday. (Reference to NCAA '09)