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.